What is GPIF's policy asset mix?
GPIF's policy asset mix is 25% domestic bonds, 25% foreign bonds, 25% domestic equities and 25% foreign equities, in force from April 2025 to March 2030. GPIF says the mix is set to earn a real return of 1.9% a year above nominal wage growth "with minimum risks" (Annual Report FY2025, PDF p. 26).
The equal weights are not new. The previous mix, from April 2020 to March 2025, was also 25% in each class, but with wider bands: 7, 6, 8 and 7 points for domestic bonds, foreign bonds, domestic equities and foreign equities, and 11 points for bonds and equities as a whole. The April 2025 mix narrowed these to 6, 5, 6 and 6 points, and 9 points for each half (PDF p. 27).
Policy weights: April 2006 mix 67% domestic bonds, 11% domestic equities, 8% foreign bonds, 9% foreign equities, 5% short-term assets; October 2014 mix 35%, 25%, 15%, 25%; April 2025 mix 25% each. Source: GPIF Annual Report FY2025, PDF p. 27; chart data (CSV). These are policy weights, not holdings.
Two classification rules matter when reading the weights. Alternative investments (infrastructure, private equity and real estate) are not a separate class; they are slotted into the four classes by their risk and return and capped at 5% of total assets. Foreign bonds hedged back to yen, and short-term yen assets, count as domestic bonds.
How close is GPIF's actual portfolio to 25% each?
At 30 June 2026, every class was within 0.6 points of 25%: domestic bonds 25.59%, foreign bonds 24.60%, domestic equities 24.48% and foreign equities 25.33% of ¥320.4 trillion in pension reserves. That total includes about ¥2.6 trillion held in the government's Pension Special Account (1Q FY2026 report, p. 3). Alternative investments were 1.70% of the portfolio, inside the 5% cap.
31 March 2026: domestic bonds 26.91%, foreign bonds 24.48%, domestic equities 23.81%, foreign equities 24.80%. 30 June 2026: 25.59%, 24.60%, 24.48%, 25.33%. Policy: 25% each. Source: GPIF FY2025 summary, p. 4 and 1Q FY2026 report, p. 3; chart data (CSV).
The quarter shows rebalancing at work. From April to June 2026, GPIF's domestic equities returned 14.48% and foreign equities 16.94%, while domestic bonds lost 1.11% (1Q FY2026 report, p. 5). By our calculation, a portfolio left alone from the March weights would have ended June at about 52.0% equities. The reported equity share was 49.81%, so about 2.2 points, roughly ¥7 trillion, went to bonds through rebalancing or the placement of new money.
The same pattern shows over the full fiscal year. In the year to March 2026, a year of strong equity gains, net rebalancing withdrew ¥10.7 trillion from domestic equities and ¥4.2 trillion from foreign equities and added ¥14.8 trillion to domestic bonds and ¥2.7 trillion to foreign bonds (FY2025 summary, p. 4). GPIF reports that no asset class breached its deviation limits or internal alarm points during the year (Annual Report FY2025, PDF p. 49).
Rebalancing also runs the other way. In fiscal 2019, which ended with the January to March 2020 crash, net rebalancing added ¥609.5 billion to domestic equities and ¥757.0 billion to foreign equities (FY2019 summary, p. 4). That year GPIF was also moving to its new 25% foreign-bond weight, so the flows mix rebalancing with a policy transition. At the end of March 2020, after the fall, equities were 22.87% domestic and 23.90% foreign, both below their 25% policy weights.
Is GPIF the world's largest pension fund?
No longer, by the most cited ranking: the Thinking Ahead Institute and Pensions & Investments study of end-2025 assets puts Norway's Government Pension Fund first, 12.7% ahead of GPIF. The 2026 study says Norway's fund is the first to cross US$2 trillion. Its 2025 edition reported that Norway had overtaken GPIF "after over 20 years as the global leader by assets". The label "world's largest pension fund" held for two decades; it does not hold in the latest study.
GPIF reported total assets of ¥317.8 trillion at 30 June 2026 (1Q FY2026 report, p. 1). At the ¥162.53 per dollar GPIF lists for end-June, that is about US$1.96 trillion by our conversion. GPIF invests reserves of Japan's Employees' Pension Insurance and National Pension; when it has retained earnings at the end of a year, it contributes them to the government's Pension Special Account. In fiscal 2025 it received ¥3.2 trillion in new deposits and contributed ¥703.4 billion to the Pension Special Account (Annual Report FY2025, PDF p. 41).
GPIF returned 16.47% (¥41.4 trillion) in fiscal 2025, to March 2026, and 7.69% a year over the ten fiscal years to March 2026, in yen and before fees. Since it began investing in markets in fiscal 2001, the annualised return to June 2026 is 4.95%, and cumulative investment returns are ¥221.0 trillion (1Q FY2026 report, pp. 1-2; Annual Report FY2025, PDF p. 99). Both long-run figures are geometric averages, which is the right way to describe the growth of a balance.
Fiscal-year returns: FY2015 −3.81%; FY2016 5.86%; FY2017 6.90%; FY2018 1.52%; FY2019 −5.20%; FY2020 25.15%; FY2021 5.42%; FY2022 1.50%; FY2023 22.67%; FY2024 0.71%; FY2025 16.47%. Source: GPIF 1Q FY2026 report, p. 2; chart data (CSV). FY2015 is the first full fiscal year under a policy mix with 50% in equities, which began in October 2014.
Annual figures understate the swings. GPIF reports every quarter, and in the 45 quarters from April 2015 to June 2026, 13 lost money by our count from its reports (quarterly data, CSV). The five largest losses in yen were:
| Quarter | Return | ¥ trillion | Next quarter |
|---|
| Jan to Mar 2020 | −10.71% | −17.7 | +8.29% |
| Oct to Dec 2018 | −9.06% | −14.8 | +6.21% |
| Jul to Sep 2024 | −3.57% | −9.1 | +4.31% |
| Jan to Mar 2025 | −3.41% | −8.8 | +4.09% |
| Jul to Sep 2015 | −5.59% | −7.9 | +3.56% |
Sources: GPIF annual summaries for FY2015, FY2018, FY2019, FY2020, FY2024 and FY2025. Yen losses grow with the size of the fund, so the percentage column is the better guide to severity.
In both large falls, equities did the damage. In January to March 2020, foreign equities lost 21.88% and domestic equities 17.63%, while foreign bonds gained 0.50% (FY2019 summary, p. 2). By our linking of GPIF's quarterly returns, the fund was back above its December 2019 quarter-end value by December 2020, and above its September 2018 value by December 2019. These are quarter-end observations; falls within a quarter could have been deeper.
How much of GPIF is invested passively?
At 31 March 2026, passive funds held ¥234.2 trillion, or 79.77% of GPIF's ¥293.6 trillion; active funds held 19.13% and short-term assets 1.09%. The passive share was 93.98% in domestic equities, 82.66% in foreign equities, 95.80% in foreign bonds and 47.48% in domestic bonds (Annual Report FY2025, PDF p. 103). GPIF counts index funds that track ESG indices as passive funds, although it treats them as active risk at portfolio level.
Management and custodian fees came to ¥57.1 billion in fiscal 2025, 0.02% of assets under management (PDF p. 40). GPIF's reported returns are before these fees, which at that level change the second decimal place at most. Over the ten years to March 2026, GPIF's foreign-equity return trailed its benchmark by 0.24 points a year and its domestic-equity return by 0.08 points (PDF p. 102), the near-benchmark result an index-heavy equity portfolio is built to deliver.
This is the opposite end of the spectrum from the Yale endowment model, which relies on active external managers in private markets. It is closer to what David Swensen and Jack Bogle told individual investors: hold low-cost index funds and rebalance. Canada's pension fund chose differently; see CPP Investments' active, leveraged model.
Does GPIF hedge its foreign currency exposure?
GPIF's 50% in foreign bonds and foreign equities is measured against unhedged, yen-based benchmarks, and GPIF says it keeps its foreign-currency exposure "at a level consistent with that of the Policy Asset Mix". The benchmarks are the FTSE World Government Bond Index excluding Japan and China (unhedged, yen basis) and MSCI ACWI excluding Japan and China A (yen basis) (Annual Report FY2025, PDF p. 29). The currency quote comes from GPIF's review of fiscal 2025 (PDF p. 22).
GPIF does hold some yen-hedged foreign bonds, but it books them as domestic bonds because their risk resembles yen bonds. In practice, about half the fund moves with the yen's exchange rate. In the year to March 2026, foreign bonds returned 12.33% and foreign equities 27.16% in yen (FY2025 summary, p. 2); those yen returns include exchange-rate moves, which can add to or subtract from local-currency returns.
What can a household copy from GPIF, and what not?
A household can copy GPIF's written targets, bands, rebalancing and low costs; it cannot copy GPIF's liabilities, home currency or funding. It helps to keep three things apart.
What GPIF holds is documented above: four classes at about 25% each, mostly in index funds, with roughly half its exposure in foreign currencies.
What GPIF tells individuals: nothing about their own portfolios. GPIF publishes its policy and results for transparency to the public, not as an allocation for households.
What imitations miss: a literal copy is a Japanese portfolio. For an investor in euros or pounds, 25% domestic bonds and 25% domestic equities means 50% in Japan, and GPIF's "foreign" half would include that investor's own home market. GPIF's target is 1.9% above Japanese wage growth with minimum risk, an objective set by its liabilities. A household's objectives, spending plans, tax position and home currency are different, so the same weights carry different risks.
What did the checker return for the ETF illustration?
A three-fund European illustration received C overall in copio's checker on 3 November 2026. It allocates 25% to a Japan ETF, 25% to ACWI and 50% to EUR-hedged global government bonds. This changes GPIF's yen/foreign-bond split and currency risk, and ACWI also includes Japan; it is not a replication of GPIF's policy mix.
These are recorded model outputs with data limitations: equivalent S&P 500 ETFs returned different diversification grades in our checker comparison. Use the figures to inspect assumptions, not to rank the named investor. The recorded score applies only to these selected funds:
| Weight | Fund | ISIN |
|---|
| 25% | iShares Core MSCI Japan IMI UCITS ETF USD (Acc) | IE00B4L5YX21 |
| 25% | iShares MSCI ACWI UCITS ETF USD (Acc) | IE00B6R52259 |
| 50% | Xtrackers II Global Government Bond UCITS ETF 1C EUR Hedged | LU0378818131 |
Fees: B, 0.21% a year. That is €21 a year for every €10,000 invested in the three funds, about ten times the 0.02% GPIF paid in management and custodian fees in fiscal 2025.
Long-term assumptions: B, −1.31 points a year. Under copio's long-term capital market assumptions, the illustration's expected compounded growth is 6.51% a year, 1.31 points below the 7.82% of the model's growth-optimal portfolio, before inflation. Half the money sits in government bonds with lower expected growth; the same checker grades a 50/50 illustration of Graham's defensive investor C overall as well.
Historical efficiency: F, −2.37 points a year. Over the past ten years, MSCI World combined with euro money-market funds at the same measured risk earned 2.37 points a year more than the illustration's three funds. The hedged bond fund lost 10.3% over the ten years to October 2026, including 14.73% in the year to October 2022, by our compounding of DWS's yearly returns.
Crises: B, −15.29%. In a 40% fall in US equities, passed on to each asset class through its long-term sensitivity to US stocks, the checker estimates the illustration would lose 15.29%. US companies were 64.63% of the MSCI ACWI index at 30 October 2026, so only about 16% of the illustration is in US shares (our calculation).
Diversification: C, 2 growth sources. If Japanese equities stopped growing, the illustration's expected growth above cash would fall from 4.7% to 0.0% a year. This is the model's stress convention, not evidence that growth in Japan causes all world-equity returns. The capture also reports incomplete underlying history and composition, and an unavailable correlation-concentration calculation; this limits the diversification interpretation.
The illustration departs from GPIF's portfolio in four ways. GPIF's bond half is 25% yen government bonds and 25% unhedged foreign government bonds; the illustration uses one developed-market government bond fund hedged to euros, which also holds Japanese and euro-area bonds, because it is the checker's reference fund for government bonds outside the euro area.
On currency, GPIF measures its foreign bonds and foreign equities against unhedged yen benchmarks and counts yen-hedged foreign bonds as domestic bonds; in the illustration both equity funds are unhedged, so a euro investor carries yen, dollar and other currency risk on the equity half, while the bond half is hedged to euros.
The ACWI fund also holds Japanese shares, 5.08% of the index at 30 October 2026, so Japanese equities make up about 26.3% of the illustration (our calculation); GPIF's foreign-equity benchmark excludes Japan and China A shares. GPIF's alternative investments, 1.70% of the portfolio at 30 June 2026, and its active mandates are left out. You can enter the same illustration, or your own portfolio, in the free portfolio checker.
What does copio think of this portfolio?
GPIF's transferable strength is its portfolio process: explicit targets, monitored drift and a defined currency exposure. Those rules kept a roughly half-equity allocation through a 10.71% quarterly loss; they did not prevent the loss. Its eleven fiscal-year returns compounded at 6.59%, below their 7.02% arithmetic average. For a household, the useful comparison is whether its own targets and funding needs can survive a similar shock. The euro ETF example above changes the bond and currency exposures, so its grade cannot establish the quality of GPIF's policy.
Three checks for your portfolio
- Put target and actual weights side by side. For each asset class, write the intended weight, today's weight and the gap in percentage points. Choose a review trigger and record whether contributions can close the gap before making a taxable sale. GPIF's 25% targets and deviation bands illustrate the process; they are not household target weights.
- Map the exposure behind each fund. List the share held in your spending currency, unhedged foreign assets and currency-hedged assets. Look through regional and world funds for overlapping companies and countries: adding a Japan fund to ACWI also adds to ACWI's existing Japanese holdings. Replay a stock crash and a bond-rate shock using that combined exposure.
- Separate investment performance from money added. Use a linked time-weighted return to compare the investment strategy, or a dated money-weighted return such as XIRR to measure your own cash-flow experience. The simple CAGR formula applies only to a balance without external flows; subtracting contributions and withdrawals ignores when they occurred. Alongside the return, list future withdrawals and the liquid assets available to meet them after a fall.
Use the portfolio checker to explore your fund mix and the recovery guide to translate losses into the gains needed to recover. Copio provides educational analysis and does not rebalance or place trades for you.
FAQ
What is GPIF's asset allocation?
GPIF's policy asset mix, in force since April 2025, is 25% each in domestic bonds, foreign bonds, domestic equities and foreign equities. Each class may deviate by 6 percentage points, foreign bonds by 5, and bonds and equities as a whole by 9. At 30 June 2026 the actual weights were 25.59% domestic bonds, 24.60% foreign bonds, 24.48% domestic equities and 25.33% foreign equities.
Is GPIF the world's largest pension fund?
Not in the latest ranking. The Thinking Ahead Institute and Pensions & Investments study of end-2025 assets puts Norway's Government Pension Fund first, 12.7% ahead of GPIF. Its 2025 edition said Norway had overtaken GPIF after more than 20 years in which GPIF led. GPIF reported total assets of ¥317.8 trillion at 30 June 2026.
What were GPIF's worst quarterly losses?
In the 45 quarters from April 2015 to June 2026, the largest were January to March 2020, a loss of 10.71% or ¥17.7 trillion, and October to December 2018, a loss of 9.06% or ¥14.8 trillion. Thirteen of the 45 quarters lost money. Both large losses were regained at quarter-end values within a year, by our calculation from GPIF's quarterly returns.
How much of GPIF is invested passively?
At 31 March 2026, passive funds held ¥234.2 trillion, or 79.77% of GPIF's ¥293.6 trillion. The share was 93.98% in domestic equities, 82.66% in foreign equities, 95.80% in foreign bonds and 47.48% in domestic bonds. Management and custodian fees were 0.02% of assets in fiscal 2025.
What does the European ETF illustration measure?
A European illustration returned C on 3 November 2026 using 25% Japan equities, 25% ACWI and 50% EUR-hedged global government bonds. It changes GPIF's bond and currency exposures and includes overlapping Japanese equities. The score applies to these funds under model assumptions, with incomplete history and composition data; it does not grade GPIF's policy or managers.
Does GPIF hedge its foreign currency exposure?
Its benchmarks for foreign bonds and foreign equities are unhedged and measured in yen, and GPIF says it keeps its foreign-currency exposure consistent with the policy mix. Foreign bonds that are hedged back to yen are counted as domestic bonds, so the 25% foreign-bond weight is unhedged.
