Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released the 2025 vital statistics on June 3, 2026, showing the total fertility rate fell to 1.14, the lowest ever recorded, and has been declining for 10 consecutive years. The number of newborns nationwide in 2025 was 671,236, a decrease of approximately 2.2% from 2024. At the prefectural level, Tokyo had the lowest fertility rate of just 0.96, while Okinawa was the highest at 1.52. The number of deaths was 1,589,489, which decreased from the previous year for the first time in five years, but the gap between births and deaths still means Japan’s population has been in natural decline for 19 consecutive years.
Japan’s population structure continues to concentrate in the Tokyo metropolitan area. As of October 1, 2025, the share of the national population living in the Tokyo area exceeded 30% for the first time. The total national population was 123 million, a decrease of about 3.09 million over five years. The Japanese government has previously designated countermeasures against the declining birthrate as its “most important issue” and has been expanding childcare subsidies and parental leave systems, but the effects have been limited so far, and no turning point in the downward trend in the number of births is in sight.