Buying in Japan from abroad

In short

• None of these filings is triggered by your nationality. They turn on whether you have an address in Japan.

• At the centre of the file sits the proof of address that stands in for the residence certificate you do not have.

• Three routes lead to it, and which one opens depends on what your country of nationality or residence actually issues.

• Two clocks run short. The foreign exchange report is due 20 days from the acquisition date, and each of the three municipalities we checked allows 10 days for the tax agent filing.

• How many days each document takes is unknowable. We looked, and found no authority that publishes a figure.

The registration file asks you to prove the same thing a Japanese buyer proves.

What differs is who is able to create the proof.

Everything below applies the same way to a machiya in Kyoto and a flat in Sapporo, because the rules described here come from national statutes, a Ministry of Justice circular and the Foreign Exchange Act. What varies is which counters the local tax filings go to and how many days you have. A small number of designated areas also carry a filing that falls before signing rather than after, so ask your broker early whether the address sits in one.

The document that replaces a residence certificate

Japanese registration law asks the buyer for proof of address created by a public official. The Real Property Registration Order calls for information from a municipal head, a registrar or another public official, and then adds the clause that matters to you: where no such information exists, information that stands in its place.

That clause is not a foreigners' provision. It is a no-residence-certificate provision. A Japanese citizen who has deregistered on moving abroad has no residence certificate either, and proves an address instead with a certificate of residence abroad from a Japanese embassy or consulate.

There are three routes, and you do not choose between them freely. The first is a document issued by the government of your country of nationality or of residence, where such a document exists. A consul of that government counts, and so do states and other regional governments, so a state-level document from the United States, Canada or Australia is within the wording. A Japanese embassy is not one of these: it does not issue this document to people who are not Japanese nationals. The second is a document created by a notary in one of those countries, and it has to come with a copy of your passport. The third opens only where there is an unavoidable reason why the first two cannot be used. The circular puts the legal system of the country concerned first, and the ministry's guidance adds further examples, so the list is not closed. It runs through a Japanese notary, with a passport copy and a written statement explaining why the other routes were closed. Being in Japan does not on its own qualify.

If you live in a common-law country, this is where the time goes. A notary public in the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia normally authenticates a signature rather than creating a document that certifies where you live. If no such document can be created, the second route is not open, and you are heading for the third. Settle this question before anything else, because the third route requires a passport and nothing else will do, and because a wrong guess here sends you back to the start of the chain.

An apostille is not part of this. The Ministry of Justice circular does not ask for one on a proof of address, and the apostille runs the other way in any case, certifying Japanese documents for use abroad. Any foreign-language document does need a Japanese translation attached, though the ministry's guidance lets you translate only the operative entries, as long as the translation says which parts were left out.

One relief that is easy to miss: this document has no statutory expiry. The three-month limit people quote belongs to other attachments, including the seller's seal certificate. Your passport, by contrast, has to be valid on the date the address document was created or on the date the application is received.

The clocks, and what starts them

Within 20 days of the acquisition date, a non-resident files a report on the acquisition with the Minister of Finance through the Bank of Japan. The Ministry of Finance's own guidance notes that the law does not define that date, and points to the contract date, the date title moves and, for an inheritance, the date it is settled as dates you may reasonably enter. Since 1 April 2026 this applies whatever your purpose, so buying a home to live in is reported the same as buying one to let. There is no floor: a cheap house is reported like an expensive one, and a posted report counts when it arrives, not when you send it.

Two details catch people. Whether you count as a non-resident is decided by the Foreign Exchange Act's own test, which asks where your address or place of residence is rather than what passport you hold, and which is not the income tax test you may already know. Nationality enters only through the presumptions the guidance falls back on when the answer is unclear. And the exemptions that survive cover only rights over real estate, such as a lease or a leasehold. Ownership is not one of them, so a purchase of a house or a flat is reported whatever you bought it for, and a holiday home does not count as a residence for this purpose either.

Then there is the tax agent, and appointing one costs you three filings rather than one.

The tax statutes require an owner without an address in Japan to appoint someone here to receive tax documents on their behalf. National tax has its own filing, due when you appoint the agent or, if you are leaving Japan, by the day you go. Prefectural tax and municipal tax each need their own, and the deadline lives in local ordinances rather than in the statute: Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture and Fukuoka City all set 10 days from the day the need arises. Tokyo's 23 wards are an exception worth knowing, because fixed asset tax there is a metropolitan tax, so if your flat is in Shibuya your filing goes to a metropolitan tax office and not to the ward.

Who you may appoint is also a local question, and it is wider than it is usually described. Kyoto City accepts anyone with an address in the city; the prefecture looks to the area of the tax office with jurisdiction and, for an individual, requires that they support themselves independently. Neither shuts out someone living outside that area: the local tax statutes run two tracks in the same sentence, a filing for a person inside the area, and, for a person outside it who is placed to handle the matter, an application for the authority's approval. The 10 days, the area and the form are all matters for local ordinance, so check them for the municipality the property sits in before you promise the job to anyone.

What nobody can tell you in advance

How long each document takes is the question every buyer asks first, and we could not find an authority that publishes an answer. Not the embassies for the certificates of residence abroad they issue, not foreign governments for theirs, not notaries, not translators. A site that quotes you two to three weeks is quoting somebody's experience rather than a published standard.

What can be pinned down is what depends on what, and that is the only real lead time you have. Establish which of the three routes your country puts you on. Settle the passport question, because the third route accepts no substitute. Line up the contact person in Japan before the application, because their name and address become part of the record. Have the tax agent decided before settlement, because in each municipality we checked, the filing falls due 10 days from the day the need arises.

Settlement day itself is the part of this article we have deliberately left thin. Whether you can complete without flying in, how the judicial scrivener checks your identity remotely, whether your funds can move through a broker's client account: we found no statute, regulation or published guidance that settles any of them in general. A brokerage that describes them as fixed rules is describing its own habits, which may be perfectly sound and are still not the law.

Bank accounts fall in the same bracket. Opening one without a Japanese address is hard in practice, and we will not call it legally impossible, because that is not established either.

Ask your broker which of the three address routes applies to you, and ask before you make an offer. You can see what is for sale today on moogo's listings.

Questions buyers ask

Do I have to come to Japan? The registration itself is filed for you by a judicial scrivener, and the foreign exchange report can be prepared and submitted by an agent resident here. The one part to check early is the third address route, since it runs through a notary in Japan and we have not established whether it can be completed without you. Settlement is a separate question with no general answer; agree it with your broker and your judicial scrivener at the start rather than the end.

Is any of this different for a foreign national? The proof-of-address clause is not about nationality. It is about not having a Japanese residence certificate, which is why a Japanese citizen who has moved abroad is in the same position. What is nationality-specific is narrower, and the clearest case is that only Japanese nationals, dual nationals included, can obtain a certificate of residence abroad from a Japanese embassy or consulate. Separately, what the register itself publishes about an owner is covered in what the register makes public.

What happens if I miss the 20-day report? Treat the deadline as real. The reporting duty sits in the Foreign Exchange Act and carries criminal penalties, and the report has to reach the Bank of Japan inside the period, not merely be posted inside it. Missing it does not extinguish the duty: the report is still filed, late, with a short note of the reason outside the form.

Do I need an apostille? Not for the proof of address. The ministry circular does not require one, and an apostille certifies Japanese documents for use abroad, which is the opposite direction from what you need here.

None of the filings above is optional for the person it applies to, and none of them can be improvised at short notice. To have the routes and filings mapped against your own country of residence, tell moogo what to look for.

Written against published law and official sources as of 23 August 2026; rules change. 081株式会社 is a licensed real estate broker, not a tax or legal practice. This is general information, not advice on your situation, and case-specific decisions rest with the competent authority and your own professional.