Tokyo: The number of foreign visitors to Japan reached a record 42.7 million in 2025, surpassing the 40 million mark for the first time and rising from 36,870,148 the previous year, Tourism Minister Yasushi Kaneko announced Tuesday. Spending by overseas travelers also climbed to an all-time high, increasing about 16 percent to approximately 9.5 trillion yen.
According to Philippines News Agency, Kaneko said the surge was driven largely by the yen's continued weakness against major currencies, allowing Japan to set a new tourism record for the second consecutive year after exceeding its pre-pandemic peak in 2024. During 2025, the number of visitors from Hong Kong temporarily declined due to the spread of rumors on social media that a major earthquake could occur in Japan. However, the numbers were supported by efforts to attract visitors from a wide range of countries and regions.
The total number of visitors from 12 countries, including the United States, European countries, and Australia, rose by about 20 percent to more than 7 million. In December alone, the number of visitors from China plunged about 45 percent from a year earlier to about 330,000, following the Chinese government's request for its citizens to refrain from traveling to Japan amid bilateral tensions over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks about a potential Taiwan contingency.
China was the largest source of visitors to Japan between January and November. But due to the December plunge, China fell to second place behind South Korea in the full-year tallies. The annual number of visitors from China still rose 30 percent to some 9.1 million. Tax-free sales at department stores in Japan have also dropped, raising concerns ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday in February.
Japan aims to boost the annual number of foreign visitors to 60 million and their total spending to 15 trillion yen by 2030, but these targets are considered difficult to achieve. Hiromu Komiya, a Japan Research Institute Ltd. researcher well-versed in tourism industry trends, predicted that the annual visitor tally will only reach about 50 million due to a slow increase in Japan's accommodation capacity, as well as labor shortages in the tourism industry. "We cannot be optimistic amid worsening Japan-China relations," Komiya said. "This year could be a year of hardship."
