Japan Govt to Adopt Stopgap Budget on Friday

Jiji Press

11:54 JST, March 26, 2026

Tokyo, March 26 (Jiji Press)—The Japanese government plans to submit a stopgap budget to the Diet, the country’s parliament, on Friday to cover expenditures for the first several days of the next fiscal year beginning Wednesday, government officials said Thursday.

The government informed ruling and opposition parties of the plan at a meeting of directors of the steering committee of the House of Representatives, the lower Diet chamber.

The provisional budget will feature about ¥8.6 trillion in general-account spending. The government and ruling coalition aim to get it through the Diet as early as Monday.

The stopgap budget comes as the Diet is unlikely to enact a regular budget plan for fiscal 2026 by the end of the current fiscal year on Tuesday. It is the first stopgap budget in 15 years.

The provisional budget will cover necessary expenditures for the 11 days through April 11, such as tax allocations to local governments and social security spending.

The fiscal 2026 regular budget will automatically take effect on April 12 even if it does not clear the House of Councillors, the upper Diet chamber, due to the constitutional preeminence of the Lower House, which has already passed the budget.