Japan's Scheme for Handing Inherited Land to the State Transferred 3,008 Plots in Three Years and Three Months — More Were Withdrawn (1,102) Than Refused (181)

5,698 applications (27 April 2023 – 30 June 2026)

Transferred to the state2,885（50.6%）

Withdrawn1,063（18.7%）

Refused on the merits93（1.6%）

Rejected at intake83（1.5%）

In none of the above columns (residual)1,574（27.6%）

Reasons behind the 1,063 withdrawals

A use for the land emerged562

Found to be ineligible375

Other126

Adding the 375 withdrawn after being found ineligible to the 176 formal refusals (83 rejections plus 93 refusals) gives 551. The residual 1,574 appear in none of the four published columns. All figures are provisional.

The Ministry of Justice keeps its figures on the scheme for transferring inherited land to the state up to date. The numbers run to 31 July 2026 and are provisional.

The scheme opened on 27 April 2023. Over three years and three months, 5,863 applications were made and 3,008 plots passed to the state[1].

On refusals, the count is 85 rejected at intake and 96 refused on the merits[1]. That is 181 in total, or 3.1% of applications. It reads as though almost nothing is turned away.

Except that 1,102 applications were withdrawn[1], and the reasons are published: 571 because a use for the land emerged, 392 because it became clear the land would be rejected or refused, and 139 for other reasons[1].

Adding those 392 to the 181 gives 573. The scheme's refusals show up not in the rejection column but in the withdrawal column.

By land type, applications comprised 2,278 fields and paddies, 2,040 residential plots, 893 mountain forest and 652 other[1]. Transfers comprised 1,115 residential, 964 agricultural, 199 forest and 730 other[1]. The two use different category names, and cases are still under examination, so dividing one by the other does not give a pass rate by land type.

An entrance and an exit, built at the same time

This scheme is one half of a pair aimed at stopping owner-unknown land from growing. The other half is the duty to register inherited property, in force since 1 April 2024.

That duty requires an application within three years of learning that one has acquired the property by inheritance. Failure without good reason carries a fine of up to 100,000 yen. It applies retroactively to inheritances that opened before the law took effect, with a deadline of 31 March 2027.

Registration is the entrance; transfer to the state is the exit. Either write your name on it before the owner becomes untraceable, or hand it over. Both doors have now been built.

Five statutory grounds each for rejection and refusal

The exit has conditions. Five grounds bar an application outright: land with a building on it, land subject to a security interest or a right of use, land where third-party use is anticipated, contaminated land, and land whose boundaries are unclear or whose ownership is disputed.

Five further grounds allow refusal on the merits: land with a cliff of a certain gradient and height that costs undue effort to manage, land with objects above ground that obstruct management or disposal, land with objects underground that would have to be removed, land that cannot be managed or disposed of without litigation against a neighbour, and land that otherwise takes undue cost or effort to manage.

What the statute lists first and what actually stops applications are two different orders.

What stopped the 85 rejections was paperwork, not land

The commonest ground is failure to submit the required documents, at 37 cases[1], followed by land currently in use as a passageway at 22, unclear boundaries at 23, applications filed by someone without standing at 10, and land in use as a waterworks site, drainage channel or reservoir at 1[1]. Land with a building on it, the ground the statute lists first, accounts for four.

A single case can attract several grounds, so the reasons total 97 against 85 cases. The ordering holds regardless. Missing documents at 37 plus lack of standing at 10 comes to 47, half of all grounds cited.

People who know a building stands there never file. More applications stop at the procedural entrance than on the land the statute had in mind.

The 96 refusals do turn on what the land is

Here the statute holds (again with several grounds per case, totalling 124). The largest is objects above ground, such as structures, vehicles or trees, that obstruct ordinary management or disposal, at 46 cases[1], then forest requiring further work by the state, at 37[1]. After those come land needing measures against disaster risk at 11, land carrying monetary obligations beyond management costs at 10, land with a cliff of at least 30 degrees and 5 metres at 7, land whose use under ownership is currently obstructed at 6, land where a right of way under the Civil Code is obstructed at 4, and objects underground requiring removal at 3[1].

Things left on the land, and hillsides needing upkeep. Those two are 81 of the grounds cited, two-thirds of the total.

Handing land away costs a fee plus 200,000 yen

The examination fee is 14,000 yen per plot[2]. On approval, a contribution equal to ten years of management costs is payable, 200,000 yen as standard[3], calculated by area for certain land types and locations.

Even so, 5,863 applications came in over three years and three months.

Refusals surface in the withdrawal column

Of the 1,102 withdrawals, 392 were pulled once it became clear the land would not pass. Adding those to the 181 formal refusals gives 573.

The scheme's refusals collect not in the rejection column but in the withdrawal one. Counted as rejections and refusals alone the rate is 3.1%; counted as applications that did not get through, 9.8%.

The 23 unclear-boundary cases are the land covered in inherited mountain forest whose boundaries no one knows（このサイトの記事）. The 46 cases of objects above ground are what the structure behind nine million empty homes（このサイトの記事） describes: land that stops being used accumulates things. The reason people want rid of it is the reason it will not be taken.

More than half the withdrawals run the other way

The other 571 were withdrawn because a use for the land emerged. The ministry gives three examples: a local or national body decided to put the land to use, a neighbouring owner offered to take it, or an agricultural committee brokered a return to farming.

Somewhere in the process of handing it over, a taker appeared first. More applications ended in a decision to keep the land than were turned away on examination. Applying forces a fresh look at what the land is, and tells the neighbours it is available.

A residual 1,572 sits in none of the columns

Not transferred, not rejected, not refused, not withdrawn: 1,572 applications, 26.8% of the total. Examination presumably takes time, but no breakdown is published.

As set out in the common structure behind policies that never reach people（このサイトの記事）, counted from the provider's side only refusals show up. What never arrived has to be read from a different column.

20.1% of owner-unknown land becomes 0.41% once traced

Scale matters. In the cadastral survey figures, of the 622,608 parcels across 1,130 districts surveyed in FY2016, the registry alone failed to locate the owner for 125,059, or 20.1%[4].

But 20.1% is not the final figure. After tracing through family and residence records, 2,526 parcels, or 0.41%, remained untraceable[4]. Most owner-unknown land is land whose owner can be found. It is not unknown; finding out takes time and effort. This compilation covers the FY2016 cadastral survey, and no nationwide measurement has been published to supersede it.

Unregistered inheritance is 66.7%; unregistered address change is 32.4%

The 125,059 parcels have a breakdown by cause. Unregistered transfer on inheritance accounts for 83,371 parcels, or 66.7%; unregistered change of address for 40,496, or 32.4%; and unregistered transfer by sale or exchange for 1,192, or 1.0%[4].

Inheritance is two-thirds. That is the evidence base for the registration duty.

But a third is unregistered address changes. That is a different problem: the owner moved and never updated the register. The inheritance duty does not touch it.

A second duty was written for that gap. The duty to register changes of address or name took effect on 1 April 2026, requiring an application within two years of a change of name or address, with a fine of up to 50,000 yen; changes made before commencement are also covered, with a deadline of 31 March 2028[5].

Inheritance: three years, 100,000 yen. Address: two years, 50,000 yen. Two duties aimed at the same problem, running on separate deadlines and separate fines.

Forest land has a different shape

By terrain, forest stands out. The registry-only unknown rate runs at 14.5% in urban districts, 17.4% in residential areas and 16.9% in farmland, against 25.6% in forest[4]. After tracing, forest remains at 0.57%, above urban districts at 0.38%, farmland at 0.34% and residential areas at 0.14%[4].

Forest is 4.1 times residential. Large areas, boundaries invisible on the ground, and shares that thin with every succession: that is what mountain forest is, and it shows up directly in the untraceable rate. That the second commonest refusal ground is forest requiring further state work is the same property seen from the other side.

Two orders of magnitude apart

Setting that scale beside 5,863 shows the distance. What one year of cadastral survey looked at was a small slice of the country, 622,608 parcels, and that slice alone held 83,371 of unregistered inheritance. The transfer scheme has handled 5,863 applications nationwide in three years and three months. The units differ, and one application can cover several parcels, so the two cannot be compared directly. The order of magnitude differs by two. The exit is still narrow.

What the outgoing owner pays and what the state spends are the same figure

Widening the exit means lowering the contribution or loosening the requirements. Loosen the requirements and the state's management costs rise. The contribution is set at ten years of management costs, so anything taken off it lands on someone else. By design, what the outgoing owner pays and what the receiving state spends are two sides of the same figure.

Lower the contribution and applications rise; the state carries the added management cost. Refuse to carry it and the requirements must tighten, which pushes withdrawals back up. What the numbers show is where that balance currently sits: 3,008 plots in three years and three months.

Further Reading

• 『人口減少時代の土地問題 - 「所有者不明化」と相続、空き家、制度のゆくえ』（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Shoko Yoshihara, Chuokoron-Shinsha). Written before either the registration duty or the transfer scheme existed, it sets out from the institutional side how landowners come to be untraceable.

References

Statistics on the Transfer of Inherited Land to the State — Ministry of Justice, Civil Affairs Bureau (2026). Ministry of Justice

Outline of the Transfer of Inherited Land to the State — Ministry of Justice, Civil Affairs Bureau (2026). Ministry of Justice

Mandatory Registration of Inherited Property — Ministry of Justice, Civil Affairs Bureau (2026). Ministry of Justice

Mandatory Registration of Changes of Address or Name — Ministry of Justice, Civil Affairs Bureau (2026). Ministry of Justice

State of Fact-Finding on Owner-Unknown Land — Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (2017). Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism