The good news: foreigners can rent apartments in Japan. The bad news? It can be hard to do so. We’ve combined our extensive knowledge of Tokyo, our housing experience and plenty of research to help guide you in renting an apartment or house in Tokyo or Japan as a foreigner.
Even if you have wads of yen spilling out of your pockets, it’s not necessarily going to be easy to find the right place—especially if you are a gaijin (foreigner). So, let’s have a step-by-step look at how to get the best possible accommodation as an expat in Japan, without getting into an unnecessarily expensive contract.
How to Rent in Japan
Renting as a foreigner in Japan can be hard – especially if it’s your first time. Many agencies and landlords will refuse to rent to foreigners. It is estimated that only 10-20% of real estate companies in Japan will rent to foreigners.
Why? There are no laws in Japan to protect foreigners who want to rent an apartment or house, meaning that—unlike other countries—landlords face no consequences for specifying ‘no foreigners.’
This means that when searching for a house, you can save a lot of time and headaches using foreigner-friendly real estate companies for the whole process. Jump to the Rental agencies section to direct you to foreigner-friendly accommodation.
How Much Does it Cost?
Renting an apartment in Tokyo (or Japan in general) is typically expensive, with the initial set-up fees costing up to five or six times your monthly rent. The effectiveness of this business model is questionable, since it makes everyone less likely to relocate or more likely to buy, but that’s how it works so you need to get used to it.
A deposit is almost always required (1–2 months’ rent), like anywhere in the world, but be careful, sometimes landlords will do everything they can to keep it while you move out, trying to charge you for any possible repairs or refurbishment.
An agency fee is common as well, and it’s usually hard to negotiate on it (0.5–1 months’ rent).
What rockets the moving price to crazy levels are extra pointless fees, like a cleaning fee (nobody gets how cleaning a two-room apartment costs ¥40,000), “24-hour life support” (what?), among others, together with the key money (1-2 months’ rent), which is essentially thank-you money for letting them rent you the apartment.
Liability insurance
You may also have to pay the liability insurance. The agency will try to sell you a plan, but if you go straight to the source online you’ll probably get something more reasonable (¥4,000/year for a small apartment) in 10 minutes. Be sure to read the privacy policy and don’t let them force you into getting the insurance they’re offering — it’s illegal.
Guarantor
Finally, you ideally need to have a Japanese guarantor. Companies and universities will often offer this service for free (or almost free), otherwise the rental agency can do it for you (0.5–1 month’s rent). Some of them may force you to use this service from them, and in this case it’s perfectly legal. Some agencies or sharehouses will waive the guarantor in return for a slightly higher rent (an extra few thousand yen per month, say) as it becomes more normal for foreigners without guarantors to seek out Tokyo apartments.
Those are basically all the initial expenses, but keep in mind that every month, together with the rent, you may also have to pay for a maintenance/common expenses fee (between 0–¥30,000), that fortunately is always clearly stated on any agency website.
Rental agencies
To get connected with a real estate agent, Able, Eheya and Japan Home Search are good places to start. There is also UR, which usually offers places with more affordable rent—perfect for cheapos! They mainly target those with kids or looking to start a family as well as older people, but that doesn’t mean it won’t appeal to a wider audience too (plus they do accept foreigners). There are no agency fees or key money, but they do usually come unfurnished, so you’ll have to get the basics like a fridge, washing machine and any furniture you fancy (although you can opt for an appliance rental service if you prefer). You can read more about UR agency here.
Other real estate agents can be region or city specific. Type 不動産業者 into your search online and the city (in Japanese) that you are looking to live in. This will give you a variety of options for potential real estate agents in the area.
Online rental sites
The internet really is a godsend when it comes to finding accommodation in Japan. It’s the perfect starting point to look before you leave your home country. Online searches can also help you familiarize yourself with the main real estate agents in the area that you are looking to live in.
Most sites are user-friendly and most importantly easy to understand(!). You can filter for rental property type, price, size, number of rooms and even the age of the building. Perfect for saving time and hassle compared to scrolling through thousands of options that aren’t suitable for your needs. You can also sign up for notifications when a new property is uploaded to the website—very handy!
Below and in no particular order is a list of websites for finding accommodation in Japan online. The first two websites that are listed are our top favourites for their wide selections of places. And read on to our next section on the best agencies for short- to long-term options.
Renting in Japan—types of accommodation
If you’re a foreigner renting an apartment in Japan and checking online, there will be a lot of new terminology to get to grips with. We’ve detailed some of the main ones to help you with your apartment search.
Types of Accommodation Space
Apartment in Japanese is simply ‘apaato’ or アパート.
Don’t get apaato confused with ‘manshon’, they’re two quite different types of home. No, not mansion. The definition of manshon or マンション in Japanese refers to a well-made (generally with reinforced concrete) unit in a 3-storey+ building. They are often offered for sale, rather than for rent. Living in a manshon in Japan carries a certain amount of status. It’s what you would typically call a condo in North America.
Compare this to living in a rented apaato—very homely and also probably with paper-thin walls. The obvious advantage of an apaato is the price and rentability.
House . Okay, if you’re feeling flush and looking for a house (or not looking for a house), it’s ikkenya or 一軒家.
What Does ‘1K Apartment’ Mean?
When browsing sites or hearing from agencies, you might see the following with relation to apartments: 1K or even 2LDK.
The number—in this case 1 or 2, means how many bedrooms an apartment has. L means ‘Living Room.’ D means ‘Dining Room’ and K means (you guessed it), ‘Kitchen.’ So, ‘2LDK’ means a 2-bedroom apartment with one combined dining room-kitchen (ie. space for a table next to your cooking area), and one living room to watch the latest Netflix series you’ve been bingeing. If there is just a K without the preceding D, it usually means there is no separate room for the kitchen.
Accommodation period
When renting or searching for somewhere to rent in Japan, you can save money by renting via the length of your intented stay. It’s also helpful to balance planning ahead with being quick to snap up a great place when you see it. There’s a solid difference between choosing from what’s available now and what’s available from say, a month from now too, especially in an agent’s eyes, so play it cool – but don’t look so far ahead you can’t actually sign anything.
Shorter stays
As you probably concluded after reading about the initial costs (key money etc.), paying all those fees upfront is not worth it if you plan to stay just a few months. Luckily, there are some short-term accommodation options (with no key money) available too (and we aren’t suggesting hotels): Sakura House, Oak House, Leopalace are some of the biggest ones. You will get a furnished room or small apartment, without paying crazy fees, and supported by English-speaking staff. However, all of this comes at a cost; the rent is typically about 50% more expensive than standard apartments and may not be a great option if you plan to stay for a long time.
Longer stays
While planning a longer-term stay, it’s worth taking some time to find a good and reasonably priced apartment. Foreigner-oriented websites—those you find by typing in Google “rent apartment Tokyo” (or more smartly “rent cheap apartment Tokyo”)—are by far not the best in this case. Less choice and higher prices make them worse than sites aimed at Japanese renters, like Suumo or Chintai—which are in Japanese, but Google Translate fortunately goes a long way if you can’t read the original Japanese text.
The disadvantage here is that you will waste a lot of time checking out apartments you will not be able to rent. Why? Because there’s no anti-discrimination law in Japan, so landlords are perfectly allowed to refuse foreigners. However, the money you will save with these websites and the related agencies are worth some “sorry, no gaijin” calls, when compared to the previously mentioned ones.
Lastly, UR (Urban Renaissance) apartments are typically cheaper than average (lower moving cost especially), although availability can be quite limited. Both UR and Suumo actually offer “suicide/deadly accident apartments” (Jiko Bukken) for unsurprisingly reduced prices, typically half of the average cost in a certain area. You will also find out that they are always completely renovated to make them more attractive. With this option there’s just one thing to consider: are you afraid of ghosts?
If all the rejection is too much, fill out our accommodation help form and we’ll get back to you with some expert advice and some options that match your needs.
For the ultimate long stay, you could consider buying (at least then the hassle only happens once?) but prices are high. Check out our guide to akiya – the abandoned homes ofetn up for grabs at low prices and a great steal for real estate in Tokyo.
Where to live in Tokyo
Living in a central location is of course nice, with some of the most popular wards for easy access being Shibuya, Shinjuku, Roppongi, Shinagawa, Ota, Meguro and Minato. Unsurprisingly though, prices vary quite a bit depending on the neighborhood, so if you check our Tokyo rent map to determine budget-friendly zones, you might be able to save some decent money by choosing a lesser-known corner of the world’s largest city.
Since trains in Tokyo don’t run 24 hours, it’s a good idea to live reasonably close to where you like to hang out so you don’t need to worry about the last train. Or you may want to live close to where you work for the daily to reduce travel time and train costs. Try to find a good balance, it’s usually feasible.
If you have a very limited budget, choose a convenient train line, not a neighborhood. The farther out you go from central Tokyo, the cheaper apartments become. You can save quite a bit actually, especially on the initial costs (much more negotiable). Being on a good train line (popular options include the Chuo, Chiyoda, Keio and Odawara) will mean you’ll be able to leave quite late from central areas—and avoid living near random stations on train lines not connected with nice/poppin’ places.
In either case, living further from the station will save you a surprising amount of money—residents pay a premium to stay close (5 minutes by foot), and prices drop considerably the farther you go. And since you are not regularly going to the gym (—are you? Well, you have better time management skills than we do) some exercise is not going to hurt you.
Timing, sharing and other tips
Moving season
To get the best deals, you have to know about “moving season”. In Japan, people typically relocate themselves in April, at the beginning of the fiscal year, when you usually get a new job or get assigned to a different company office. The same happens, but to a lesser extent, in October. This basically means that you should not get your own apartment in these months, or in those immediately preceding them. Agencies are quite optimistic, and they will assume they will certainly be able to fill any of their apartments (although it doesn’t happen at all, Tokyo and the Kanto region have about 15% of empty rooms), so they are not going to be willing to negotiate. Sometimes, it’s much cheaper to stay a little longer in a temporary location to wait until moving season (and its higher prices) is a distant memory.
Share houses
Sharing an apartment (i.e. having a roommate) in Tokyo is uncommon. Even in student housing it’s much more common to get a small single-room apartment. There might be many reasons, that we are not going to investigate, but in general if you don’t already know someone who is willing to share an apartment, you’re out of luck on that option.
Share houses (like Sakura House that we mentioned above) do exist, but they are still quite different to what Westerners are used to, being more similar to hostels. Also, larger share houses tend to be nicer than single-room ones, having a proper kitchen and common hang-out area.
Building age
The age and condition of the building is going to majorly influence the rent price. Japanese people, especially those older than 30 years old, are willing to pay more to get a brand-new apartment, and this together with earthquakes justifies the demolition-reconstruction cycle you will see everywhere in Tokyo. In general, getting an apartment 10–20 years old (in most countries it would still be considered new) will save you some good money and allow you to live quite comfortably. Older ones (built in the ‘80s) might be lacking a modern look, but many are far from shabby and can save you even more. Note, though, it’s not advisable to get anything built before 1981, when earthquake safety construction standards became more restrictive.
The negotiation
We finally get to the important part: how to get the best deal once you’ve chosen your new apartment. It might be harder or easier depending on where and when you want to move, but there are some points that will work in general.
Main thing, negotiate on the extra fees, not on the rent. If you are lucky you will get a relatively low 5% discount on the rent, but key money (free cash given to the landlord while moving in) and many other pointless move-in fees might be dropped if you don’t move in during April. Depending on where you are going to settle, you might be able to do away with all of them, except the deposit (check if you will get it back, sometimes it’s just a name for a moving fee) and the cleaning fee that they theoretically paid in advance.
Finally, every agency has access to every apartment listing in Tokyo through a system called REINS. If you’re interested in another agency’s listing, your current agent will certainly let you rent it through them. What may happen though, is that you might need to pay an agency fee to both parties (approximately 1.5 month of the rent’s cost). Speak to different agents, check which apartments they are actually managing, and you can avoid wasting money (which you’ll need later to furnish your apartment!).
This post was originally written by Giullio Coral in February 2016. Last updated: July 2022.
While we do our best to ensure it’s correct, information is subject to change.
