The World's Empty Homes: A Global Vacancy Atlas

Published on: August 6, 2026

Last verified: 6 August 2026. Definitions of vacancy differ by country; each figure below is labelled with its source and what it counts.

Quick answer: Japan counts 9.0 million vacant homes, a record 13.8% of its stock. Credible estimates for China run from 65 to 90 million empty units. Europe's last comparable census round found about 38 million unoccupied dwellings, including 3.8 million in Spain and around 2 million in Germany. The US counts roughly 15 million vacant units, mostly normal market churn. The homes are real; they are just almost never where the demand is, and many cannot legally or physically be sold at all.

The world is simultaneously living through a housing shortage and sitting on tens of millions of empty homes. Japan counts 9 million vacant houses. Estimates for China run from 65 to 90 million empty units. Spain's census found 3.8 million. The two facts coexist because empty homes are almost never where the demand is, and often cannot legally or physically be sold at all. This page pulls together the best official counts and credible estimates, country by country, and explains why so much housing stands dark.

First, what counts as "empty"

Vacancy statistics are notoriously slippery, and headlines routinely mix three different things:

• Frictional vacancy: homes between tenants or listed for sale. Healthy markets need some of this.
• Second and seasonal homes: occupied a few weeks a year. Some countries count these as vacant, others do not.
• Structural vacancy: homes nobody uses and nobody plans to use. This is the number that matters, and it is the hardest to measure.

Keep those categories in mind; every figure below belongs to one of them.

Japan: 9 million akiya, and rising

Japan has the most precisely measured vacancy problem on Earth. The 2023 Housing and Land Survey, published by the Statistics Bureau in 2024, counted 9.0 million vacant homes out of a total stock of 65 million, a record vacancy rate of 13.8%. The number has doubled since 1993.

The breakdown is what makes Japan's case unique. About 4.4 million of those homes are for rent and 330,000 for sale (ordinary market churn), and 380,000 are second homes. That leaves 3.85 million classified as "other": homes with no plans for rental or sale, effectively abandoned, and this category alone grew by 370,000 in five years.

The geography is stark. Rural prefectures like Wakayama and Tokushima have vacancy rates above 21%, while Tokyo holds the largest absolute number, roughly 968,000 empty homes, at a below-average 10.3% rate. The drivers are demographic: a shrinking population, the world's oldest society, and heirs who moved to the cities decades ago. Perverse incentives help: a long-standing tax rule cuts the land tax on plots with a standing house, so demolishing a worthless building raises the owner's tax bill. Government projections point past 10 million vacant homes by 2030, and one Nomura Research Institute scenario reaches a 30% vacancy rate by 2033 without countermeasures.

We cover what these houses cost, how the municipal "akiya banks" work and what foreign buyers need to know in our dedicated guide to Japan's akiya houses.

China: the biggest unknown number in housing

China publishes no official count of vacant homes, which is itself telling. Widely used expert estimates range from 65 to 80 million empty units, and reporting based on official and industry data has put the total as high as 90 million, including roughly 31 million units that were fully or partially built but never sold. A Goldman Sachs analysis in 2023 put urban vacancy at around 20% of the stock, more than double Japan's rate at the peak of its own bubble era.

The most memorable data point came from inside the system: in 2023, He Keng, a former deputy head of the national statistics bureau, publicly remarked that even China's 1.4 billion people probably could not fill all the vacant homes, while noting the most extreme estimates suggested capacity for far more. The causes are structural: two decades of pre-sale, investment-driven construction; famous "ghost cities" built ahead of demand; unfinished "rotten-tail" projects left by defaulted developers; and shrinking populations in most lower-tier cities, which hold the majority of the inventory.

Europe: 38 million unoccupied, concentrated in the south

The last continent-wide snapshot, built from the 2011 census round, found roughly 38 million unoccupied dwellings across Europe, a figure that includes seasonal and second homes. More recent national counts show the pattern has not gone away:

• Spain: the 2021 census (INE) recorded about 3.8 million empty homes, roughly 14% of the stock, much of it in depopulating inland regions and boom-era coastal developments rather than in Madrid or Barcelona, where the shortage bites.
• Italy: censuses have consistently shown around one in five dwellings without a permanent occupant, a figure inflated by second homes but underpinned by genuinely abandoned villages, the phenomenon behind the famous one-euro sales. See 1-euro homes: how the schemes really work.
• Portugal: the 2021 census counted more than 700,000 vacant dwellings, around 12% of the stock.
• Germany: an estimated 2 million homes stood empty as of 2022, overwhelmingly in shrinking eastern and rural regions while big cities face record shortage.
• OECD comparisons put vacancy above 10% of stock in countries including Hungary, Cyprus, Slovenia and Finland, with Spain, Japan and Portugal highest among countries that exclude holiday homes from their definition.

United States: big number, mostly churn

The US Census Bureau counts roughly 15 million vacant housing units, a gross vacancy rate of around 10%. Most of that is the normal machinery of a huge market: homes for sale, for rent, sold-but-not-occupied, or seasonal. The structural slice concentrates in post-industrial cities and rural counties that lost their economies, the American cousins of Japan's emptying prefectures. Genuinely available-and-affordable vacancy in high-demand metros is tiny, which is why a country with 15 million empty units still has a housing shortage.

Why homes stand empty

Across all these markets, the same handful of causes repeat:

1. People left. Rural depopulation and urban migration are the single biggest driver from Shikoku to Castilla y León to Saxony.
2. Inheritance limbo. Multiple heirs, unclear title or unregistered ownership can freeze a property for decades. This is central in Japan and Southern Europe.
3. Demolition costs more than the building is worth, and in Japan the tax code actively penalizes it.
4. Speculative overbuilding. China's ghost districts and Spain's 2000s coastal boom created stock where demand never arrived.
5. Homes held as safe boxes. In some high-demand cities, apartments are held as stores of value rather than places to live.
6. The stock is unusable. Many "vacant" homes fail modern standards and would cost more to renovate than to replace.

What governments are trying

The policy toolkit is expanding fast: vacancy and second-home taxes (Vancouver, Paris, Ireland and others, and since 2025 Croatia's new annual property tax explicitly reaches vacant homes while exempting occupied ones), Japan's akiya banks and stricter rules on neglected houses, Italy's one-euro programs, and conversion incentives across Europe. Results are mixed; taxes activate some units at the margin, but no tax repopulates a village whose jobs left in 1975. We break down the tax side in second home and empty home taxes.

What this means if you are shopping among the empty homes

Cheap, empty inventory is real, but "vacant" does not mean "available," and it rarely means "bargain" once you look closely:

• Many empty homes are not on the market at all because ownership itself is unresolved. Title verification is the first job, not the last.
• The purchase price is often the smallest number involved; renovation, connection to utilities and compliance can be multiples of it.
• The same forces that emptied a place (no jobs, no services, shrinking population) set your resale market. Buy for use and lifestyle economics, not for capital growth, in structurally emptying areas.

Frequently asked questions

Which country has the most empty homes?
By credible estimates, China, with 65 to 90 million vacant units, though there is no official count. Among measured markets, Japan leads with 9.0 million (13.8% of stock, 2023 survey).

How many homes are empty in Europe?
The last comparable census round (2011) put unoccupied dwellings at about 38 million including seasonal homes. National counts since then include 3.8 million in Spain (2021), over 700,000 in Portugal (2021) and about 2 million in Germany (2022).

Why does Japan have so many empty houses?
A shrinking, aging population, migration of heirs to big cities, tax rules that discourage demolition, and a culture of building new rather than reusing old stock. The abandoned category alone has reached 3.85 million homes.

Can foreigners buy vacant or akiya homes?
In most of the countries above, yes, with country-specific caveats on process, renovation obligations and, in schemes like Italy's one-euro sales, contractual commitments. Vacancy itself is not a legal barrier; unclear title often is.

Keep reading on JanusHermes

The empty-homes map and the for-sale map overlap less than you would hope, which is why working from live local-agency inventory matters. JanusHermes aggregates local agency listings across more than 50 countries in 11 languages, with the local agency's contact details on the listing.

For the buying side of this story, see Japan's akiya houses for foreign buyers, 1-euro homes in Italy, Spain, Croatia and France, bank-repossessed and distressed property abroad and property auctions abroad. For the macro force behind the emptying, read the great demographic repricing and homeownership rates by country.

This article is general information, not legal or investment advice. Rules on buying vacant or abandoned property vary by country and municipality; verify title and the local position before committing.

Primary sources: Statistics Bureau of Japan, Housing and Land Survey 2023 (published 2024), with MLIT projections and Nomura Research Institute scenarios; Reuters, CNN and Wall Street Journal reporting on Chinese vacancy estimates, Goldman Sachs research (2023) and remarks by He Keng, former deputy head of China's National Bureau of Statistics; INE Spain and INE Portugal 2021 censuses; ISTAT census data; German vacancy estimates (2022); Eurostat Census Hub (2011 round); OECD Affordable Housing Database; US Census Bureau, American Community Survey and Housing Vacancies and Homeownership data.

Figures are the latest available as of August 2026. Definitions of vacancy differ by country, as explained above.