New rules, public consultations, subsidies and regulator actions in Japan, in English.
Eleven more banks join the National Police Agency's online framework for tracing and freezing scam money from October 1, taking it to 20, but the agency reports no results from the June start.
The government decided on 29 September to use reserve funds to begin groundwork for a consumption-tax cut, covering register upgrades and municipal tax-system changes, while the finance minister declined to discuss yen or bond-yield levels.
The Immigration Services Agency wants to drop a Designated Activities category for visiting foreign students who lecture in Japanese schools, citing zero new entrants since 2018 and zero residents since 2020.
Applicants to the third round of the SME Growth Acceleration Subsidy must already have a published "¥10bn declaration", a step the JGrants listing says usually takes two to three weeks.
The FSA panel that accepted a Niigata credit-union merger plan asked for clearer loan, rate and cost assumptions and a hard look at branch costs; the plan still projects a core loss through March 2032.
Six conditions would join the health ministry's list of designated intractable diseases as entries 349 to 354, with the changes set to apply from April 2028; public comment closes on October 29.
A Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism draft, open for comment until 27 October, asks local governments to consider setting building-use fees below market at the start of a landscape regeneration project and recovering the discount later.
Japan's justice and health ministries revoked an Osaka cooperative's licence to supervise technical interns, citing false audit reports, and the Immigration Services Agency and health ministry cancelled training plans at 16 employers on 29 September 2026.
Two Niigata credit unions plan to ask for ¥416.4mn towards ¥916.1mn of merger costs after the Financial Services Agency approved their plan, which targets a 24 November 2026 merger and projects continued losses.
Chubu Electric said some Hamaoka units 1 and 2 decommissioning work may have been misreported and billed; METI found somewhat more cases than expected and reissued its reporting order on 25 September, with the minister promising the strictest response.
The JFTC found a Tokyo air-blast equipment maker paid 46 subcontractors late, by missing the 60-day limit, issuing bills and using electronic claims, worth ¥74.97mn in total, and recommended it pay the balance plus 14.6% interest after ¥64.93mn was paid by August.
JBIC, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Joyo Bank will co-finance a loan of up to $27mn to Vietnam's VPBank, with about $14mn from JBIC, for a Ho Chi Minh City transmission project.
Japan's Financial Services Agency has replaced IFRS 14 with IFRS 20 on regulatory assets and liabilities in its designated standards and moved the IASB publication cutoff to June 30, 2026, effective September 29.
Cabinet approved ¥111.87bn from the reserve on 29 September to prepare the food consumption tax cut and a worker relief payment scheme, with ¥78.11bn going through METI and most of that to the SME support agency.
Japan's export-credit bank is putting up ¥420mn of a ¥600mn syndicated loan with Resona Bank so a 1960-founded Osaka steel-wire maker can build a factory through its new Vietnamese subsidiary.
Japan's New Energy Foundation will fund the full cost of feasibility studies for municipalities planning PFI-run hydropower plants, but private developers get only half, capped at ¥20mn per site a year, with applications due October 28, 2026.
From October 1, financial institutions in Japan gain a third standard form for reporting cyberattack-related personal data breaches to regulators, one that can also cover breaches caused by system failures, under an updated Financial Services Agency Q&A.
Tokyo's communications ministry, through secretariat Dentsu, will cover up to half the cost of 4K or VFX-heavy live-action production, capped at ¥150mn, but applicants must already hold the content's overseas sales channel and keep filing revenue reports for five years starting from the fiscal year the project is completed.
Japan's land ministry has drafted enforcement-rule paperwork for a new structural-type certification, created by a companion Cabinet Order, that lets makers of load-bearing building materials seek certification too, alongside a narrower daylighting exemption for certain senior day-care centers, with the public-comment window closing October 26, 2026 ahead of a November 1 effective date.
Japan's competition authority is teaming with the transport ministry and the country's small-business agency to run block-by-block liaison councils and joint shipper patrols enforcing the law against delayed payments to subcontractors, months before a separate rule covering shipper conduct takes effect in April 2027.
Japan's Fair Trade Commission ordered ¥1.64bn in surcharges against dozens of Kanto condominium renovation contractors and cease-and-desist orders against two design consultancies that orchestrated the bid-rigging, with HASEKO's repair subsidiary facing a ¥329.4mn penalty as its chairman steps down.
Japan's trade ministry would make companies pursuing supply-crunch measures under its critical-materials subsidy program spell out how they'd handle supply counterparties and end-uses when a material runs short, on top of the existing response menu.
A draft Cabinet Order would extend the verification seal on electromagnetic and ultrasonic water meters from eight to ten years, easing one cost that regulators flagged as a barrier to smart-meter adoption, while impeller meters keep the shorter cycle.
Japan's Financial Services Agency warns that a payment system unable to run around the clock risks deeper reliance on foreign rails, and a new forum must deliver an interim policy summary on stablecoins, tokenization and AI-era supervision by early 2027.