If you’ve read that Japan has “9 million akiya,” you’ve only heard half the story. That number is real, straight from the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ 2023 Housing and Land Survey — but it lumps together four very different kinds of empty homes. Understanding the split changes how alarming (or not) the akiya crisis actually is.
The headline number: 9 million vacant homes, 13.8% of Japan’s housing
As of October 2023, Japan had roughly 9.0 million vacant dwellings, a record high and up from 8.49 million in 2018. The national vacancy rate climbed to 13.8% — meaning about 1 in 7 Japanese homes sits empty. That’s the figure that makes international headlines. But “vacant” in this survey is a broad statistical category, not a synonym for “abandoned.”
The four categories hiding inside that number
The survey splits vacant homes into four buckets:
- For rent (~4.3 million homes) – Empty apartments and houses actively listed on the rental market. This is ordinary market friction, the same as a vacant apartment in any city waiting for a new tenant.
- For sale (~300,000 homes) – Properties on the market awaiting a buyer.
- Secondary/vacation homes (~400,000 homes) – Ski cabins, beach villas, and second residences used occasionally. This category has barely moved in 20 years.
- No designated use (~3.85 million homes) – Not listed for rent or sale, not a vacation home — just sitting empty, often inherited and unmanaged. This is the group people actually mean when they say “akiya problem.”
Together, categories 1–3 make up “working” housing stock — homes that are temporarily unoccupied but still connected to the market or in active use. Category 4 is the one growing out of control: it rose from 2.12 million in 2003 to 3.85 million in 2023, an 83% increase in two decades, and it’s the single reason the national vacancy rate keeps climbing. Rental and for-sale vacancy grew only modestly over the same period.
Why the distinction matters
Confusing “for rent” vacancy with genuine abandonment massively overstates the crisis in some areas and understates it in others. A city with lots of rental vacancy (like central Tokyo) isn’t facing the same problem as a mountain village where houses are inherited, unregistered, and slowly collapsing. Tokyo actually has the most vacant homes in raw numbers — about 968,000 — but at 10.3% it’s below the national average, and most of that is ordinary rental turnover.
By contrast, prefectures like Wakayama and Tokushima (21.2% vacancy), Kagoshima (20.4%), and Kochi (20.3%) lead the country — and a disproportionate share of their vacant stock falls into the “no designated use” category, driven by rural depopulation and aging populations.
What’s driving the “no designated use” category
- Inheritance without intent – About 60% of these homes were inherited, and heirs living in cities have little reason to sell, rent, or maintain a house hundreds of kilometers away.
- Tax incentives to leave buildings standing – Vacant land is taxed at roughly six times the rate of land with a residential structure on it, discouraging demolition even of decaying houses.
- Weak resale culture – Japan’s secondhand housing market is thin, and homes are typically demolished after 26–27 years versus 55+ in the US or UK.
- Demographic decline – Japan recorded fewer than 760,000 births in 2023, the lowest since records began, while young people continue migrating to Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya.
The takeaway
Japan doesn’t have “9 million abandoned houses.” It has roughly 4.6 million homes in normal market circulation, 400,000 lightly used second homes, and about 3.85 million genuinely neglected properties — the number worth watching, and the one driving new legislation like the 2023 amendment to the Vacant House Special Measures Act.
Next time you see the “9 million akiya” headline, ask which category is actually being counted.
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