Guide
Leasehold land in Japan: the thirty years, the building register, and the court that can consent for the landowner
A building in Japan can be owned outright while the ground under it belongs to somebody else. English writing calls that arrangement leasehold, as though it were one thing. Japanese law calls it shakuchiken (借地権), and Article 2 of the Act on Land and Building Leases defines it as either of two rights that behave differently at the moment that matters to a buyer: the moment the building is sold on. This page is about what the statute fixes, and where it hands the decision to a court instead.
Published 4 September 2026. Statutory text read on 4 September 2026.
Two different rights, one English word
The Act on Land and Building Leases (借地借家法, Act No. 90 of 1991) opens its definitions with the term everything else hangs on.
借地権 建物の所有を目的とする地上権又は土地の賃借権をいう。A leasehold is a chijoken (地上権) or a tochi no chinshakuken (土地の賃借権), held for the purpose of owning a building. The first is a real right — the Civil Code puts it in the book on property rights, and Article 265 gives its holder the right to use another person's land in order to own structures on it. The second is a contractual claim against the landowner, governed by the Civil Code's chapter on leases.
Chapter II of the Act on Land and Building Leases then treats the two as one. Articles 3 to 8 on the term, the renewal and rebuilding, Article 10 on third-party effect, Articles 11 to 13 on ground rent and the buy-out claim, and Articles 22 to 25 on the fixed-term forms all take 借地権 as their subject, without separating the two rights. Two things do separate them.
- Article 612 of the Civil Code reaches only the lease. It provides that a lessee may not assign the lease or sublease the property without the lessor's consent, and that a breach lets the lessor terminate. We read the Civil Code's chapter on superficies, Articles 265 to 269-2, and found no corresponding consent requirement in it. The silence is not a convention of the drafting: the chapter that follows it, on 永小作権, states the point expressly in Article 272, which lets the holder of that right assign it unless the instrument creating it forbids that.
- Articles 19 and 20 of the Act are drafted for the lease alone. Both are headed with 土地の賃借権 and both open with the words 賃借権の目的である土地. They are the court permissions described below, and they exist because Article 612 exists.
Which of the two a particular property carries is a fact about that property rather than a matter of preference, and the Real Property Registration Act treats them as separate registrable rights: Article 3 lists superficies at item (ii) and lease at item (viii).
Leasehold is a rendering, not a translation
Thirty years, and what a renewal adds
Article 3 sets one number and then declines to set a ceiling.
借地権の存続期間は、三十年とする。ただし、契約でこれより長い期間を定めたときは、その期間とする。Thirty years, unless the contract sets something longer, in which case the longer period governs. Article 4 then sets the length a renewal produces: ten years from the date of renewal, and twenty years where it is the first renewal after the leasehold was created, in each case unless the parties agree on longer.
The proviso to Article 3 carries no upper limit of its own, and Article 22 requires a term of at least fifty years for one of the fixed-term forms.
Article 604 of the Civil Code points the other way. It caps a lease at fifty years, and caps each renewal at fifty years from the renewal.
The Act on Land and Building Leases is the special statute for leaseholds and the Civil Code is the general one. How the two texts are read together, where a lease-type leasehold is agreed for longer than fifty years, is a question this page does not answer, and it appears again in the list at the end.
| Provision | Period | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 3 | 30 years, or longer if agreed | Every leasehold |
| Art. 4 | 20 years on the first renewal | Every leasehold |
| Art. 4 | 10 years on each later renewal | Every leasehold |
| Art. 7(1) | 20 years from consent or construction, whichever is earlier | Rebuilding with the landowner's consent |
| Civil Code Art. 268(2) | A term the court fixes between 20 and 50 years | A superficies where the parties set none |
A renewal that turns on whether a building is standing
Article 5(1) provides that where the term expires and the leaseholder requests a renewal, the contract is deemed renewed on the same conditions — but the provision carries a condition of four characters that decides the whole thing.
借地権の存続期間が満了する場合において、借地権者が契約の更新を請求したときは、建物がある場合に限り、…従前の契約と同一の条件で契約を更新したものとみなす。ただし、借地権設定者が遅滞なく異議を述べたときは、この限りでない。建物がある場合に限り — only where a building exists. Article 5(2) applies the same rule where no request is made but the leaseholder simply carries on using the land after expiry. A leasehold whose building has gone is outside both paragraphs.
The landowner's escape from the deemed renewal is an objection stated without delay, and Article 6 limits when one may be stated at all. It requires seito no jiyu (正当の事由), just cause, and it lists what the question is decided on: the need each side has for the land, the past course of the leasehold and how the land has been used, and any offer by the landowner to make a payment in property in exchange for vacant possession. What weight those carry is worked out in litigation this page has not read.
Rebuilding, and the two months of silence
A building on leased land does not last as long as the leasehold can. Article 7(1) covers what happens when it goes. Where the building is destroyed before the term expires, and a replacement is built that would outlast what is left of the term, the leasehold runs for twenty years from the earlier of the day consent was given and the day the building was built — but only where the landowner consented. Destruction here is not confined to fire or collapse: the article says in terms that it includes demolition by the leaseholder or by a sub-leaseholder.
Article 7(2) turns silence into that consent, on a clock.
借地権者が借地権設定者に対し残存期間を超えて存続すべき建物を新たに築造する旨を通知した場合において、借地権設定者がその通知を受けた後二月以内に異議を述べなかったときは、その建物を築造するにつき前項の借地権設定者の承諾があったものとみなす。ただし、契約の更新の後…に通知があった場合においては、この限りでない。Two months without an objection, and consent is deemed given. The proviso removes that route once the contract has been renewed. For the position after a renewal, Article 8 lets the leaseholder give up the right where the building is destroyed, and lets the landowner demand extinction where the leaseholder builds without consent; Article 18 lets a court give permission in place of the landowner's consent where there is an unavoidable reason to rebuild.
The protection is in the building register, not the land register
A leasehold can be registered on the land. Article 3 of the Real Property Registration Act says so for both a superficies and a lease. Registering a lease, though, is an application the landowner has to take part in, and Article 605 of the Civil Code makes registration the condition for asserting a lease of immovables against a third party. Article 10 of the Act on Land and Building Leases supplies a second route that does not need the landowner at all.
借地権は、その登記がなくても、土地の上に借地権者が登記されている建物を所有するときは、これをもって第三者に対抗することができる。Where the leaseholder owns a registered building on the land, the leasehold binds a third party even though the leasehold itself is not registered. The building is registered by its own owner, which is the leaseholder, so the protection is inside the leaseholder's control in a way a lease registration is not. Article 605-2(1) of the Civil Code names Article 10 alongside its own Article 605 when it provides that the position of lessor passes to a buyer of the land: the two are alternative ways of meeting the same requirement.
Article 10(2) covers the gap after a building burns down or is pulled down. Posting, in a conspicuous place on the land, the matters needed to identify the building, the date it was destroyed and a statement that a new one will be built keeps the effect of paragraph (1) alive. The paragraph then closes it again.
ただし、建物の滅失があった日から二年を経過した後にあっては、その前に建物を新たに築造し、かつ、その建物につき登記した場合に限る。Two years from the destruction. After that, the posting keeps working only where a new building was both built and registered before the two years ran out.
Two dates, two registers
What the land register records about a leasehold
Where a lease is registered on the land, Article 81 of the Real Property Registration Act sets out what the entry has to contain. Three of its items are about leasehold land specifically.
- Item (vi) — that the purpose of the land lease is the ownership of a building. That is the wording of Article 2(i) of the Act on Land and Building Leases, so the entry records whether the lease is a leasehold within that Act at all.
- Item (vii) — where item (vi) applies, that the building is one under Article 23(1) or (2) of that Act, the business-use fixed-term forms.
- Item (viii) — the special term itself, where there is one under Article 22(1) first sentence or Article 23(1) of that Act, among others.
Items (i) to (iv) of the same article cover the rent, the term or the timing of rent payments where agreed, a term permitting assignment or subletting where agreed, and the existence of a deposit. Item (iii) is the one that matters against Article 612: where the parties have agreed in advance that assignment is permitted, that agreement is among the matters the register records.
Selling a lease: the consent requirement, and court permission
Selling a building on leased land means transferring the leasehold with it. Where the leasehold is a superficies, the Civil Code sets no consent requirement. Where it is a lease, Article 612(1) provides that the lease may not be assigned without the lessor's consent, and paragraph (2) lets the lessor terminate where it is assigned anyway.
Article 19 of the Act on Land and Building Leases answers that with a court application.
借地権者が賃借権の目的である土地の上の建物を第三者に譲渡しようとする場合において、その第三者が賃借権を取得し、又は転借をしても借地権設定者に不利となるおそれがないにもかかわらず、借地権設定者がその賃借権の譲渡又は転貸を承諾しないときは、裁判所は、借地権者の申立てにより、借地権設定者の承諾に代わる許可を与えることができる。Permission substituting for the landowner's consent, on the leaseholder's application, where the transfer would create no risk of disadvantage to the landowner. The same paragraph lets the court order a change in the leasehold conditions, or make the permission conditional on a payment in property. Article 19(6) requires the court to hear the opinion of an appraisal committee before deciding, unless it finds that unnecessary.
Article 19(3) gives the landowner a counter-move rather than a veto: within a period the court sets, the landowner may apply to take the building and the lease itself, at a price and on terms the court fixes, and the court may order both sides to perform at the same time.
Where the building was bought at auction
Article 20(1) provides the same permission for a different applicant: a third party who acquired the building by auction or public sale applies in their own name. Article 20(3) puts a deadline on it.
第一項の申立ては、建物の代金を支払った後二月以内に限り、することができる。Two months from payment of the price for the building. Article 21 then provides that a special term contrary to Articles 17 to 19 which is disadvantageous to the leaseholder is void — so the Article 19 route is not something a lease can contract away against the leaseholder, while Article 20 is left off that list.
The three fixed-term forms, and the writing each requires
Articles 22 to 24 create three arrangements under which a leasehold ends without the renewal machinery in Articles 5 and 6. They are distinguished by the length of the term, by what the building may be used for, and by the form the agreement has to take.
| Article | Term | Building use | Form required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 22 | 50 years or more | Not restricted by the article | 公正証書による等書面 — a notarial deed or other writing |
| Art. 23(1) | 30 years or more, under 50 | Exclusively business use, residential excluded | 公正証書 — notarial deed (Art. 23(3)) |
| Art. 23(2) | 10 years or more, under 30 | Exclusively business use, residential excluded | 公正証書 — notarial deed (Art. 23(3)) |
| Art. 24 | A transfer on a day 30 years or more after creation | Not restricted by the article | The article states no form |
Article 22 and Article 23(1) work by letting the parties provide that there is no renewal, no extension of the term by rebuilding, and no buy-out claim under Article 13. Article 23(2) works differently: it switches off Articles 3 to 8, Article 13 and Article 18 outright for that leasehold. Article 24 is not an exclusion at all — it lets the parties agree that on a day at least thirty years after the leasehold was created, the building is transferred to the landowner at a reasonable price, which extinguishes the leasehold. Its opening parenthesis takes the short business leasehold under Article 23(2) out of that, so the two cannot be combined. Where a building is transferred under such a term and the leasehold is extinguished, Article 24(2) provides that a former leaseholder or a building tenant who continues to use the building and makes a request is deemed to have a building lease with no fixed term, with the rent fixed by the court on application.
Article 25 sits outside all of this: where a leasehold was clearly created for temporary use, Articles 3 to 8, 13, 17, 18 and 22 to 24 do not apply to it.
A change that arrived in May 2022
Article 22(2) provides that where the special term under paragraph (1) is made in an electromagnetic record, it is treated as having been made in writing. That paragraph is a recent addition, and the date can be measured rather than looked up: we read Chapter II of the Act at asof=2022-05-17 and at asof=2022-05-18. The paragraph is absent from the first and present in the second. From 18 May 2022 to 4 September 2026 the text of Chapter II is byte-for-byte identical in what e-Gov returns, so the amendment that took effect on 21 May 2026 and changed the revision label did not touch the leasehold chapter.
An inserted paragraph can push the numbering of the ones after it, which would make a citation to an older paragraph number point at different words. We counted the paragraphs in Articles 19, 20, 22, 23, 24 and 25 at both dates: Article 22 goes from one paragraph to two, and every other one of them keeps the count it had. The references to Article 23(1), 23(2), 23(3), 24(1) and 24(2) on this page are to the same provisions before and after that change.
Leaseholds created before the Act, and what we could not read
Article 1 of the Supplementary Provisions says the Act comes into force on a day fixed by cabinet order, within a year of promulgation. e-Gov gives the promulgation date as 4 October 1991. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism states that the Act was enforced in August 1992 but does not give the day, and the cabinet order that fixed the day is not in the e-Gov current-law database. This page therefore does not state a day.
Article 2 of the Supplementary Provisions repeals three earlier acts: the Act on Protection of Buildings (Act No. 40 of 1909), the Land Lease Act (Act No. 49 of 1921) and the House Lease Act (Act No. 50 of 1921). Article 4 then sets the default: the Act applies to matters that arose before it came into force as well, except where the supplementary provisions say otherwise, and without prejudice to effects already produced under the repealed acts.
The exceptions are the point, and they come in two shapes that are not the same thing. Four provisions say なお従前の例による — the former rules continue to apply. Five say 適用しない — a named article of this Act does not apply. The first leaves earlier law in place; the second switches a provision off, and does not by itself say what stands where it would have stood. We counted the two phrases in the supplementary provisions dealing with leaseholds, Arts. 5 to 11, and got four and five.
The four that leave the former rules in place
| Supplementary provision | What it covers | When it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 5 | Extinction of the leasehold through decay of the building | A leasehold created before commencement |
| Art. 6 | Renewal of the leasehold contract | A leasehold created before commencement |
| Art. 7(1) | Extension of the term by rebuilding after the building is destroyed | A leasehold created before commencement |
| Art. 10 | Cases on changing leasehold conditions | An application made before commencement |
Article 10 of the supplementary provisions is worth separating out. Its trigger is not the date the leasehold was created but the date an application was made, so it reaches a leasehold created at any time whose court application predates commencement.
The five that switch a provision off
| Supplementary provision | Article switched off | When it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 7(2) | Art. 8 of the Act | A leasehold created before commencement |
| Art. 8 | Art. 10(2) of the Act | A building destroyed before commencement |
| Art. 9(1) | Art. 13(2) of the Act | A leasehold created before commencement |
| Art. 9(2) | Art. 13(3) of the Act | A sub-leasehold created before commencement |
| Art. 11 | Art. 18 of the Act | A leasehold created before commencement |
Article 8 of the supplementary provisions has its own trigger too: it turns on when the building was destroyed, not on when the leasehold was created. It removes the notice-board route in Article 10(2) described earlier.
What the former rules contain is a question this page cannot answer. e-Gov's asof parameter refuses any date earlier than 1 April 2017 — we tried 31 July 1992 and 1 August 1992 and received the same error message both times — and the three repealed acts are not served as law text at all. We have not read the Land Lease Act of 1921. What can be said from the current statute is only this: for a leasehold created before the Act came into force, decay, renewal and rebuilding are governed by law that is not in this Act, and five further provisions of it are switched off. Reading the Act alone does not describe that leasehold.
Ground rent, the lien, and the buy-out claim
Article 11(1) lets either side claim an increase or a decrease in the ground rent for periods still to come, where it has become unreasonable through changes in the tax and public charges on the land, through movements in land prices or other economic conditions, or by comparison with the ground rent on similar nearby land. The provision applies notwithstanding the terms of the contract, with one exception written into it: a special term not to increase the rent for a fixed period is followed.
Paragraphs (2) and (3) deal with the interval while the parties disagree. The party receiving an increase claim may pay what it considers reasonable until a judgment is final, and pays interest at 年一割, ten per cent a year, on any shortfall; the mirror rule applies to a decrease claim, with the same rate on the excess.
Article 12(1) gives the landowner a statutory lien over the building the leaseholder owns on the land, for the ground rent for the last two years that has fallen due. Paragraph (2) preserves that lien by registration of the superficies or the land lease, and paragraph (3) ranks it, behind expenses for common benefit, preservation and construction of the immovable, and behind pledges and charges registered earlier.
Article 13(1) is the claim at the far end.
借地権の存続期間が満了した場合において、契約の更新がないときは、借地権者は、借地権設定者に対し、建物その他借地権者が権原により土地に附属させた物を時価で買い取るべきことを請求することができる。Where the term has expired and there is no renewal, the leaseholder may require the landowner to buy the building, and anything the leaseholder attached to the land by right, at 時価 — market value. Article 22 and Article 23(1) let that claim be excluded by the special term, and Article 23(2) switches Article 13 off. For a superficies, the Civil Code has a parallel rule pointing the other way: Article 269(1) lets the superficiary remove the structures on extinction, but bars a refusal made without 正当な理由 where the landowner offers market value for them. That is a different phrase from the 正当の事由 in Article 6 above, it sits in a different statute, and this page does not treat the two as the same test.
Who the fixed asset tax is charged to
Article 343(1) of the Local Tax Act charges the fixed asset tax on the owner, and then opens a parenthesis that moves the charge to somebody else.
固定資産税は、固定資産の所有者（質権又は百年より永い存続期間の定めのある地上権の目的である土地については、その質権者又は地上権者とする。…）に課する。For land subject to a pledge, or to a superficies with a term longer than one hundred years, the tax on that land is charged to the pledgee or the superficiary instead of the owner. A superficies of a hundred years or less does not move it, and a lease does not move it at any length. Paragraph (2) defines the owner of land or a building as the person registered as owner in the register or recorded as such in the supplementary tax ledger — so the building standing on leased land is taxed to whoever is registered as owning the building. Our guide to the fixed asset tax covers how the assessed value behind that charge is arrived at.
What this page does not settle
The limits below are part of the article rather than a qualification bolted to the end of it.
- We have read no case law. Not one judgment. Just cause under Article 6, the risk of disadvantage under Article 19(1) and the unavoidable reason under Article 18 are standards whose content has been worked out in litigation we have not read. This page stops at what the provisions require.
- We have not read the repealed Land Lease Act. e-Gov does not serve it, and its
asofparameter rejects dates before 1 April 2017. Nothing here describes what the former rules preserved by Supplementary Provisions Arts. 5, 6, 7(1) and 10 actually say. - The relationship between Article 3 and Civil Code Article 604 is left open. The proviso to Article 3 sets no ceiling and Article 604 sets fifty years. We have not identified a provision that resolves the two for a lease-type leasehold, and we do not assert one.
- Nothing here evaluates any leasehold, any clause or any property. Whether a particular arrangement is a superficies or a lease, whether a court would grant permission, and what a register actually records for a given plot are questions about documents and facts this page has not seen.
- Tax on the leasehold itself is outside this page. The section above states which person a single provision of the Local Tax Act charges, and calculates nothing. How a leasehold is valued, how key money and ground rent are treated, and what arises on creating, transferring or inheriting one are governed by provisions we have not read here.
- Rules that turn on who the acquirer is were not examined. Reporting and screening requirements that can attach to an acquisition of rights over Japanese land by a person outside Japan, or in an area subject to survey, are outside what we checked, and nothing here says whether any of them applies.
- Lending is outside this page. Whether any institution will advance money against a building on leased land is that institution's decision. Our separate guide covers the charge a lender registers and the tax on registering it, and neither page names or recommends a lender.
- The commencement day of the Act is not stated. We have the promulgation date from e-Gov and the month from the ministry. The cabinet order that fixed the day is not in the database we read, so the day is left out rather than guessed.
- The version comparisons are our own measurements. They record what e-Gov returns at each
asofdate. We have not checked them against the official gazette, so an error in e-Gov's data would be an error here. - Our English is a reference rendering. Japanese statutory terms are given in Japanese with a reading and a plain-English gloss on first use. The Japanese text governs.
Sources
Every statutory text below was read on 4 September 2026 through the e-Gov law search service maintained by Japan's Digital Agency, at the version in force on that date, except where a different asof date is stated because the point being made is a change between two versions. Where a date or a comparison is our own measurement rather than something printed in a source, we say so both here and in the body.
Read at asof=2026-09-04, at the revision e-Gov labels 403AC0000000090_20260521_504AC0000000048. Art. 2(i) defines the leasehold. Arts. 3 and 4 set the term and the term after renewal. Arts. 5 and 6 set the renewal request and the just-cause requirement for objecting to it. Arts. 7 and 8 deal with rebuilding. Art. 10 is third-party effect through the building. Arts. 11 to 13 are the ground rent revision claim, the statutory lien and the building buy-out claim. Arts. 17 to 21 are the court permissions and the mandatory-provision article. Arts. 22 to 25 are the fixed-term forms and temporary use. Supplementary Provisions Arts. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 carry the transition from the repealed acts; Arts. 5, 6, 7(1) and 10 use なお従前の例による, and Arts. 7(2), 8, 9(1), 9(2) and 11 use 適用しない. We also read Chapter II at asof=2017-04-01, 2022-05-17, 2022-05-18, 2026-05-20 and 2026-09-04; the comparison stated in the body is our own measurement of those texts.
Civil Code (民法), Act No. 89 of 1896 — Arts. 265, 266, 268, 269, 272, 604, 605, 605-2, 612
Read at asof=2026-09-04, at the revision e-Gov labels 129AC0000000089_20260624_508AC0000000045. Art. 265 states what a superficies is: a real right to use another person's land in order to own structures on it. Art. 268(2) is the range within which a court may fix a term where the parties set none. Art. 269(1) is removal on extinction and the landowner's option to buy at market value. Art. 272, in the chapter on emphyteusis that follows the one on superficies, states an express power to assign, which is the comparison drawn in the body. Art. 604 caps a lease at fifty years. Art. 605 makes a registered lease assertable against third parties, and Art. 605-2(1) names Article 10 of the Act on Land and Building Leases alongside it. Art. 612(1) is the consent requirement for assigning a lease.
Real Property Registration Act (不動産登記法), Act No. 123 of 2004 — Arts. 3, 81
Read at asof=2026-09-04, at the revision e-Gov labels 416AC0000000123_20260624_508AC0000000046. Art. 3 lists the rights that may be registered, superficies at item (ii) and lease at item (viii). Art. 81 lists what a lease registration records, including item (vi) that the purpose of a land lease is the ownership of a building, item (vii) a building under Art. 23(1) or (2) of the Act on Land and Building Leases, and item (viii) a term under Art. 22(1) first sentence or Art. 23(1) of that Act.
Local Tax Act (地方税法), Act No. 226 of 1950 — Art. 343(1) and (2)
Read at asof=2026-09-04, at the revision e-Gov labels 325AC0000000226_20260731_508AC0000000002. Paragraph (1) puts the fixed asset tax on the owner, with a parenthesis that moves it to the pledgee or the superficiary where the land is subject to a pledge or to a superficies with a term longer than one hundred years. Paragraph (2) defines the owner of land or a building as the person registered as such.
The ministry page states that the Act was enforced in August of Heisei 4, which is August 1992. It does not give the day of the month. Supplementary Provisions Art. 1 of the Act leaves the day to a cabinet order, and that order is not in the e-Gov current-law database, so the exact date is not stated on this page.
A page built almost entirely out of article numbers asks real patience, more so when the provisions are written in a language the reader does not have. Our thanks to everyone who gave this one the time it took to reach the end of it.