Japan's main long-term fixed mortgage has repriced sharply this year. Flat 35 is a fixed-rate home loan offered by private lenders in partnership with the Japan Housing Finance Agency (JHF), the state-backed housing lender, and the rate stays the same for the whole term. According to JHF, the most common rate for a Flat 35 loan of 21 to 35 years with a loan of up to 90% of the property price is 3.83% for loans paid out in October 2026. Lenders offering the product quoted between 3.83% and 5.84%. The same loan carried a lowest rate of 3.46% in September, 2.49% in April and 1.89% in October 2025, according to JHF's published rate history, so the cheapest Flat 35 rate has more than doubled in twelve months.

The October figure stands well above anything in JHF's comparable series. Since October 2017, JHF has published rates that include its standard group credit life insurance, which pays off the loan if the borrower dies. On that basis, the lowest Flat 35 rate stayed below 2% in every month from October 2017 to December 2025. It first crossed that level in January 2026, at 2.08%, and has gone up in seven of the nine monthly resets since. Shorter and higher-leverage versions moved in step. The most common rate on Flat 20, the version for terms of 20 years or less, is 3.51%, and a 35-year loan above 90% of the price costs 3.94%. JHF also runs a points-based discount for certain households and energy-efficient homes, and at the level it illustrates on its site, the rate for the first five years falls by 1 percentage point to 2.83%.

The move has come alongside a steep climb in Japanese government borrowing costs. Ministry of Finance data show the 10-year government bond yield closed at 3.111% on 7 October 2026, the highest close in the ministry's series since 27 August 1996. It was 3.027% on 9 October, compared with 1.697% on 10 October 2025. Short-term policy has also tightened. The Bank of Japan's Policy Board voted 7-2 on 18 September to guide the overnight call rate to around 1.25%, effective from 24 September.

A worked example shows the effect on a monthly payment. On an illustrative 50,000,000 yen loan repaid over 35 years, a 1.89% rate gives a payment of about 162,800 yen a month, 3.46% gives about 205,500 yen and 3.83% gives about 216,300 yen. That is about 10,800 yen a month more than in September and about 53,500 yen more than a year ago, an increase of roughly a third. These figures come from a standard repayment formula and leave out lender fees, so they are not a quote from any lender.

For a buyer who earns in another currency, a weaker yen has softened part of that rise. On the European Central Bank's reference rates, one US dollar bought 152.11 yen on 13 October 2025 and 158.60 yen on 12 October 2026, which means the yen lost about 4% against the dollar over the year. Measured in dollars, the payment in the example above rose by about 27% rather than a third. Measured in Singapore dollars, which also gained against the yen, the rise was about 26%. The payment in yen is fixed for the life of a Flat 35 loan, but its cost in any other currency moves with the exchange rate each month.

The JHF figures are rates reported by participating lenders, and each lender sets its own rate and fees. They are not broken out for buyers who live outside Japan. JHF updates Flat 35 rates on the first business day of each month, and the rate that applies is the one for the month the loan is paid out, not the month of application. Recent Tokyo resale prices are covered in Tokyo used condos and October foreign-buyer paperwork, and central bank moves are tracked on Rate decisions.

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Sources

Sources read 13 October 2026 (SGT).