[Japanese Government Passes Provisional Budget for Fiscal Year 2026] On March 27th local time, the Japanese government held a cabinet meeting and formally passed the provisional budget for fiscal year 2026, which was subsequently submitted to the Diet. The budget applies to the 11-day period from April 1st to 11th, with total general accounting expenditures amounting to 8.5641 trillion yen. The government plans to push for the budget's passage in the Diet by March 30th to avoid a budget vacuum. This provisional budget is reportedly the first such measure in 11 years since Shinzo Abe's second term began in 2015. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had previously strived to pass the formal budget for fiscal year 2026 within this fiscal year (April 2025 to March 2026), but opposition parties demanded sufficient time for deliberation and opposed a hasty vote within the fiscal year, leading to disagreements in the budget deliberations. The provisional budget mainly includes social security expenditures and local tax revenue allocations. As a transitional arrangement, the provisional budget will automatically expire after the formal budget is passed.
