After seeing continuous increases in foreign tourist arrivals to Japan for 4 years, for the 1st time since then, January 2026 saw a drop in overall foreign arrivals after previously increasing every month since June 2022. It is also the 1st month of year-on-year negative growth since January 2022 when Japan was still impacted by COVID-19-related restrictions on international travel.
There were a total of 3,597,500 international visitors, which was down 4.9% from January 2025, representing the largest single-month decline of the month of January since November 2022.
The largest contributor to the decline in visitors was a decrease of close to 61% of visitors from China compared to January 2025. The rise in tension between Japan and China continues, such as in late 2025, when PM Sanae Takaichi’s comments regarding Taiwan’s future created further tension with China, resulting in Chinese authorities further urging their citizens not to visit Japan, particularly around the time of Lunar New Year.
By the end of 2025, China visitors to Japan began exhibiting trouble signs. In November 2025 there was approximately a 3% year over year increase in Chinese visitors to Japan. By December however, Chinese arrivals dropped 45.3% from December arrivals the previous year. This is the first time since the beginning of 2022 that there has been a year over year decline in visitor numbers. This downward trend continued into January 2026.
Adding additional pressure to this situation was the announcement from three of the biggest carriers from mainland China that they will allow free cancellations for flights to Japan until October 24, 2023. This does not provide for a strong probability of a short term recovery.
As of January 22, South Korea remains Japan’s largest source market for international visitors with 1,176,000 visitors, solidly up +21.6% from January 2021 (+264,000). Taiwan has the second largest source market with 694,500 visitors (+14.9% from 2021 (+81,500)), while only 385,300 visitors travelled from China, a large decline compared to the former country as a source market for visitors.
In the year from January, 2022, to January, 2023, there was an increase in the number of visitors to virtually every market except China (-17.9%), Hong Kong (-3.3%), and Malaysia (-3.3%).
While the Lunar New Year took place in late January 2022, it was in mid-February in 2023. As such, there would be some creep between the two months in terms of travel behavior and travel to some extent will have pushed some of the February travel into January’s totals; thus some of the decline can be attributed to when the holiday falls rather than how many people visited Japan.
China has represented a major share of Japan’s economy for many years based on travelers from that country. Chinese travelers have represented approximately 60% of the numbers of traveling to Japan and have accounted for a significant portion ($2B+) of the retail sales made to foreign visitors in Japan; thus, the decrease in Chinese travelers will undoubtedly impact total monthly numbers.
There are many things that influence what is, and will be, the Character, Form, and Value of Tourist Activity between two countries, including the Political environment in both countries, Public’s perception on either country, Airline regulations pertaining to travel between these two countries, and Travel Advisories issued by the country of Japan (A.K.A. U.S. State Department).
As such, People will generally respond to government travel warnings, especially on major Holidays such as the Lunar New Year. Therefore, based on Visitor Numbers alone, Japan appears to be in a period of momentous growth (as opposed to being an isolated tourist destination). However, we can point to January 2026 as being a definitive moment when tourism from China will no longer be subject to a turning point (i.e., devistation).
