Tankan All Small Industry CAPEX

Tankan All Small Industry CAPEX is an annual-projections item from Tankan, the Short-Term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan. The Research and Statistics Department of the Bank of Japan compiles it from firm replies, with no judgment by the Bank. It covers private small firms capitalized at ¥20m to less than ¥100m in all 31 industries. Financial institutions, business consultants and pure holding companies sit outside the population.

It measures fixed investment including land in nominal yen, meaning newly listed tangible assets with land, leases and use rights. Software and R&D sit outside the headline and appear as separate items. It is not a sentiment index, and it differs from National Accounts investment because Tankan counts newly listed secondhand assets.

The survey runs each March, June, September and December, and results appear in early April, July and October and in mid-December over two business days. Release always comes at 8:50 a.m. Japan Standard Time, just before Japanese markets open at 9:00. Dates for the next 12 months appear around the end of June and December, with dates for the next 4 weeks refreshed each Friday. Forms go out by mail or online about one month before release.

The Summary and the Outline appear on release day, and the Comprehensive Data Set follows at 8:50 on the next business day. Each fiscal year is surveyed 6 times and closed in June of the next year, and the revision rate tracks change since the prior survey. Corrections land swiftly unless firms revise figures after release. Small-firm plans often revise upward because many firms record investment once executed rather than planned.

Two activity parts build the headline, and wider items complete the picture.

• Small manufacturing fixed investment including land: annual tangible plans and results for small makers across 17 industries.
• Small nonmanufacturing fixed investment including land: the same concept for small services and traders across 14 industries.
• Wider companions (software, R&D and fixed investment excluding land): broader totals adding software and R&D without land, plus standalone land, software and R&D items.

The December 2024 round was released on December 13, 2024, with replies from November 11 to December 12, 2024. All small industry scored +9.4% for fiscal 2023 and +4.0% forecast for fiscal 2024 with a +1.3% revision. Manufacturing scored -9.1% then +10.5% with a -1.5% revision, while nonmanufacturing scored +20.8% then +1.0% with a +2.9% revision. The wider software and R&D total excluding land scored +13.4% then +6.3% with a +0.4% revision, so check the split and companions too.

1. Enterprise report: each firm reports yearly investment in millions of yen. It covers newly listed tangible assets with qualifying land, and leaves out account transfers and mergers.
2. Stratified expansion: each stratum total equals respondent average times population count, summed across small strata, and yearly change plus revision come from nominal totals. A stratum with 150 million yen from 50 of 200 firms estimates 600. Then 600 to 624 gives +4.0%, and 616 to 624 gives about +1.3%.
3. Missing values: when a firm skips reply, its latest full fiscal-year figures stand in, a rule in place since the March 2004 survey.
4. Outliers: a report shifting change or revision for one of the 6 main groups counts as missing and takes the latest reply; detections stay rare. Land follows only when its parent fixed investment is an outlier.
5. Derived items: totals such as software plus fixed investment without land come from adding or subtracting surveyed estimates, with no direct survey.
6. No seasonal adjustment: yearly capex needs none because it sums fiscal-year yen across 6 vintages. Excluding seasonal factors belongs to judgment alternatives, not capex.