TOKYO – The Japanese government on Friday approved a stopgap budget of 8.56 trillion yen ($54 billion) to cover expenditures for the first 11 days of April, as it struggles to secure the enactment of the regular budget plan before the start of fiscal 2026 on Wednesday, local media reported.
The provisional budget, the first of its kind in 11 years, is likely to be passed by the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors on Monday after deliberations by their respective budget committees.
Under the provisional budget, 5.1 trillion yen will be allocated to local governments as subsidies, while 2.8 trillion yen will cover social security expenses such as pension and welfare payments.
It will also finance new measures starting in April, including 47.7 billion yen to expand subsidies for private high school tuition and 14.9 billion yen to support lunch fees at elementary schools.
has sought to push through the 122.31 trillion yen draft budget for fiscal 2026 by the end of March, capitalizing on the supermajority that her ruling Liberal Democratic Party won in the Feb 8 general election by significantly curtailing deliberations in the lower house despite sharp criticism from opposition parties.
The draft budget, the largest in history, includes defense spending exceeding 9 trillion yen for the first time, which has also sparked controversies.
The draft budget is now being deliberated in the upper house after passing the lower house on March 13, but the ruling coalition, which holds only a minority in the upper chamber, was unable to resort to the same tactic of cutting short deliberations there.