Many Japanese municipalities will pay part of the cost of buying, renovating, or moving into an empty home. The problem is that this money is scattered across hundreds of separate municipal pages, almost all of it in Japanese, with no central list. No English-language site publishes it as a comparable table. So we did.
We matched 130 subsidy programmes across 43 municipalities in our catalogue and ranked them. This is the league table of which towns pay the most to turn an akiya into a home.
The headline numbers
- 43 municipalities in the catalogue offer at least one matched subsidy programme.
- 130 programmes in total, an average of three per town.
- 40 of the 43 publish a specific maximum grant amount; the other three describe a formula or a case-by-case figure.
- The programmes span 9 categories: renovation, acquisition, migration and relocation, demolition, seismic retrofit, child-family migration, registration incentives, and others.
- The single largest headline cap is 5,000,000 yen, in Osaki, Kagoshima.
The league table (top municipalities by maximum grant)
The ranking is by the largest single headline cap a town publishes. Amounts are the maximums exactly as stated on the municipal source; real awards depend on eligibility and are often lower. Always confirm current terms with the issuing town before you rely on them.
| Rank | Municipality | Prefecture | Programmes | Largest headline cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Osaki | Kagoshima | 7 | 5,000,000 yen |
| 2 | Nagashima | Kagoshima | 3 | 3,330,000 yen |
| 3 | Kameoka | Kyoto | 4 | 3,000,000 yen |
| 3 | Kyoto | Kyoto | 1 | 3,000,000 yen |
| 5 | Yosano | Kyoto | 6 | 2,200,000 yen |
| 6 | Nishinoomote | Kagoshima | 4 | 2,000,000 yen |
| 6 | Akune | Kagoshima | 3 | 2,000,000 yen |
| 6 | Fukuchiyama | Kyoto | 3 | 2,000,000 yen |
| 6 | China | Kagoshima | 2 | 2,000,000 yen |
| 6 | Satsuma | Kagoshima | 2 | 2,000,000 yen |
The towns with the most programmes
A big single cap is not the whole story. Some towns stack many smaller programmes, so a buyer can combine acquisition, renovation, and relocation support. The most programme-rich towns in the catalogue:
| Municipality | Prefecture | Programmes | Categories covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Osaki | Kagoshima | 7 | acquisition, demolition, migration, renovation |
| Kimotsuki | Kagoshima | 7 | acquisition, demolition, registration, renovation, seismic retrofit |
| Isa | Kagoshima | 6 | demolition, migration, renovation, seismic retrofit, other |
| Izumi | Kagoshima | 6 | acquisition, demolition, migration, renovation |
| Ichikikushikino | Kagoshima | 6 | acquisition, demolition, registration, relocation, renovation |
| Yosano | Kyoto | 6 | migration, relocation, renovation, registration, child migration |
Osaki appears at the top of both tables: it has both the largest single cap and, tied, the most programmes. If you are optimising purely for public money, it is the standout town in this catalogue.
What the money is for
The nine programme categories are worth understanding, because they target very different buyers:
- Renovation: the classic grant, paying part of the cost of making an old house livable.
- Acquisition: help with the purchase itself.
- Migration and relocation: paid for moving your residence into the town, often the largest amounts.
- Child migration: extra money for families with children, a demographic lever.
- Demolition: for tearing down a house too far gone to save.
- Seismic retrofit: specifically for bringing a pre-1981 building up to modern earthquake standards.
- Registration incentives: small payments for listing a vacant home in the municipal bank.
Methodology
We aggregated every subsidy programme in the Engawa subsidy store that names a specific municipality, as of the data snapshot on 8 July 2026, and grouped them by town. Prefectural and national programmes (which apply regardless of town) are excluded from this municipality ranking; they still surface per listing on the site.
Amounts are the maximum headline figures exactly as published on each municipal source page. They are ceilings, not guarantees: real awards depend on eligibility, budget, and the specific work done, and are frequently lower than the cap. A programme with no numeric ceiling (a formula or a case-by-case note) counts toward a town's programme total but not toward the cap ranking, so we never invent a number to fill a cell. The figures are reproduced by a committed analysis script (`backend/seo/research_stats.py`).
Every programme on the site links to its official municipal source, and each town's subsidy page states when we last checked it. Related reading: our guide on akiya renovation subsidies and what akiya renovation really costs, plus the subsidy directory by municipality.