Free Public Housing and One-Time Payments: Where Municipal Support for Ukrainian Evacuees Stands Now

From April 28, 2022 through March 31, 2025, Hyogo Prefecture paid a “Hyogo Ukraine Evacuee Living Support Payment” to people who evacuated from Ukraine to the prefecture. The payment was up to ¥2.14 million per household, and 34 households received it (per the prefecture’s page, as of the end of March 2025).

New applications for this payment can no longer be made. On the other hand, some municipalities, such as Tokyo’s Kita City, continue to publicize payment programs on pages updated as recently as April 2026. Support for people who have evacuated to Japan from Ukraine varies widely in content depending not only on the national government but also on the prefecture or municipality where a person lives, and both the timing of when support began and when it ended differ from place to place.

This article looks at examples that could be confirmed on municipalities’ official pages as of September 2026, covering how housing and financial support began and where things stand now. What any individual person can receive is determined only by the counter of the municipality where they live.

Housing: Lending Out Vacant Public Housing Through “Use Outside the Original Purpose”

What municipalities across the country prepared as housing for evacuees were vacant units in prefectural and municipal public housing.

A case compilation put together in March 2025 by the Kanto Regional Development Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism explains that temporarily using public housing built with national subsidies for a purpose other than the one the subsidy was granted for is called “use outside the original purpose” (目的外使用), and that this is done with the approval of the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism under Article 22 of the Act on Rationalization of Budget Execution Concerning Subsidies. The same case compilation includes the example of municipal housing in Kamagaya City, Chiba Prefecture. After the national government announced it would accept evacuees, it issued a notice to municipalities regarding acceptance through public housing, and Kamagaya City began providing one unit of municipal housing to an evacuee from April 2022. Rent is waived.

The conditions found on each municipality’s official page can be lined up as follows.

Fukushima Prefecture defines those eligible as “people who can be objectively confirmed to be evacuees accepted by the [Japanese] government,” confirmed by means such as the “UKR” or “UKR-S” notation on their visa. It also states that it does not ask about income requirements or requirements regarding cohabiting relatives. Securing a contact person who can respond in an emergency is a condition.

Temporary use of public housing comes with a defined time limit. Some municipalities, like Fukushima Prefecture with its “up to one year,” state a cap, and whether a person can continue living there afterward, or move into the ordinary tenancy application process, differs by municipality. Because some pages still show update dates from several years ago, whether a program is still accepting applications can only be confirmed by contacting that municipality directly.

Money: One-Time Payments That Differ by Municipality

Alongside housing, some municipalities have also paid out their own grants. The funding comes from municipal budgets, and in some cases from donations collected from residents (fundraising drives or furusato nozei hometown tax donations).

Looking at Hyogo Prefecture’s published results for its living support payment, 8 households received the temporary-stay support, 32 households received the one-time payment for starting life in Japan, and 33 households received the living-cost support, for a combined total of 34 households. Fukushima Prefecture’s support fund is a mechanism in which a distribution committee allocates donations from prefectural residents and others, and it has been distributed five times so far. The donations carry no tax benefit, and the prefecture states that if any balance remains after payments are made, it will be entrusted to the Japanese Red Cross Society’s overseas relief fund. Shiga Prefecture likewise pays living support from the “Shiga Ukraine Evacuee Support Fund,” raised through donations by the prefecture and the prefecture’s international association, and the prefecture’s known intake stood at 14 groups totaling 20 people (as of April 30, 2025).

Conditions also differ by municipality. Kita City requires that a recipient be registered as a resident within the ward at the time the payment is decided, and that they not be receiving a payment for the same purpose from another ward, city, town, or village. Higashiosaka City targets people for whom Higashiosaka was the first place they lived after evacuating, and who are registered as residents there.

Since 2024, a National “Settlement Support Program” Too

As of 2022, the national government’s complementary protection system did not yet exist. The Immigration Services Agency of Japan (ISA) took the emergency measure of granting evacuees the “Designated Activities” status of residence, and commissioned an acceptance support program to the Foundation for the Welfare and Education of the Asian People, deciding to use about ¥1.9 billion in reserve funds for fiscal year 2022 (Cabinet decision of June 28, 2022).

The recognition system for persons eligible for complementary protection then began in December 2023. According to the ISA, those recognized are offered a “Settlement Support Program” (定住支援プログラム) consisting of Japanese-language education (572 class periods) and life-skills guidance (120 class periods), and while taking the program they can also receive accommodation and living support. Hyogo Prefecture’s own page explains that the national government has been running this program free of charge since April 2024, and that participants can receive a living allowance while taking it.

With the national system now in place, municipalities are also restructuring how they build their own support. Higashiosaka City states that, in principle, it does not pay its municipal living costs to people who have been recognized as persons eligible for complementary protection, or who have applications pending, if the national living allowance is being paid to them. Even after ending its living support payment, Hyogo Prefecture continues to offer support with daily life through support coordinators (446 cases through the end of March 2026) and telephone consultations in Ukrainian and Russian (526 cases over the same period). The procedures for the status of residence itself are covered in “Designated Activities (1 Year)” or Complementary Protection: Status-of-Residence Procedures for People Who Evacuated.

Checking What Applies in Your Own Municipality

• What support is available depends on which municipality you live in. Start by contacting the international affairs section or international exchange association of the city, town, or village where you are registered as a resident, and of the prefecture (for how to find the right counter, see Where to Ask First When You Start Living in Japan).
• Check the date a municipality’s page was last updated. Some pages have not been updated since they were created in 2022, and the support described on them is not necessarily still ongoing.
• Payments sometimes come with a condition that you are “not receiving a payment for the same purpose from another municipality or from the national government.” Before moving, check with both your current municipality and the one you are moving to.
• People who have been recognized as eligible for complementary protection, or whose application is pending, should confirm the relationship between the national Settlement Support Program and municipal support at each respective counter.

How many people are living in which prefecture is compiled in 2,902 Ukrainians Have Evacuated to Japan; 1,931 Are Living Here Now.