What’s the additional cost when buying land in Japan?

You should expect something like the ones below, but there would be some more things depending on how you would like us to manage your property.

Title Registration License Tax (once)
1.5% of land price / 2% of building price valued by local government office

Commission for solicitor (Title Transfer Registration)
150,000yen (excl. consumption tax)

Contract stamp duty (once)
15,000yen to 30,000yen per contractual document

Real estate commission fee (once)
3% + 60,000yen of the price of property (excl. consumption tax)

Postal and courier charges
Approximately 5,000yen

Trust account by solicitor usage
20,000yen (excl. consumption tax)
Bank charges / commissions are not included.

Real Property Acquisition Tax (once)
3 to 4% of property valued price decided by local government office

Inn-keeper’s license (once)
80,000yen – 100,000yen
If you are planning to take any short term holiday visitor guests.

Fixed asset tax (annual)
1.7% of property valued price decided by local government office

Fire insurance (annual)
around 200,000 to 350,000yen (depending on the contents of insurance)

Public liability insurance (annual)
15,000yen to 20,000yen

Any calculator or calculation sheet available to check the related costs?

It is the best to ask the real estate agent for each case of buying property. AAF Realty can help you.

What’s the annual expenses after buying a land in Japan?

If only land, simply annual Fixed Asset Tax and its payment arrangement fee and/or tax proxy service fee. If you need accountant, accountant fee must be paid as well. If you would like to clear up the snow in winter, snow clearing costs. If you would like to mow the lawn in summer, that costs. We have the list of the expected costs of the house owners running the holiday rentals, available for the ones using our company’s property management services.

What taxes I have to pay?

There are taxes like Personal Income Tax, Withholding Tax, and Capital Gains Tax, as well as depreciation for years depending on the type of the building. We have English speaking accountant who we can introduce to you for your tax report, who you can ask the questions of taxes in Japan for your case.

What is the limitation in building the house after buying the land?

Basically you can buy lands and build houses in Japan, but you must care about the land category and the zoning of the property location, if that is residential area, business area, factory area, farmer’s area, and more. The important part of this is if the land is located in the zone where you can build the house with accommodation license allowed or not for your property investment. If not, or the strict regulation area, you will have to learn a lot of things of licenses, which would take long time.

Any building height or other restrictions?

Building height restriction depends on the area category, set back from the streets around the properties etc. and also if the building is higher than 10m, how the shadow of the building moves during the daytime on lands / buildings of the next door. This would be shown by builders for each case.

What is the estimated construction cost?

The cost of making new buildings on the vacant land is from around 440,000yen to 660,000yen / sq m, or more, depending on the grades of the structure and the building facilities. This includes the fixed facilities, but not furniture and electric appliances.

Any building project designing and its construction available?

Our project management service supports you for all the procedures of your property investment in Furano.

After our real estate team finds the right property for you, our project manager has the consultation for your ideal project plan on your land.
Our recommended architects design your building plan and the construction companies build your houses / apartments.
Some proper facilities for staying guests and owners put in by our property management team in the project.
We support the sellection of furniture and electric appliances.
Your ideal building with the proper license will make investment return after the project completion.

For more details, please visit our website and contact us.

About buying “Agricultural land” or “Agricultural field” in Japan

Buying the land which category is “agricultural land” or “agricultural field” in Japan would give you a bit hard time to understand what it is and how different the process of purchasing it.

The details of the process will be informed to you, but what you have to know first is you will need at least “bank account balance certificate”, and “the building plan with its cost estimation”.

Also, it takes 3 months to go through at least if everything is going well and you could talk to architect and construction company well to make the plan smoothly.

With these further steps than the one to buy the other regular category of lands, and some more time than that, you can purchase it.

There are some areas where the authority specifies the agricultural growing area where it has strict regulations to change the category of the lands. For those areas, mostly it is difficult to purchase the lands for foreign nationals.

Is house inspection usually done when you buy the house in Japan?

What is the difference between accommodation (inn-keeper’s) license, and private lodging permission?

Most recommended and popular license for the holiday rental property investment is “Inn-keeper’s License” (Accommodation License) in Japan, that needs some certain fire facilities and structure, which you can consult with our project management team, architects, and construction companies.

The other way to take the holiday visitors to stay at your house is “Private Lodging Permission” which is effective from 15 June 2018. The house building still needs the fire facilities as almost same as the accommodation licensed building, but this permission is rather less facility regulations than the one with the accommodation license. Still, there are some even strict regulations in each area of Japan set by local authorities and you have to make sure the details with the solicitors or the companies especially for taking care of this permission application. To learn more details about this permission, it would take time since the contents are complicated mixed with the local prefecture and authorities. The permission only allows 180 nights a year or in some areas only 60 nights a year (on Saturday night and the previous night of the national holidays etc.) which does not create enough returns usually for your property investment.

In short, as mentioned at the top in here, it is the best to choose the properties in the zone where you can have the inn-keeper’s license (accommodation license) for your profitable property investment with reasonable returns expected.

Is property management service available?

Property management service is important for the property purchase, especially if you are buying the property with foreign non-resident status without any proper residential visa in Japan, and if the purpose of purchasing real estate is vacation rental for property investment.

Due to the shortages of labors and services, you may not find a proper manager or proper management company for your property.
To prevent the situation with no service available after all, it is the best to make sure about the property management well enough at the beginning time of looking for the properties.