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What’s this about key money, gift money, guarantors, and guarantor companies? Why did the realtor give a moving-in quote of 600,000 yen for an apartment that costs 80,000 yen a month to rent? Why does my apartment not have lights, curtains, or even a stove? Am I getting ripped off?
Finding and renting an apartment in Japan can be incredibly daunting, as it involves negotiating not only different languages, but also cultures. Things you may take for granted when renting an apartment in your home country may be completely alien concepts in Japan. If you want to learn more about buying a house, that’s a separate topic.
After you read this article, you should be ready to tackle the search for your next home in Japan.
Can foreigners rent in Japan?
Misinformation and horror stories abound on the internet about people who spent months looking for apartments, going through refusal after refusal, all because they’re not Japanese. So, can foreigners rent apartments in Japan?
The short answer is: yes, of course.
The long answer is: maybe, it depends.
Landlords are not forbidden by law to refuse applicants on the basis of their nationality. However, it is not a strong legal position to take, either—cases have been tried against landlords where they have lost and were forced to pay penalties.
However, the reality is that some landlords will still say that they do not want foreign applicants and rely on either the realtor’s ability to convey this politely, or the applicant’s lack of funds or initiative to sue them. Sometimes the reason can be racism, but it can also be poor experiences with foreigners in the past, or an unwillingness to trust foreigners to understand how rentals work and what is expected of them as good residents.
Some other common reasons for refusal can be:
- Financial solvency: This can be addressed by being willing to share information about your income and employment. While this shouldn’t be necessary to begin with, if there is a property that you really want, offering to share this information can assuage the landlord’s reluctance.
- Employment status: Landlords want stable renters and thus favor applicants with the most stable full-time employment (正社員, seishain). As a freelancer, even if you have proof of a high income, you can find yourself barred from applying to some units.
- Language/cultural barriers: Many landlords fear that they, or other residents, will not be able to communicate with foreigners—not even necessarily in the event of an emergency, but in the course of everyday life, such as the garbage schedule changing. If you can demonstrate that you know the culture (by living here a number of years) or that you know the language, this concern can be overcome.
- Respectability: Appearance still matters a lot in Japan. If you meet the landlord, making a good impression by being well-groomed and wearing business-casual clothing can make a difference. If you show up in an old t-shirt and sandals, the landlord may believe you aren’t reliable, or don’t understand Japanese culture well.
- Visa length: If your visa only has six more months left, even if you know you will be able to get it renewed, your realtor and landlord don’t have your personal experience and you will look like a risky applicant to some.
Your realtor may be able to discuss your application with the landlord. A good realtor, rather than simply asking “Are foreigners ok?” (a scary question for any landlord), can qualify you as a good resident before asking, “. . . and they’re not Japanese, but that’s not a problem, right?”
Personally, I have lived in nine rental properties over the last 17 years in Japan, and the only problems I’ve had with renting were due to finances—landlords and management companies were wary of my application because the rent was close to 30% of my income. Other people have definitely had their applications turned down on the basis of their citizenship, but in the end, they all found good apartments.
So yes, I firmly believe that foreigners can rent apartments in Japan. It’s far more difficult to rent an apartment as someone who owns two dogs than as someone who isn’t Japanese!
The Basics
Rental properties in Japan come in many different forms:
- Short-term rentals: Rentals where you can pay weekly (ウィークリーマンション, ui-kuri- manshon), monthly (マンスリーマンション, mansuri- manshon), or all up front to stay for a few months at a time. It’s common to use these when you first move to Japan.
- Share house (シェアハウス, sheahausu): One of the cheapest types of rentals. You get a room, often pre-furnished with a bed and a desk. The bathrooms, showers, kitchens, dining areas, and living areas are all communal.
- Apartments (アパート, apa-to): Your basic rental apartment. These are distinguished by a single building containing multiple units. Apartments may occasionally have keyed entrances.
- Condominium/Mansion (マンション, manshon): The distinction between an apartment and a condo isn’t clear, but condos are generally taller buildings, and thus built out of steel and concrete. Some people say that the distinguishing feature is that condos have keyed entrances, but not all condos have them.
- Maisonettes (メゾネット, mezonetto)/Townhouses: Maisonettes are rental properties that are only two or three floors tall; rather than renting a unit all on one floor, you rent a “slice” of the building that covers all of the floors. So maisonettes are, at a minimum, two stories tall.
- Detached homes (一戸建て, ikkodate): Standalone homes. Detached homes are less commonly found for rent, but can still be found even in urban areas.
Though I will use the word “apartment” throughout the article, the information is generally applicable to all types of monthly rentals.
Fees
One of the scariest things about renting a property in Japan is the fees, many of which can seem to come out of the blue. For folks who are from countries where it’s common to sign a contract and hand over two months’ rent, Japan’s processes can seem both onerous and breathtakingly expensive. Many people may look at the final signing bill and wonder if they’re being taken for a ride.
First, the most basic fee is the monthly payment. It is important to note that the monthly cost of housing in Japan can actually come in two parts: the rent (家賃, yachin or 賃料, chinryou) and the management fee (管理費, kanrihi) for the property. For example, while the rent may be 100,000 yen per month, there could be an additional mandatory management fee of 20,000 yen per month, bringing your monthly payment to 120,000 yen per month. The management fee is used to maintain the building and facilities and provide any related services or amenities included with the building.
Management fees vary by property: many older properties with no exterior amenities may have no or very cheap management fees, while it’s not uncommon for condominiums or tower mansions to have fees of tens of thousands of yen to cover maintenance of the lobby, elevator, garbage room, and other amenities.
Management fees are often calculated and expressed in terms of overall rent. To be clear, though, if your rent is 100,000 yen and your management fee is 20,000 yen, a deposit of one month’s rent is 100,000 yen, as the management fee is separate from the rent.
Signing a lease
When you sign a lease, you are expected to pay all the fees (初期費用, shoki hiyou) up front. A non-exhaustive list of common fees is:
- Deposit (敷金, shikikin): A deposit for the apartment. A common number is one month’s rent, but newer or higher-class buildings will often charge two. This can sometimes be negotiated. Many search engines have options to allow you to search for apartments with no deposit required. It is rare for people to receive their deposit back in full, but more common to receive it in part. The more damage you incur, whether it’s from the length of time you’ve lived in the property or due to small two- or four-legged occupants, the less likely it is that you will receive a substantial amount back. One strategy is to take videos or pictures of pre-existing damage before you move in. If the landlord or an agent attempts to claim that the damage was their responsibility, you can show evidence that it was pre-existing and save some of your deposit.
- Gift money (礼金, reikin): Gift money is essentially a payment to thank the landlord for allowing you to rent the property. Some people also call this “key money,” referring to it as the cost for having someone hand you the key. Some properties charge no gift money at all, but it is also still common to see properties that charge at least one month of gift money. This can sometimes be negotiated, and many search engines have options to allow you to search for apartments with no gift money required.
- Realtor fee (仲介手数料, chuukai tesuuryou): Generally about half a month to one month’s rent; this is limited by law to a maximum of one month’s rent. Real estate agencies will also sometimes have limited-time campaigns where they waive their fees. This fee can be the simplest to negotiate as the realtor has full control over it, unlike other fees, which are managed by the landlord. However, if this fee is already very low, expect the realtor to refuse.
- Disaster insurance (火災保険料, kasai hokenryou): This depends on the size and age of the rental as well as the number of people moving in, but the general range is 10,000–30,000 yen. This is a service fee and cannot be reduced or waived.
- Guarantor fee (保険会社利用料, hoken kaisha riyouryou): Japan once had a system where every property required the renter to have a guarantor: someone who would be legally and financially liable for anything that happened to the property. This system was abused and has since been replaced with guarantor companies, which conduct background/credit checks for would-be renters and act as insurers for the property. Guarantor companies are often chosen by the landlord, and properties owned by large corporations may have several guarantor companies to choose from. The guarantor fee is a service fee and cannot be reduced or waived. Guarantor fees are structured in several ways: either you pay a lump sum up front (ranging from 20,000 yen to one month’s rent, depending on the cost of the property), or you pay 2–4% of your rent every month.
- Cylinder change fee (鍵交換費用, kagi koukan hiyou): A fee for changing the cylinders. This can sometimes be waived if you’re comfortable using the same keys that were previously attached to the unit. Some landlords make this mandatory. This usually ranges from 10,000–20,000 yen, but in fancier buildings that have special keys (dimple keys or keys with IC chips), the fees may be as high as 60,000 yen.
- Cleaning fee (クリーニング代, kuri-ningu dai): A cleaning fee that covers the cleaning necessary when you move out; sometimes this includes complimentary dusting before you move in. Even if you offer to clean before you leave, this will not be refunded, as the landlord is obligated to do a thorough cleaning before the next occupant.
- Advance rent (前家賃, maeyachin): Apartments will usually ask for two months of rent paid up front when signing the contract. This can sometimes be gotten around by moving in during the first half of the month, but is often non-negotiable.
It is your right to know what fees you will be asked to pay in the process of securing a lease, so if your realtor refuses to list the fees for you, then find another realtor. However, fees vary from property to property, so the realtor may not have them immediately available without contacting the landlord to confirm.
Renewing a lease
Japanese apartments are commonly leased with two year contracts. If you wish to renew your contract, you usually need to pay a renewal fee (更新費用, koushin hiyou), often equal to one or two months’ rent. This is sometimes flexible, but only while negotiating the terms of your lease in the beginning—not at renewal!
Depending on the terms of your disaster and guarantor insurance, you may also need to renew those periodically.
If you have pets, you may pay an additional fee to the landlord at the time of contract renewal.
To prevent any wallet-draining surprises, it’s best to check with your realtor about the renewal fees and make a note of them for the future.
Moving out
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are also fees assessed when moving out (退去費用, taikyo hiyou). Although you paid a cleaning fee when moving in, if you left any damage during your time in the unit, the landlord can bill you for it. It is your right to receive an itemized list of the damage and the costs to repair it.
Some types of damage are classified as wear and tear. The landlord should not hold you responsible for this, but the decision about whether any particular damage is normal wear is a contentious topic. If you have left extraordinary damage, such as large burn marks or holes in doors that cannot be repaired with your deposit, you can be billed for it.
If you are leaving your apartment before your lease is complete, you may also be charged a penalty (違約金, iyakukin). For example, on a two-year lease, it is common to be charged 1–2 months’ rent for leaving in the first year.
Furnishings
Japanese apartments typically come unfurnished. Some exceptions are:
- Kitchen stoves: If an apartment has a prefabricated kitchen, the stove will be built into the counter. Some apartments that do not have prefabricated kitchens will still come with a stove, but it’s not guaranteed—so make sure you check!
- Light fixtures: It is very common for cheaper Japanese apartments to not provide any light fixtures at all. Corporate-managed apartments or condos will often have built-in sconces and may also provide normal ceiling lights.
- Air conditioners: Air conditioners are not guaranteed to be included with the apartment; even if there is an air conditioner, it may only be in one room, with the other rooms having no air conditioning at all. As Japanese summers can be deadly hot, make sure you check for these.
Some things that people may take for granted that are generally not included with Japanese apartments are washing machines, refrigerators, and basic tables and beds. There are apartments on the low and high ends that boast basic furnishings, but you generally pay for it in your rent.
One thing to clarify with the realtor and landlord is whether the furnishings are provided (設備, setsubi) or left behind by the previous occupant (残置物, zanchibutsu). The difference is that the landlord is responsible for the upkeep and replacement of provided furnishings, but not for things left behind by the previous occupant.
For example, if there is an air conditioner that was left behind by a previous occupant and it suddenly breaks, you will have to pay out of your own pocket to have it repaired or, in the worst case, removed so that you can buy your own to install. However, if a provided air conditioner breaks, the landlord is on the hook for repairing or replacing it for you.
Floor plans
Real estate listings in Japan often include floor plans that give you an idea of what the layout of the apartment is like, where air conditioners and water fixtures are located, and what windows face which directions.
These can be handy for planning where to put things or figuring out how big a space is, but they should never be taken as a guide to actual sizes and ratios for the rooms, closets, or other fixtures such as washing machine slots, kitchen counters, or windows.
Most floor plans included on listings are created by realtors with industry-standard toolkits or Excel spreadsheets and have a tenuous relationship with reality. The one exception is construction plans, which are rarer and stand out because they clearly have measurements marked out and labeled (often in millimeters!).
So you can look at floor plans for a rough guess of how the apartment is laid out, but please do not rely on them to understand how big of a bed or table you can buy!
Searching for an apartment
Now that you’re armed with the knowledge of how Japanese rent and fees work, you know that the move-in costs are usually multiples of the rent. The price of rent is affected by several factors: location, distance to a station, size, age, and other preferences, such as apartments that allow pets.
Where do you want to live?
Location affects most people’s perceptions of how expensive Japan is. Many people, when they first come to Japan, only know about areas like Shinjuku or Shibuya, which are popular and expensive. Many Japanese people with salaries close to the average do not think about living in specific expensive areas (whether for work or for personal reasons), but rather think in terms of time and effort spent in commuting to those areas.
A general rule of thumb when looking for housing in Tokyo is that housing inside the Yamanote loop line tends to be more expensive than housing outside it. This means that, all other things being equal, an apartment near Asakusabashi Station—a less popular area outside of the Yamanote, but still only one stop from Akihabara—is likely cheaper than an apartment near Yushima Station, which is inside the loop line and near Tokyo University.
How close to a station do you want to be?
Speaking of stations, another major factor in the price of housing is the distance between the property and the closest station. Japan’s rainy season is no fun to walk in, and neither is its sweltering summer. Many people would love to live within 5–10 minutes of the closest train station, but unfortunately, that demand drives up prices.
If you’re on a budget, you can reduce your rent by living even just 15+ minutes away from a station. Living 30+ minutes away from a station can result in drastic savings; while this may sound like a daunting walk, it can be as little as five minutes on a bicycle. If you have money to spend, living a five minute walk away from a station is a dream—I was able to do it once and it made a noticeable impact on my commuting times and my willingness to go on trips to meet friends.
How large of an apartment do you want?
Japan has two (and a half) ways of measuring an apartment: by rooms and by area.
Japan’s room layouts (間取り, madori) are often written like this: 2SLDK. This means:
- 2: The number of rooms other than the LDK room. Japan does not decide which rooms are bedrooms, but it’s generally useful to think of this number as the number of potential bedrooms.
- S: Storage space like a walk-in closet that is larger than a normal closet, but smaller than a room; there is no precise definition.
- L: Living room
- D: Dining room
- K: Kitchen
- LDK: One large area that has a living room, dining room, and kitchen in a common space, usually not separated by doors.
Other configurations of the main living space are possible, such as a DK, or just a K.
Additionally, there are special layouts for one-room (ワンルーム) apartments: 1R and 1K. The general distinction is that a 1R apartment will have the kitchen inside the single room, whereas a 1K apartment will have the kitchen in an area—often the hallway—separated from the single room by a door.
This system may sound very useful—and sometimes it is—but its weak point is that there is no standardization behind the numbering or deciding what kind of room is a LDK, a DK, or a K. For a property that has two rooms, a walk-in closet, and a kitchen, different realtors may describe it as a:
- 2K: Because there are two rooms and a kitchen.
- 3K: Because a realtor thinks the walk-in closet is large enough to place a single bed in.
- 2SK: Because a realtor thinks the walk-in closet is large enough to merit calling out.
- 1DK: Because a realtor thinks there’s one bedroom, and the other room is really a dining room because it’s next to the kitchen.
You can already see that these layout labels are a matter of opinion, which makes it frustrating to filter properties by these values!
Fortunately, there is another, more objective value used to measure apartment size: floor area (床面積, yuka menseki). Japan uses the metric system, so this is measured in square meters (平米, heibei). The floor area of an apartment is the interior measurement of the floor area, excluding any space taken by balconies, lofts, and under-floor storage.
This means that there is other floor area accounted for that is not what you might consider “living area” for yourself, such as the closets, wash room, toilet, bath, and genkan. If you find an apartment that is 50 ㎡ but has only one room and a kitchen, both of which are surprisingly small, the remainder of the space is probably accounted for by those miscellaneous areas.
But wait! That’s only two methods, so what’s the remaining half?
While Japan measures floor area in square meters, it measures rooms in tatami mats (帖, jou). Frustratingly, the measurements of a tatami mat can vary by locale. Additionally, tatami mat area doesn’t directly translate to dimensions; a six mat room could fit a double bed if the six mats were arranged in a specific way, or it could be too narrow for one. The room size in mats is an approximation that you can only understand as you see more rooms and mats and is, in my personal experience, more frustrating than helpful.
So what does this mean for the cost of rent? There is generally a direct relationship between size and price: the larger an apartment, the more it costs.
How new of an apartment do you want?
Another major factor in the price of rent is the age of the building. Almost everyone, given the choice, would prefer to live in a newer building. There are various benefits: better insulation, better windows, better infrastructure, nicer fixtures, and improved earthquake standards.
This isn’t to say that older buildings do not have any of these things, or that all new buildings do have these things, but generally speaking newer buildings will be built better than older buildings due to improved standards over time. This is especially noticeable when looking at insulation and windows (single-glazed windows are the norm in buildings over 20–30 years old).
This does not mean that it is unsafe or unwise to live in an older building, either: it depends on the specific building and area. I’ve often opted to live in units in buildings 30+ years old as they’re much cheaper than units in newer buildings. Older units can also look as nice as a newer unit if they’ve had renovations. Japanese apartments have enough standardized equipment that once you’ve seen a few dozen listings, you’ll be able to spot the cosmetic hallmarks of an “old” apartment vs a “new” one, regardless of the building age.
However, choosing an older apartment means accepting some tradeoffs. For example, in addition to lower-quality insulation and windows, older apartments may also have older air conditioning units. All of those factors in combination can translate to higher electric bills in winter and summer; maybe you save on rent, but end up paying more for electricity, resulting in a higher combined cost of living.
What other preferences do you have?
Some other common preferences that drive up rental fees are height, other occupants, and pets.
The higher the apartment, the more expensive it is. Many people want to have the freedom to look out their window and see a cityscape, rather than the tiled wall of the building next door. Height also brings other benefits, such as perceived safety from crime (no burglars or peepers on the 17th floor!) and the absence of most bugs.
Other occupants can also limit the number of properties available to you: some apartments will only allow a single occupant, or will not allow children. Some may also discriminate against same-gender, unrelated roommates. It is important to be aware of this and not assume that once you sign a lease, you can move in with any number of people—in the vast majority of cases, each occupant must be listed on your contract.
Pets also add to rental costs, both directly and indirectly. The direct cost is that the signing fees can skyrocket depending on the type and number of pets you have; pets often function as a multiplier for fees like deposits, meaning that you would pay a deposit for yourself, and another for each pet. The indirect cost is that apartments that allow pets generally charge more per month than equivalent apartments that do not allow pets.
It can be difficult to move to Japan with pets, but we have an article with more information about the process.
Searching for an apartment
So, armed with this information, you might want to look at the market and see what’s available. Japan has a fairly organized real estate market with listings being posted to and aggregated by several major providers. Various real estate agents and companies post their listings on these sites; potential renters can search, filter, and view details on properties before contacting an agent.
This means that you will see the same property multiple times, with the same or different pictures or information, depending on who submitted it. There is nothing inherently suspicious about this, as it’s an expected result of running an aggregator site.
Searching multiple aggregator sites is a good strategy—some realtors have a preferred site or may not update information on all sites at the same time. Realtors also have databases of units that are not yet publicly listed; if you find a realtor you like, you can ask them to help you look for additional units that meet your criteria.
Suumo is one of the most popular real estate sites and allows you to search for rentals, homes for sale, new/prebuilt homes, and land. athome is another popular site with similar industry-standard filters. If you have pets, pethomeweb is unique in that it allows you to filter properties by the type and number of pets you have. This can be critical, as apartments that allow pets may only allow a small dog, but not larger dogs or cats—or vice versa.
All of these sites are in Japanese and the agents will expect to communicate only in Japanese. For English sites, apts.jp is entirely in English and promises that their listings have been vetted for foreigner-friendly apartments.
When I personally search for apartments, I first search by commute time to an area I need to be near, then filter by the highest monthly fee I’m willing to pay. Depending on the number of results, I’ll add or tweak filters for apartment size or age—but these are all personal preferences! My recommendation is to start as loosely as possible; searching for 1K newer than 10 years may mean you miss out on the 2DK that’s 11 years old.
I hope you can use this information to find your new home in Japan!
