Akiya banks
What an akiya bank is, and how far the national one reaches
An akiya bank (空き家バンク) is a register a municipality keeps to put owners of empty houses in touch with people looking for one. 1,151 local governments take part in the national bank the land ministry set up, and 65.3% of Japan's municipalities do. This page sets out what the system is, what it leaves out, and how participation varies across the 47 prefectures.
- Local governments taking part
- 1,151[2]
- Entries listed (vacant land included)
- 19,804[2]
- Municipalities taking part (share)
- 65.3%[3]
Figures as at the end of August 2026
"Akiya bank" is not a legal term
The Act on Special Measures concerning the Promotion of Measures for Vacant Houses (Act No. 127 of 2014) does not use the word "bank" anywhere. An akiya bank is not an institution the statute created. It is administrative practice that municipalities built under the framework the statute set.[4]
What the Act does do is different. Article 2(1) defines an akiya as a building, and the land it sits on, where non-use for residence or any other purpose is the normal state, excluding anything the state or a local government owns or manages. Article 2(2) defines the narrower "specified vacant house" as one in a condition bad enough that leaving it alone is inappropriate: at risk of collapse, seriously unsanitary, or seriously damaging to the surroundings.[4]
Article 5 puts owners under a duty to make efforts to manage a vacant house so it does not harm the surrounding living environment. That is a best-efforts duty, not an absolute one. Article 7(1) says a municipality may adopt a vacant-house plan. May, not must: running a bank is a local choice, and so is having a plan at all.[4]
Article 13(1) covers the step before a house becomes "specified". Where poor management means a house is at risk of reaching that state, the mayor may give the owner guidance, and under Article 13(2) may escalate to a formal recommendation if the condition does not improve.[4]
The national bank, and the municipal ones
The land ministry set the national akiya and vacant-land bank up: it ran the public tender that chose the two companies behind it and subsidised part of the build. It did not contract out the running of it. The ministry says plainly that the two operate the bank independently and that it takes no part in ordinary operations, beyond paying for functional upgrades and compiling the participation statistics it publishes. At the end of August 2026 the bank carried 19,804 entries from 1,151 participating local governments. That 1,151 is the ministry's own unit, 自治体, and it counts prefectural governments alongside municipalities. The table below and the 65.3% average beside it count municipalities only, so the two figures are different populations and will not divide into one another.[1][2]
That entry count needs two caveats, and the ministry supplies the first itself: it is the two operators added together, with properties listed on both still counted twice. The second is in the programme’s name. It is a bank for vacant land as well as vacant houses, so the figure is not a count of houses.[2]
A participation rate of 65.3% also means roughly a third of Japan’s municipalities are not on the national bank at all. Some of those run a register of their own, published only on the municipality’s own website. Others run none. Searching the national bank alone cannot tell you that a given town has nothing empty in it.[3]
What reaches a bank is a thin slice of what is empty
The 2023 Housing and Land Survey counted 9,002,000 vacant dwellings in Japan, 13.8% of all dwellings. Both are records, and the figure has roughly doubled over the thirty years to 2023.[5]
Those 9,002,000 include homes standing empty between tenants and holiday homes, neither of which is what people mean by akiya. The category that does mean it, vacant homes that are not for rent, not for sale and not second homes, is 3,856,000: 5.9% of all dwellings.[5]
What you cannot do is divide the bank’s entries by those 3,856,000 homes. That category excludes dwellings the survey classes as for sale or for rent, and a house on an akiya bank is exactly a house offered for sale or rent, so the two do not nest. The comparable denominator is the whole vacant stock: 19,804 entries against 9,002,000 vacant dwellings is roughly one entry for every 450 of them. Read that as a comparison of scale and not as a coverage rate, because the entry count still carries duplicates and still includes vacant land. Either way a bank is not an inventory of what is empty. It is the small, self-selected set whose owners chose to register.[2][5]
Participation by prefecture[3]
The share of each prefecture’s municipalities taking part in the national bank at the end of August 2026, against a national average of 65.3%. A low rate does not mean few empty houses: it means few local governments there publish through the national system. Each prefecture links to what is actually on the market in it.
| Prefecture | Share of municipalities taking part |
|---|---|
| Hokkaido | 79.3% |
| Aomori | 85.0% |
| Iwate | 84.8% |
| Miyagi | 54.3% |
| Akita | 76.0% |
| Yamagata | 74.3% |
| Fukushima | 84.7% |
| Ibaraki | 84.1% |
| Tochigi | 92.0% |
| Gunma | 62.9% |
| Saitama | 66.7% |
| Chiba | 74.1% |
| Tokyo | 19.4% |
| Kanagawa | 69.7% |
| Niigata | 90.0% |
| Toyama | 100.0% |
| Ishikawa | 84.2% |
| Fukui | 94.1% |
| Yamanashi | 59.3% |
| Nagano | 41.6% |
| Gifu | 69.0% |
| Shizuoka | 71.4% |
| Aichi | 27.8% |
| Mie | 65.5% |
| Shiga | 94.7% |
| Kyoto | 57.7% |
| Osaka | 46.5% |
| Hyogo | 85.4% |
| Nara | 69.2% |
| Wakayama | 53.3% |
| Tottori | 57.9% |
| Shimane | 52.6% |
| Okayama | 81.5% |
| Hiroshima | 43.5% |
| Yamaguchi | 68.4% |
| Tokushima | 66.7% |
| Kagawa | 41.2% |
| Ehime | 80.0% |
| Kochi | 44.1% |
| Fukuoka | 46.7% |
| Saga | 85.0% |
| Nagasaki | 81.0% |
| Kumamoto | 46.7% |
| Oita | 100.0% |
| Miyazaki | 73.1% |
| Kagoshima | 79.1% |
| Okinawa | 12.2% |
The rate counts municipalities participating in the national bank. One running only its own local register does not appear in it. To check a particular municipality rather than a prefecture, the ministry page cited below links the participating-municipality list each of the two operators publishes.
What to check before you act on a bank listing
What a bank publishes is not a substitute for checking the register and the restrictions on the land itself.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from a primary document. The number beside a figure points to its entry below.
- [1]Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Vacant House and Vacant Land Bank Information PageThe ministry page for the national bank, and the FAQ on it: the two companies were selected by public tender, they operate the bank independently rather than under contract to the state, and the ministry does not take part in ordinary operations.
- [2]Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. National Akiya and Vacant Land Bank: participating municipalities and listings, monthly seriesThe monthly series the local-government and listing figures on this page are the last point of. Its axis counts 自治体, local governments, which includes prefectural governments. The ministry notes that the listing count combines both operators and does not remove properties listed on each.
- [3]Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. National Akiya and Vacant Land Bank: participation rate by prefectureShare of each prefecture’s MUNICIPALITIES taking part: the chart is labelled 参画率（市区町村）. Source of the table on this page and of the 65.3% national average.
- [4]e-Gov (Digital Agency), Government of Japan. Act on Special Measures concerning the Promotion of Measures for Vacant Houses (Act No. 127 of 2014)The statute behind municipal vacant-house policy. Articles 2, 5, 7 and 13 are the ones cited here.
- [5]Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. 2023 Housing and Land Survey: Basic Tabulation on Dwellings and Households, Summary of ResultsPublished 25 September 2024, survey date 1 October 2023. The survey runs every five years, so these are the current official figures.
Links last verified: 2026-10-07