Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) help to follow the success of conservation measures to halt biodiversity loss, but to do so they need to cover large geographic areas uniformly. However, large-scale systematic data collection requires human, time and financial resources which are often lacking and thus progress can be hampered. To address this issue, field surveys are increasingly supported by remote sensing, which can directly or indirectly observe elements from five of the six EBV groups (Species populations, Species traits, Community composition, Ecosystem structure, and Ecosystem function). Openly available satellite data, like from the Landsat and Sentinel series, can provide time-series data covering large areas relatively consistently, while airborne photography using planes and drones can supply finer spatial resolution in limited areas. Passive remote observations can range from simple observations of land use change, habitat connectivity and quality to predicting species diversity using the spectral variation hypothesis. Active sensors, such as LiDAR and SAR, can assess the structure of vegetation, similarly predicting species diversity based on the complexity of vegetation structure. However, remotely sensed data needs to be validated before use to ensure that the conclusions drawn from them are consistent with field observations, e.g. changes in vegetation structure or species composition. Here, we summarize recent efforts to integrate field and remote observations to track the status of EBVs at the national level in Japan. Japan has several long-term biodiversity and ecosystem monitoring programs which can be enlisted to validate remote products, such as the Monitoring Site 1000 and JaLTER sites. In general, most studies focus on using remote sensing to observe phenology, species diversity, biomass, or carbon cycle, and are not directly related to the EBV framework. Some of the observations, especially those based on phenology using the Phenological Eyes Network or historical cherry-blossoming records, can be easily translated into their EBV equivalent, but more often data is missing or must undergo further processing. Therefore, while Japan has accumulated rich data sources over the years, there are several data and methodology gaps to calculate EBVs such as inconsistent coverage of ecosystems, taxonomic groups, areas, and time periods. Finally, we will discuss what further steps are needed to realize the EBV mapping potential of Japan and how we can achieve them.