How To Check Official Land Prices In Japan

Four different numbers, four different purposes

地価公示 (chika kouji, the official land price / "Public Notice of Land Prices") is published every March by the Land Appraisal Committee (土地鑑定委員会) under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), under the Public Notice of Land Prices Act (地価公示法, Act No. 49 of 1969). Licensed real estate appraisers value a network of "standard sites" (標準地) as of January 1 each year, mainly in and around urban areas. Article 1 states the purpose directly: to give the public an indicator for ordinary land transactions and a basis for calculating fair compensation on public projects — it was designed from the start to be a reference point, not a price-fixing mechanism.

基準地価 (kijun chika, the prefectural benchmark price), formally the 都道府県地価調査 (Prefectural Land Price Survey), is run by each prefecture under the Order for Enforcement of the National Land Use Planning Act (国土利用計画法施行令). It values a separate set of "reference points" (基準地) as of July 1 and is published around September. It exists to fill the gaps chika kouji leaves — more rural and suburban coverage, and a second data point roughly six months after the January reading — using the same appraisal methodology.

路線価 (rosenka, the roadside land price) is published every year in early July by the National Tax Agency (NTA), valued as of the preceding January 1. It exists for one purpose: valuing land for inheritance tax (相続税) and gift tax (贈与税). By NTA's own stated design, rosenka is set at roughly 80% of the chika kouji reference price for the same area — deliberately below fair value, to give a margin of safety in tax assessments. Not every road has a rosenka figure; in areas without one (倍率地域), land is instead valued by the "multiplier method" (倍率方式) — the fixed asset tax assessed value multiplied by a ratio the NTA sets for that area.

固定資産税評価額 (the fixed asset tax assessed value) is set by the municipality (or, in Tokyo's 23 wards, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government) and re-assessed every three years under the Local Tax Act (地方税法). Since a nationwide policy adopted for the 1994 (Heisei 6) revaluation, municipalities target roughly 70% of the chika kouji reference price when setting it. It is the base figure for the annual fixed asset tax and city planning tax bills, and also for real estate acquisition tax and registration and license tax at closing — see Japan Property Tax Guide for how those taxes are actually calculated from it.

None of these four is 実勢価格 — the actual price a willing buyer pays a willing seller. They are administrative reference values, built for specific legal purposes (transaction guidance, tax assessment), and real transaction prices in active markets frequently sit above them, sometimes well above in strong urban markets and closer to or below them in shrinking rural areas.

Where to actually look them up, for free

The fastest way to sanity-check a specific property is Japan Property Research's own land valuation tool, built into the map: click the property's location — or select the parcel from a search result — and request an estimate, for the land alone or for land-and-building together if there is a house on it. It blends nearby chika kouji and kijun chika reference points, actual comparable transactions, current nearby listings, and zoning (building coverage ratio, floor area ratio, and whether the surrounding zoning is consistent) with site details you enter — frontage, road width, lot shape, slope, corner exposure, and for a house, its floor area, age, structure, and condition — into an estimated value range with a confidence score, showing the underlying evidence so you can see what backed the number. It is a model-based estimate, not an appraisal or a guarantee of what the property will actually sell for, and it needs a free account (no paid plan) since it lives inside the same map that sits behind sign-up.

If you would rather look at the official reference points directly instead of a blended estimate, the same map plots chika kouji and kijun chika as clickable points, each showing the current price per square meter, the year-on-year change, and a historical price chart back to 1983 — the kijun chika layer was refreshed in September 2026 with the newly published 令和8年 survey (21,466 points nationwide, valued as of July 1, 2026, of which 10 remain suspended because of the Fukushima Daiichi accident).

Chika kouji and kijun chika are also searchable straight from the source, address by address, in MLIT's Real Estate Information Library (不動産情報ライブラリ) at reinfolib.mlit.go.jp/landPrices/. This system replaced the older 土地総合情報システム (which was retired at the end of March 2024) — if a search result or an old bookmark sends you to land.mlit.go.jp/webland, that page is a discontinued system; use the Real Estate Information Library instead.

Rosenka is searchable on the NTA's own site, 財産評価基準書 路線価図・評価倍率表, at rosenka.nta.go.jp: pick the prefecture, then the municipality, then read the map for the price per square meter along the relevant road, shown in thousands of yen per square meter (for example, "400C" means ¥400,000/㎡). The trailing letter (A through G) is a separate figure — the leasehold interest ratio (借地権割合) used only when valuing leased land, not part of the land price itself. If the municipality does not appear under 路線価図, that area uses the multiplier method instead — look up 評価倍率表 for the same municipality.

The fixed asset tax assessed value is not published on an open public map; it is on the annual tax notice (固定資産税・都市計画税 納税通知書) sent to the registered owner, and can also be obtained as a 固定資産評価証明書 (assessment certificate) from the municipal tax office — generally only by the owner, their agent, or someone with a qualifying interest in the property, not by an unrelated third party.

For a quick, no-account gut-check on actual transaction prices, our public Japan home price map shows median sale prices by city — houses, condos, and land — built on the same MLIT transaction dataset, alongside current asking-price inventory for comparison. For individual comparable sales rather than a citywide median, the Real Estate Information Library also hosts a transaction price search (不動産取引価格情報検索) at reinfolib.mlit.go.jp/realEstatePrices/, built from a voluntary post-sale survey MLIT sends to buyers and sellers. It shows individual anonymized transactions — rounded price, land area, nearest station, transaction quarter — by neighborhood rather than exact address, because response is voluntary and not universal. It is the closest free, official window onto actual sale prices, but it is a sample, not a comprehensive registry of every transaction.

Why the registration record itself is the wrong place to look for price

It is a common assumption that the property registration record (登記事項証明書) — the touki — must show what the current owner paid, since it shows so much else about the property's history. It does not. The ownership section (甲区) records the registration cause (原因, such as 売買 for a sale) and the date, plus the new owner's name and address — but Japan's registration system does not record the consideration paid in an ordinary sale. See How To Read A Japanese Property Registration Record for what the record does show.

One indirect, imperfect clue sometimes exists if a mortgage was registered at the time of purchase: the mortgage section (乙区) shows a claim amount (債権額) for the loan. Treat this cautiously rather than as a price proxy — it is the amount borrowed, not the price paid, so it excludes any down payment; if it is a revolving mortgage (根抵当権), the figure is a lending ceiling that may cover unrelated business borrowing entirely disconnected from this property's purchase. See How To Check If A Japanese Property Has A Mortgage for how to read that section correctly.

Here is a practical way to sanity-check a price before you rely on it:

1. If you want one blended answer instead of checking four separate figures, start with Japan Property Research's land valuation tool. From the map, click the property (or select the parcel from a search result) and request an estimate — it folds chika kouji, kijun chika, comparable transactions, zoning, and the site's physical characteristics into a single value range with a confidence score and shows the evidence behind it. Treat it as a strong, transparent starting point, not a final number — it is a model-based estimate, not an appraisal, and it needs a free account (no paid plan).
2. Get the address or lot number (地番) right before you search. Chika kouji, kijun chika, and rosenka are all read off a location on a map or a road, not a listing description. Our free lot-number lookup is a fast way to find the likely parcel from a Japanese address, but it resolves to a reference point and returns whichever parcel contains it — treat the result as a starting point, not a confirmed match, and verify it against the listing or the registration record before relying on it for the checks below.
3. Look up chika kouji and kijun chika for the area, either on MLIT's Real Estate Information Library directly or as clickable points with historical charts on Japan Property Research's map (free account, no paid plan needed). Use the nearest standard site or reference point as a rough per-square-meter benchmark for the area — not for the specific parcel, since these points are sampled locations, not every lot.
4. Check rosenka if you want the tax-oriented figure, and read it in context rather than as a floor. At roughly 80% of chika kouji, rosenka is normally below what land sells for in a healthy, liquid market — so do not treat "close to rosenka" as automatically a bargain. But in a weak or shrinking local market, an actual sale price can land below rosenka too, so do not treat "below rosenka" as automatically a red flag either — cross-check against actual nearby transactions (step 5) before drawing a conclusion either way.
5. Search individual comparable sales on the Real Estate Information Library's transaction price search, filtered by area and time period, to see what specific comparable land or buildings actually sold for recently — this is the figure closest to real market behavior, though it is a voluntary sample and will not show a specific parcel's own sale history. For a quicker, broader gut-check, our public price map shows the municipality's median price by property type, no account needed — useful as a citywide benchmark, but not a substitute for the comparable-sale search above, since a large or mixed municipality's median can differ substantially from the subject area.
6. Don't try to back into a price from a registered mortgage amount. It reflects what was borrowed, not what was paid, and can be actively misleading on a revolving mortgage (根抵当権) or wherever a meaningful down payment was involved.
7. Treat every one of these figures as a sanity check, not a valuation. If the numbers disagree sharply with the asking price — in either direction — that is a reason to ask more questions, not a reason to assume the listing is wrong. A large land-price constraint (旗竿地 shape, no legal road frontage, contamination risk, and similar issues covered elsewhere in our guides) can hold a real sale price well below the area's reference figures for reasons a land-price lookup alone will never show you.
8. Bring in a licensed real estate appraiser (不動産鑑定士) if you need a defensible, formal valuation — for a loan application, a dispute, or a significant investment decision. The public price systems and Japan Property Research's own estimate above are all reference points, not a substitute for a professional appraisal.

The most common mistake is treating whichever number comes up first in a search as "the" official price, without checking which of the four systems it actually came from or what that system is for. The second is assuming a clean chika kouji or rosenka figure means the land itself has no legal problems — none of these price systems check ownership, encumbrances, road access, or zoning; they only price land that is otherwise assumed to be normal.

What Japan Property Research's own tools and the underlying government price systems can and cannot tell you:

• Where Japan Property Research's own tools fit in: the land (and land-and-building) valuation tool blends chika kouji, kijun chika, comparable transactions, zoning, and site characteristics into one estimated value range with a confidence score and visible evidence (free account, no paid plan needed); the map also plots chika kouji and kijun chika directly with historical trend charts; and our public price map shows city-level actual transaction medians with no account at all. All three are built on the same official data described above and in the sections below — they make it faster to check, but the valuation estimate is a model output, not an independent appraisal or a guarantee of sale price.
• What the underlying government tools show reliably: an official reference price per square meter for the general area (chika kouji, kijun chika), a lower tax-oriented reference figure (rosenka), and a sample of actual recent nearby transaction prices — all free, all public, no account required.
• What none of the above show: who owns the land, whether it carries a mortgage or other registered right, its legal road access, or its registered boundaries — that is what the registration record and cadastral map are for, not the price systems or the valuation tool.
• How the registration record complements it: once a land-price check (or a valuation estimate) tells you the area's general price level looks reasonable, order the land registration record (¥1,500) on Japan Property Research to confirm the registered owner, the registered land area, and any mortgages, seizures, or other rights recorded against the specific parcel before you rely on that price in an offer. The cadastral map (公図, +¥500, included on Pro and Team plans) helps confirm you are pricing the parcel you actually think you are.

A fair-looking price on a parcel with an undisclosed mortgage, a co-owner who has not agreed to sell, or no legal road frontage is not actually a good deal — price and legal status are separate checks, and this guide only covers the first one. Our Japan Property Due Diligence Checklist covers where a price sanity-check fits alongside the rest.

FAQ

What is the difference between chika kouji and kijun chika? Both are official reference land prices set by professional appraisal, but chika kouji (地価公示) is valued as of January 1 by MLIT's Land Appraisal Committee and published in March, mainly covering urban and surrounding areas, while kijun chika (基準地価, the prefectural benchmark price) is valued as of July 1 by each prefecture and published around September, with broader rural coverage. Together they give a January and a July reading each year.

Is rosenka the market price of land? No. Rosenka (路線価) is set at roughly 80% of the chika kouji reference price by design, specifically for calculating inheritance and gift tax. It is normally below what land sells for in a healthy, liquid market — but in a weak or shrinking local market, actual sale prices can fall below rosenka too, so a low rosenka figure alone does not guarantee a bargain.

Does the property registration record (touki) show what the current owner paid? No. The ownership section (甲区) records the registration cause and date of a transfer, such as a sale, and the new owner's details — but not the price paid. A registered mortgage amount can be an imperfect, indirect clue if one exists, but it reflects the loan amount, not the sale price, and can be actively misleading on a revolving mortgage.

Where do I check actual recent sale prices instead of official reference prices? MLIT's Real Estate Information Library (不動産情報ライブラリ) publishes an anonymized transaction price search built from a voluntary buyer/seller survey, covering land, land-and-building, and condo unit sales by neighborhood and quarter. It is a sample, not a complete record of every sale, but it is the closest free official view of real transaction prices.

Can foreigners use these government price-lookup tools? Yes. All of the systems described here — the Real Estate Information Library and the NTA's rosenka site — are free, public, and carry no nationality or residency requirement to search.

Does Japan Property Research give a single estimated price for a specific property? Yes. Its land (and land-and-building) valuation tool blends nearby chika kouji and kijun chika reference points, actual comparable transactions, zoning, and the site's physical characteristics into an estimated value range with a confidence score, and shows the evidence behind the number. It needs a free account, no paid plan — but it is a model-based estimate, not an appraisal, and it does not check legal status such as ownership, mortgages, or road access.

Related guides:

• What Is Touki In Japan
• How To Read A Japanese Property Registration Record
• How To Check If A Japanese Property Has A Mortgage
• Japan Property Tax Guide
• The Property Research Workflow In Japan
• Japan Property Due Diligence Checklist
• How To Order A Japan Property Registration Record In English

• Public Notice of Land Prices Act (地価公示法), Act No. 49 of 1969 — Article 1 purpose and the standard-site appraisal system — Ministry of Justice, Japanese Law Translation
• Real Property Registration Act (不動産登記法), Article 59 — the matters that must be registered for a right, including the registration purpose, cause and date, and the right holder's name and address, with no requirement to record the price paid on an ordinary transfer — Ministry of Justice, Japanese Law Translation
• Land Market Value Publication (地価公示) — overview of the system, the Land Appraisal Committee, and the January 1 valuation date — Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (English)
• 不動産情報ライブラリ：地価公示・都道府県地価調査の検索 — the current official search tool for chika kouji and kijun chika, successor to the retired 土地総合情報システム — MLIT Real Estate Information Library
• Supplying information on real estate transaction prices, etc. — overview of the voluntary buyer/seller survey behind the transaction price search — Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (English)
• 不動産取引価格情報検索 — anonymized actual transaction price search by area and quarter — MLIT Real Estate Information Library
• 財産評価基準書 路線価図・評価倍率表 — the official rosenka map and multiplier-table search tool, including how to read the ¥1,000/㎡ price and the A–G leasehold interest ratio letter — National Tax Agency
• 令和7年分の路線価等について — annual NTA announcement stating rosenka is set at roughly 80% of the chika kouji reference price — National Tax Agency
• 固定資産評価のしくみについて（土地評価）— the nationwide policy, adopted for the 1994 (Heisei 6) revaluation, of targeting roughly 70% of the chika kouji reference price for fixed asset tax land assessments — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Soumu), Fixed Asset Valuation Office

A note on scope: the Public Notice of Land Prices Act and the National Land Use Planning Act enforcement order apply nationwide, and the ~80% and ~70% design ratios above are stated national policy, not case-by-case guarantees for any single parcel — actual rosenka and assessed-value figures for a specific site can still land above or below those targets. None of the sources above address whether a specific parcel is free of encumbrances, has legal road access, or is registered accurately; confirm those separately through the registration record, and bring in a licensed real estate appraiser (不動産鑑定士) for a defensible, professional valuation rather than relying on these reference systems alone.