Japan's departure tax allocates 6 billion yen to bear countermeasures, Asahi reports

The International Tourist Tax is a flat charge added to international air and sea tickets and paid by all departing travellers regardless of nationality. The Asahi Shimbun reviewed the fiscal 2026 initial budget to trace where the extra revenue went.

Until the July increase, departure tax proceeds went mainly to tourism promotion and to digitising immigration and customs procedures.

Bear countermeasures are the largest item among those the Asahi listed. The programme's budget rose 6.1 billion yen year on year to 6.2 billion yen, and 6 billion yen of that is covered by departure tax revenue. Bears have been encroaching on residential areas in Japan since last year, and the programme pays for trapping and ecological surveys. The entire 600 million yen newly allocated for measures against invasive pests damaging sakura and other trees also comes from the levy.

Smaller lines on the same ledger include 130 million yen for a cultural property restoration centre, 170 million yen for a facility to preserve original manga artwork and 62 million yen for design work on an exhibition building for murals from the Takamatsuzuka Tomb in Nara Prefecture. The Asahi questioned whether that spending answers to the tax's tourism purpose, noting that bear damage falls mainly on residents and that damage from the Japanese pine sawyer beetle appears to have no connection to inbound tourists.

The money and who pays it

Revenue from the tax is expected to rise 81 billion yen to 130 billion yen in fiscal 2026. The government is putting 16.4 billion yen of the increase into cutting passport fees, by as much as 7,000 yen for applications submitted on or after 1 July. That cut was meant to answer criticism that the higher levy raises the cost of international travel for Japanese citizens. After the offset, 64.6 billion yen of the extra revenue is effectively borne almost entirely by foreign travellers, according to the Asahi.

The International Tourist Tax Law, in force since January 2019, limits use of the proceeds mainly to attracting visitors and improving the tourism environment.

Why the budget shifted

A Finance Ministry official told the Asahi the money went to domestic needs. The government had pushed ahead with free education and the abolition of the provisional gasoline tax rate without securing dedicated funding sources, the official said. Bear projects had previously been paid from general revenue and became eligible for departure tax money only after the July increase.

Environment Ministry officials gave the paper a tourism link for each line. One said foreign visitors could also be victims of bear attacks. Another said many foreign visitors come to Japan to see cherry blossoms.

A Cultural Affairs Agency official made the same case for the restoration centre, telling the Asahi that promoting Japan's culture of restoration also benefits foreign visitors.

Hideaki Tanaka, a professor of public finance at Meiji University, told the Asahi that foreign travellers may question the use of departure tax revenue for projects with only a limited connection to tourism promotion. He added that broadening the range of eligible projects could blur the tax's original purpose under the law.

The target the tax is meant to serve

The government wants annual foreign visitors to rise from more than 40 million in 2025 to 60 million by 2030. It says the departure tax increase pays for overtourism measures and other tourism initiatives. Japan welcomed a record 42.7 million international visitors in 2025, up 15.8% on the previous year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. The March basic plan also targets 15 trillion yen in annual inbound spending and 250,000 yen per overseas visitor by 2030.