BoJ data: Japan invested 8.4 trillion yen abroad in Q2, while foreign firms pulled out on net

Serguey Asael Shinder11 October 2026, 09:393 min read

The Bank of Japan released its breakdown of direct investment by region and industry for the second quarter of 2026 on 8 October. The tables show money moving in two different directions: Japanese companies kept investing heavily abroad, while foreign direct investors, taken together, withdrew more from Japan than they put in. All figures below are from the BoJ's flow tables, in units of 100 million yen, converted to trillions.

Outward: 8.44 trillion yen. By region, North America took the most, about 3.31 trillion yen, followed by Asia (2.26 trillion) and Europe (1.98 trillion), with Central and South America at 0.51 trillion. Within Asia, ASEAN accounted for 0.95 trillion; within Europe, the EU for 1.22 trillion. By industry, non-manufacturing dominated at 6.38 trillion yen against 2.06 trillion for manufacturing. The single largest line was finance and insurance, 2.80 trillion yen, about 1.08 trillion of it into North America and 1.06 trillion into Asia. Construction (0.71 trillion, nearly all North America) and communications (0.59 trillion, likewise mostly North America) followed. One manufacturing line ran the other way: transportation equipment recorded a net outflow of about 0.26 trillion yen from North America, offset by investment in Asia and Europe.

Inward: a net 0.58 trillion yen withdrawal. Direct investment into Japan totalled minus 0.58 trillion yen for the quarter. The negative came from Europe (about −0.46 trillion; the EU alone −0.58 trillion, partly offset by other European countries) and Central and South America (−0.37 trillion); North America added 0.24 trillion and Asia was slightly positive. By industry, the withdrawals sat in manufacturing (−0.58 trillion), notably electric machinery (−0.30 trillion, nearly all attributed to Central and South America) and transportation equipment (−0.27 trillion, mostly Europe), and in wholesale and retail (−0.33 trillion, driven by Europe). Finance and insurance, by contrast, drew a net 0.13 trillion in, most of it from North America.

Reading it correctly. The BoJ's notes carry three warnings that matter:

• Items with fewer than three reports are suppressed as X, so sector rows do not add up to the totals.
• Regional figures are sums of individual countries, and the world total is not always equal to the sum of regions at industry level.
• These tables record investment by a subsidiary into its parent as a withdrawal by the parent (the directional principle). They therefore do not match the direct investment figures in Japan's balance of payments, which are compiled gross on the assets-and-liabilities principle.

That last point is why a single quarter's negative inward number should not be read as foreign companies leaving Japan in general: one or two large transactions — a divestment, a repayment of intra-group lending, a parent receiving funds from a Japanese subsidiary — can produce it. The tables do not identify the transactions, and this note does not speculate about them or about any effect on the yen.

Source: Bank of Japan, Direct Investment by Region and Industry (2nd quarter 2026), released 8 October 2026 — https://www.boj.or.jp/en/statistics/br/bop_06/bpdata/diiqcy.htm ; flow tables — https://www.boj.or.jp/en/statistics/br/bop_06/bpdata/dif262q.xlsx