For that household, an empty house is useful only if the location, condition and total cost work. Kyoto is preparing a tax intended to bring more unused housing into use. The city’s explanation of the policy identifies the departure of people aged 25–39 and children aged 0–4 to neighbouring municipalities as a concern, and links it to housing costs. That is the city’s diagnosis and rationale for action; the tax has not yet demonstrated that it can reverse the movement.
Japan has no shortage of vacant dwellings in aggregate. The official 2025 statistical handbook reports about nine million in the 2023 housing survey, a vacancy rate of 13.8%. That count includes apartment units. It does not mean nine million abandoned detached houses are available to buy, or that they are where people need to live. The distinction between stock and access also runs through Poland’s housing geography. Kyoto’s proposed charge addresses a narrower problem: owners retaining housing that nobody uses as a main home.
Keeping a home unused will carry an extra cost
Kyoto’s current implementation page schedules the tax for fiscal 2030. The start has been postponed by a year because of system development. Its geographic scope is the city’s designated urbanisation area, rather than all of Kyoto Prefecture. An empty home can be well maintained and still fall within the policy; a second home can also qualify. The relevant question is whether someone actually uses it as their habitual residence.
Exemptions and relief complicate the picture. Low assessed building values can put properties outside the charge. Declared business use or marketing for sale or rent can qualify for exemptions subject to conditions. Temporary absences, including hospital treatment and care, can receive relief. The city distinguishes homes deliberately kept unused from some situations in which an owner cannot currently live there. This is not a charge on every dark window.
The intended incentive is straightforward. Keeping a qualifying home unused would acquire an additional recurring cost. That could encourage an owner to sell, let it or find another qualifying use sooner. It does not establish how many owners will respond, or whether asking prices will fall. Nor does an exemption for business use necessarily produce another home for a resident family.
Neyagawa, in Osaka Prefecture, is pursuing a related approach. Its city explanation, updated in September 2026, says an ordinance passed on 9 July and sets a fiscal 2029 start as the aim, subject to ministerial consent and other procedures. The proposed charge targets qualifying unoccupied housing kept off the sale or rental market. Neyagawa describes a compact city with limited room for large new residential developments; using existing homes is part of its plan to attract and retain residents.
These are local attempts to change the owner’s decision, rather than a national remedy for population decline. A holding charge cannot create a job, a bus route or a prospective tenant in a place where those are missing. The wider issue of access to services and employment in smaller towns remains. In a city with demand, however, keeping an otherwise usable home out of circulation is a more plausible target for a financial incentive.
Getting a buyer through the door takes more work
An owner may also have reasons for delay that an annual charge cannot resolve alone. Kyoto’s vacant-home advice service deals with inheritance, multiple heirs, the condition of a building and the difficulty of finding a tenant. Establishing who can agree to a sale and assessing repairs are practical tasks. A property can be offered to the market while still requiring substantial work before anyone moves in.
The housing bank helps connect owners with people who want to buy or rent, using registered property professionals and city-trained advisers. The city reports 282 sales or rentals resulting from adviser consultations in fiscal 2025. These transactions took place before the proposed tax. They show that assistance already helps bring homes back into use; they cannot be counted as evidence that the future charge works.
R8-25 shows what that assistance has to match. The household’s approximate ¥30 million budget includes renovation, so the asking price is only part of the calculation. A cheap purchase needing extensive repairs may be a poor fit. So may a sound house beyond the requested walk to transport. The request is one example, rather than a representative survey, but it is a useful check on the assumption that getting more homes listed will automatically make them accessible.
Finance remains another constraint. Neither a tax on the owner nor a matching service guarantees that a buyer can fund the purchase and repairs. The relationship between home ownership and a long financial commitment still applies. The planned charge does not set an affordable sale price or cap a future rent.
The outcomes to watch will therefore be occupied homes and the terms on which people obtain them, alongside the number of listings. Some owners may respond to a tax while buyers still find the resulting properties too expensive or unsuitable. Kyoto’s existing advice and matching work addresses part of that gap. For the household behind R8-25, the result that matters is a usable home near transport, with renovation included in a budget it can afford.
Cover illustration generated for this article. It does not depict a property listed in Kyoto’s housing bank.
