Japan passes law treating crypto as a financial product, cutting tax to about 20%

Japan's upper house has passed amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, the country's main securities law, in July 2026. The effect is that crypto in Japan has been reclassified outright.

This is not only a change of wording. It reaches the tax rate, the disclosure duties and the penalties facing service providers.

What the law changes

Crypto in Japan previously sat under the Payment Services Act, which treated it primarily as a means of payment.

The amendment moves it out and makes it a distinct category of financial product, in the same frame as stocks and bonds. Once the category changes, the rules that follow are capital markets rules rather than payments rules.

Tax from 55% down to 20%

The part holders in Japan have waited a long time for is tax. Gains were previously counted as miscellaneous income, taxed on a progressive scale reaching 55%.

The new law sets the rate at about 20%, the same rate applied to securities generally, and allows losses to be carried forward against gains for three years, which was not possible before.

The detail worth reading to the end: the new rate does not arrive until January 2028, not when the law itself takes effect.

The rules that come with it

Once crypto sits alongside securities, securities rules follow it. The law adds prohibitions on insider trading and requires certain issuers to file disclosures every year.

On the other side are the penalties for operating without registration. Prison terms rise from 3 years to 10, and fines from 3 million to 10 million yen.

When it takes effect

The bill cleared the upper house in July 2026. Promulgation comes next, and the law takes effect within one year of that. The new tax rate runs on its own timeline, starting January 2028.

The ETF question, still unconfirmed

Japan Exchange Group is reported to be targeting the first listings of crypto-backed ETFs as early as 2027. As things stand, approval of a bitcoin ETF is not confirmed, so this belongs in the column marked target rather than fact.

How it looks from here

Japanese law has no direct effect on holders here, but the direction matches what several countries are doing: pulling crypto inside the capital markets perimeter rather than leaving it in a category of its own.

What always arrives alongside is rules. Once an asset enters a regulated system, it comes with requirements about who you trade through, what has to be disclosed and how it is taxed.

Holding an asset yourself remains a separate matter from holding it through an intermediary. Keeping the private key means nobody can freeze or restrict access to it, and it also means the holder carries the whole responsibility for keeping it safe.

Common questions

Does the 20% rate help anyone outside Japan? No. It applies to taxpayers in Japan. Anyone with a tax obligation elsewhere remains under their own country's rules.

Does this make trading in Japan easier or harder? For registered operators it becomes clearer, because the framework is now defined. For anyone operating without registration the penalties are considerably heavier.

Why does the tax change wait until 2028? The law sets the timeline for the tax rate separately from the date the legislation comes into force. They are two different clocks.

Buying in Thailand

Whatever each country's rules turn into, moving assets off an exchange and into a hardware wallet is still the step that puts the private key directly in the holder's hands.

SIAMBC has been an authorized distributor in Thailand since 2016. Everything is new and factory sealed, delivery is free nationwide, and there is a shop in Bangkok for anyone who wants to see a device before deciding.