Short answer: Nagano's akiya listings are spread over three places: the prefecture's own portal, Rakuen Shinshu Akiya Bank (楽園信州空き家バンク), the nationwide At Home akiya bank, and the separate pages of individual towns and villages. None of the Nagano portals reviewed for this guide offers an English interface, so in practice you search in Japanese with browser translation switched on, using three words: 空き家バンク (akiya bank), 売買 (sale) and 賃貸 (rental). The relocation money on offer is mostly aimed at people who already live in the Tokyo area, Aichi or Osaka, and nationality is not discussed on the official pages — so confirm eligibility with the town. The two checks that matter most in Nagano are the landslide warning map and the snow load the roof was designed for.
1. Rakuen Shinshu Akiya Bank / Akichi Bank. The portal at rakuen-akiya.jp is run jointly by Nagano Prefecture, municipalities and the Nagano Real Estate Transaction Association (長野県宅地建物取引業協会). It lists used houses for sale, rental houses, vacant land and some commercial rentals. When the page was reviewed on 4 October 2026 it showed 667 used houses for sale, 35 rental houses, 261 plots of land and 52 commercial rentals; those numbers move daily, so treat them as a sense of scale rather than a fact to quote. The search form has lifestyle filters such as a vegetable garden or farmland attached (畑付き) and traditional farmhouse style (古民家). A useful design detail: before you open the property information, the site asks you to look at the flood and landslide hazard maps, and links to them.
2. At Home's national akiya bank. The national akiya and vacant-land bank run by At Home (one of two operators commissioned by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) has a page per prefecture. Nagano's purchase listings are at akiya-athome.jp/buy/20/ and rentals at /rent/20/; "20" is Nagano's prefecture code. On 4 October 2026 the Nagano purchase page showed 95 properties. This site is organised by municipality, which makes it a quick way to see which towns actually have listings. Shizuoka Prefecture's official akiya page also names LIFULL HOME'S as the other national akiya bank, so a search there is worth repeating.
3. Town and village pages. Many Nagano municipalities publish listings and subsidy rules on their own sites, and the prefecture's portal links to them. The town page is the primary source for conditions: the portal tells you a house exists, the town tells you who may buy it and what you must promise.
How these fit together is explained in our guide to akiya bank conditions for foreigners; the short version is that the municipality introduces and the private owner sells.
Nagano's page on its UIJ-turn employment and start-up relocation support (prefectural page, fiscal 2026) says the money is for people who move from the Tokyo area (Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa), Aichi or Osaka. Applications are made through the municipality you move to, within one year of moving, and the page warns that repayment may be demanded if you leave the municipality within five years. The national framework behind this is described by the Cabinet Office (地方創生 移住支援金): up to ¥1,000,000 for a household and ¥600,000 for a single person, with up to ¥1,000,000 more per child under 18, subject to prefecture and municipality rules and to working in a registered job, teleworking or starting a business. Neither page says anything about nationality or visa status. And because the main condition is five years of previous residence in the designated areas, a buyer moving from overseas would not meet it as written. Ask the municipality before you plan around it.
Renovation money is municipal, and it varies. Nagano City's migrant akiya renovation subsidy (移住者空き家改修等補助金, fiscal 2026 page) is a useful example of the structure: up to ¥500,000 for renovation in the urbanisation area and up to ¥1,000,000 elsewhere, an extra ¥200,000 per child aged 15 or under or per pregnancy (the page gives a ¥600,000 ceiling for the additions), and separate money for disposing of the previous owner's belongings. The conditions are as important as the amounts: the property must be one registered with the city's akiya bank, the applicant must have lived outside Nagano Prefecture for the preceding three years, the age limit is 18–59, and work must start within four years of the contract. The page does not mention nationality. Other towns have different rules, so treat these figures as an illustration, not a prefecture-wide entitlement.
Narrowing down a Nagano shortlist? An Akiya Check report puts the landslide, flood, elevation and zoning data for the exact address into one English report (emailed; PDF on request), and flags what needs a follow-up question to the agent. Compare 3 does the same for three candidate houses side by side.
Single report $49 · Compare 3 $99 Free 12-point checklistNagano is a mountain prefecture, so slope risk is a standard question for any address. The prefecture publishes landslide warning zones (土砂災害警戒区域) and special warning zones (特別警戒区域) online in the Shinshu Sabo Information Map and explains how to check them on its landslide hazard page. The prefecture stresses that for an official determination you should look at the drawings at the Sabo Division (026-235-7315), the local construction office or the municipality. A warning zone is not an automatic reason to walk away, but it changes your questions: what is above the house, is there a retaining wall (see our retaining wall guide), and where is the nearest evacuation shelter?
Typhoon Hagibis (令和元年東日本台風) hit Nagano on 10–13 October 2019. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency's Nagano office (disaster summary), three-hour rainfall reached 93.5 mm at Saku and 100.0 mm at Kitaaiki, and the Chikuma River levee broke at Honbo in Nagano City, flooding homes. The practical point for buyers is that a valley-floor house can be far from the mountain and still be on the river's flood path. Read the flood depth layer on the national hazard map for the address, and ask the agent which flood scenario the municipal map uses.
For lots on former paddies or river plains, use the liquefaction layers described in our liquefaction guide. Mountain-side lots call for the retaining wall and cliff checks, and any house on a cut-and-fill housing estate should be checked against the large-scale fill map.
Roof snow load is calculated, not guessed. The prefecture's building standards page (構造計算における各基準値) states that the design snow depth is calculated with the formula d = α × al × c + β × rs + γ, where "al" is the altitude of the building site and "c" and "rs" are municipality-specific values. In some areas, including the northern Shinshu (Hokushin) and Daimon areas, the governor sets the value separately. Two houses ten kilometres apart can therefore be designed for very different loads. For a pre-1981 house the seismic question matters too; see our pre-1981 guide.
Ask the winter questions in writing. Who clears the roof and the driveway, and is there a local contractor? Is there a heating system that works at the lowest local temperatures, or only fireplaces? Has the water supply been drained in winter, and does the municipal waterworks publish freeze-prevention advice for a house left empty? Nagano's municipal waterworks departments (水道課) are the right place to ask. Whether the water comes from the public network or a private well or village system affects both cost and winter risk.
Septic and propane are common in rural areas. Houses outside sewer areas use a septic tank (see the jokaso running-cost guide), and heating oil or propane may replace city gas. Ask for the last inspection records.
The prefecture's Rakuen Shinshu akiya bank (rakuen-akiya.jp) is shown in Japanese only on the pages reviewed for this guide. In practice you search it with browser translation, using the Japanese terms 空き家バンク, 売買 (sale) and 賃貸 (rental), and confirm anything important with the municipality or the listing agent.
The prefecture's page does not say anything about nationality or residence status, and the main conditions concern where you lived before moving (the Tokyo area, Aichi or Osaka), your job after moving and staying for five years. Someone moving from overseas would not meet the origin requirement as written, so ask the municipality before assuming anything.
Not automatically. A warning zone (土砂災害警戒区域) means landslides could threaten life or property, and a special warning zone (特別警戒区域) adds building restrictions for new construction. Check the Shinshu Sabo Information Map for the exact lot, then ask about evacuation routes, retaining walls and the slope above the house.
Nagano calculates the design snow depth from the building site's altitude and municipality-specific coefficients, and some northern areas have values set separately by the governor. The figure for a specific address comes from the prefecture's building standards page or the local construction office, not from a general rule.
It depends on the municipality. Many akiya banks exist to attract permanent residents and ask buyers to join the neighbourhood association; some state that holiday or seasonal use is not intended. Ask the akiya bank office in writing before you apply.
Have a specific listing in mind? Get the official zoning, hazard and transaction data for that exact lot — plus the questions to send the agent — in one report.
Get a $49 risk report Free 12-point checklistThis guide is general information based on public sources cited above. It is not legal, tax, or real-estate brokerage advice. Confirm every item for a specific property with the agent, the municipality, and licensed professionals.