Government Bans Point Awards for Furusato Nozei Donations from Oct 2025

[eyeswideshut]

A big change is coming in the Furusatonozei world as the government will forbid the award of points by intermediary sites (Satofull; Rakuten; etc.) for donations to municipalities from October 2025. Also, from October this year such intermediary sites will be forbidden from advertising point back campaigns for donations. Link to article here: https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/economy/20240625-OYT1T50137/.

Whilst I generally think the Furusatonozei system is kind of insane, I am sad that the benefits for donations keep getting clawed back. I remember the heady days of 5-10 years ago where you could get gift cards worth 50% of your donation and/or imported high value goods in exchange for your tax dollars. Even after they reduced the limit to 30%, hard-core point hackers like me were regularly getting 15-20% for our donations back in points via Rakuten marathon sales and the like so this is quite a big change.

So now the new rule has been announced, I wonder when the big aggregator sites will start to comply with it. Hopefully they wait until the very last day before ending their point programs. These companies have made absolute mint off of these donations so this will hit them hard and I suspect many will disappear entirely as their value will dry up.

[Tsumitate Wrestler]

A big change is coming in the Furusatonozei world as the government will forbid the award of points by intermediary sites (Satofull; Rakuten; etc.) for donations to municipalities from October 2025. Also, from October this year such intermediary sites will be forbidden from advertising point back campaigns for donations. Link to article here: https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/economy/20240625-OYT1T50137/.

Whilst I generally think the Furusatonozei system is kind of insane, I am sad that the benefits for donations keep getting clawed back. I remember the heady days of 5-10 years ago where you could get gift cards worth 50% of your donation and/or imported high value goods in exchange for your tax dollars. Even after they reduced the limit to 30%, hard-core point hackers like me were regularly getting 15-20% for our donations back in points via Rakuten marathon sales and the like so this is quite a big change.

So now the new rule has been announced, I wonder when the big aggregator sites will start to comply with it. Hopefully they wait until the very last day before ending their point programs. These companies have made absolute mint off of these donations so this will hit them hard and I suspect many will disappear entirely as their value will dry up.

Ah, good info. I saw the first part on the news, but not this:

Also, from October this year such intermediary sites will be forbidden from advertising point back campaigns for donations

.

Is there a separate source for this news? Do you think we will see an absolute campaign blitz from Now->October 2024?

[eyeswideshut]

Is there a separate source for this news? Do you think we will see an absolute campaign blitz from Now->October 2024?

Yeah sorry, I saw that tidbit in a Nikkei article - midway down: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUA ... 4A6000000/

I wouldn't be surprised if we had a major furusato push this summer and fall prior to the ad-ban. More curious how the big aggregators will handle the situation after that.