Japan spent a record ¥7.98 trillion ($50.36 billion) buying yen in a single day on 30 July, according to quarterly data released by the Ministry of Finance on Monday, 9 November.

The figure, ¥7,975.6 billion, is the largest one-day yen-buying intervention in records dating back to 1991. It beats the previous single-day record of ¥6.28 trillion set on 30 April, the ministry's data shows.

The ministry's quarterly breakdown shows Japan intervened on three days between 30 July and 3 August. It spent ¥5.55 trillion on 31 July, when the United States also intervened by selling euros for yen, and a further ¥1.87 trillion on 3 August.

Record monthly total

Taken together, the operation from 30 July to 26 August totalled ¥15.4 trillion ($97.19 billion), the largest monthly intervention total on record. The July-August operation alone roughly matched the whole of 2024, when Japan spent about ¥15.3 trillion buying yen across the entire year.

Tokyo acted after the yen slid to its weakest level in about 40 years, near 164 per dollar, in late July. The intervention helped the currency recover, with the dollar falling back towards 157 yen the following day.

Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has since warned that Japan remains ready to act again if the yen moves excessively. On 2 November she said Tokyo would step into the market if the currency swung out of control, repeating the government's position that it will respond to disorderly moves.

Intervention pause since September

The ministry's data also confirms that Japan has not intervened since the summer operation. No currency intervention took place between 29 September and 28 October, extending the pause that followed the record July-August spending.

By late September, Japan's cumulative yen-buying for 2026 stood at more than ¥27 trillion, already well above the previous annual record. The quarterly figures published on Monday give the first official daily breakdown of the July operation, which until now had only been reported as a monthly total.

The yen was trading at around 158.45 per dollar at the time of the data release, according to Reuters, still far weaker than the levels seen earlier in the year despite the summer intervention.

The quarterly release matters because it replaces months of market estimates with official figures. Until Monday, traders and analysts had only the monthly total of ¥15.4 trillion and Bank of Japan current-account data to work from, producing estimates for the 30 July operation that ranged as high as ¥8.5 trillion. The ministry's daily breakdown now puts the figure at ¥7.98 trillion, settling the question of how much Tokyo spent on its biggest single day of yen buying.