Why is Japan souring on foreign workers and tourists?

It is a dangerous attitude for an ageing country that needs more immigrants

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Photograph: Getty Images

Jan 5th 2026

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IMABARI, NARA and TOKYO

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6 min read

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NARA, JAPAN’S ancient capital, is known for its temples and for its deer, which are said to be messengers of the gods. Recently these beloved cervids have become embroiled in a very earthly mess. During her campaign last year to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Takaichi Sanae, a Nara native and now Japan’s prime minister, declared that foreign visitors had been kicking the sacred animals. “Don’t you think something has gone too far?” she railed.

There is no evidence that tourists have been beating up deer. But Ms Takaichi’s speech, in late September, reflected something real: the alleged threat posed by foreigners, ranging from tourists to migrant workers, has moved to the centre of Japanese politics. The Do It Yourself party (Sanseito), a populist outfit that promises to put “Japanese First”, increased its number of seats from one to 15 in an upper-house election in July. The LDP, wary of losing support from its conservative base, is scrambling to tighten controls on foreigners of all kinds in response. Lately a diplomatic spat with China has begun depressing the number of people coming to Japan from that country—but even this does not seem to have much deterred Japan’s leaders from their course.

Chart: The Economist

Three related trends have fuelled what anxious Japanese have come to call the “foreigner problem”. One is a rise in foreign residents: since 2010 their ranks have doubled to 3.7m. A second is a boom in foreign tourists: a record 36.9m of them visited Japan in 2024, more than four times as many as came in 2010. Third comes the fear that foreign investors are exploiting a weak yen to snap up Japanese property on the cheap. The scale of these purported problems remains small by any international standard. But, as elsewhere, foreigners have become a convenient scapegoat for voters frustrated by inflation and economic stagnation.

To examine what is really going on, start with foreign residents. Their number has risen chiefly because of the need to fill labour shortages. Japan may have to triple its number of foreign workers to nearly 7m by 2040 just to meet a modest target for annual GDP growth of 1.24%, according to JICA, a government agency. Many of the new arrivals have turned up through temporary-worker schemes (Vietnamese, Chinese and Filipinos make up the largest share of workers on these programmes). Other foreigners arrive as students or expat business types. Foreigners can be found working in convenience stores in the cities, and in nursing homes, hotels, shipyards, factories, and rice fields in the countryside. One Ukrainian refugee recently became a sumo champion.

Chart: The Economist

For the moment foreign residents make up only about 3% of Japan’s population. That is a league away from the 15% that is the average among members of the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. Yet instead of emphasising this, LDP politicians insist that the government has “no immigration policy”. That is not very convincing, given that it has plainly been expanding its foreign-worker programmes behind the scenes.

Immigrants’-rights activists say this disjointed approach has impeded much-needed discussions about how to protect and integrate the foreigners that are arriving. The poor messaging has also been a gift to Sanseito; it has been able to depict the influx of foreigners as a sinister “silent invasion”. Japan’s political establishment is now “paying the price for dodging the debate around immigration”, says Torii Ippei of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, a non-profit.

Next, consider foreign tourists. These were nearly absent during the three years in which Japan imposed strict covid-19 border controls. Their numbers have bounced back fast, in part because of concerted efforts to drive up arrivals: in 2016 Abe Shinzo, then prime minister, set a target of 40m annual visitors. The number is likely to have surpassed that in 2025. Tourism has become Japan’s second-largest export, after cars.

The industry still has a long way to grow. France welcomes more than twice as many foreign visitors as Japan, despite having a population only about half as large. Yet the fact that Japan’s visitors tend to concentrate in a handful of locations probably makes the influx seem larger than it is. Footage of bad behaviour often goes viral, such as one recent clip that showed a tourist doing pull-ups on the sacred gate of a shrine. Owners of hotels and shops worry that tensions with China will soon deprive them of Chinese customers—but many other Japanese celebrate this.

Some Japanese resent the fact that a historically weak yen has benefited visitors while driving down their own purchasing power. “When you see rich tourists feasting on 5,000 yen ($30) lunches while you’re making do with a 500-yen bento, it’s hard not to feel bitter,” says Ito Masaaki of Seikei University in Tokyo. And though data is sparse, stories circulate about wealthy foreign investors snapping up property in Japanese cities, driving up prices for everyone.

Ms Takaichi’s administration is mulling a bevy of policies designed to satisfy Japanese who find all of this very worrying. It has created a government body that will handle foreigners who behave badly. Her ruling coalition is talking about imposing hard limits on the number of foreign workers who may enter Japan. It is promising to crack down on those who overstay their visas or fail to pay their health-insurance and pension fees. The LDP is also discussing increasing taxes on tourists, introducing language requirements for permanent residents and perhaps regulating the purchase of property by foreigners.

The party is hoping that curbs such as these will appeal to voters that have deserted it—even if they come at some cost to the economy. It appears to have had some effect. Polls suggest support for Sanseito is falling; backing for the LDP is drifting up. Though various factors explain Ms Takaichi’s popularity, her hardline stance—not just on foreign affairs but also towards foreign residents—is crucial, says Professor Ito.

But in the longer run, an anti-foreigner turn risks setting the LDP further at odds with the many Japanese voters who still take a moderate position on immigration. Japan’s business leaders tend to favour policies aimed at expanding the number of foreign workers. And the governors of Japan’s 47 prefectures, worried by the tone of debates, recently banded together to issue a statement in support of multiculturalism. “Xenophobia must not be tolerated,” said the leader of their association.

Perhaps surprisingly, Japanese from the countryside tend to be more open to newcomers than urbanites. The reason is that labour shortages have hit hardest in rural areas, says Korekawa Yu, a migration specialist at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. “We’ll be in deep trouble if the foreigners stop coming here,” says Mizuno Daisuke, the boss of a fishing co-operative on the island of Shikoku. Half of his employees are Indonesian. “We should only be saying thanks.”

In Nara, Nakanishi Yasuhiro, who represents a deer-preservation organisation, says he was baffled by Ms Takaichi’s claims. Talk of tourists kicking the animals, he explains, was spread by a right-wing YouTuber known for posting misleading videos. Mr Nakanishi patrols the park daily and has never seen such behaviour. “Many foreigners come here, and discover how special this place is. We’re very happy about that.” ■

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5818267&forum_id=2/#49568454)