Guides
Living in Tokyo, made simpler.
Practical guides to renting, settling, and getting the most out of Tokyo — from the HalfKey team.
Start here
The handful of guides we point everyone to first.
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Booking & Decisions · December 21, 2025
Choosing a 1–6 month Tokyo stay: which kind to book
A 1–6 month Tokyo stay sits between a tourist booking and a residential lease. Four options serve it: furnished apartment, sharehouse, hotel or aparthotel, and Airbnb. The right one depends on who you are.
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Booking & Decisions · December 8, 2025
Renting in Tokyo as a foreigner without a 2-year lease
The relocation forums describe a world of guarantor companies, key money, and 2-year contracts. For a 90-day furnished stay almost none of that applies, and the real hard parts are different ones. A walk through what actually happens between inquiry and keys.
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Living in Tokyo · April 28, 2026
What I'd tell a friend planning the Japan digital nomad visa stay
The Japan digital nomad visa got real in early 2024 and the threads about it are loud. Most of what people argue about online does not matter. A few things matter more than the threads admit. Here is the order I would put them in if you were sitting across from me.
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Booking & Decisions · May 7, 2026
Tokyo monthly apartments: a foreigner's overview
Monthly mansion is what the Japanese property market calls the building. Midterm guest is what you actually are. The two words point at the same 30-night minimum from opposite ends, and the gap between them is where most foreign bookings go wrong.
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Booking & Decisions
See all in Booking & DecisionsWhat to know before you book — choices, prep, and the questions to ask the operator.
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August 22, 2026
Tokyo move-out: what to cancel first, what to close last
Most departure checklists are sorted by how important each job feels. Sorted that way, you pay for a month of internet you never used, and your deposit gets sent to an account you already closed. Sort by lead time instead.
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August 17, 2026
Student visa: your first 14 days at the Tokyo ward office
The digital-nomad guides on this site rest on one sequence: no residence card, no resident record, no ordinary lease. A Student residence status changes the first two steps. It does not change the third, and that is the part students get wrong.
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August 13, 2026
A Japanese passport doesn't come with a Tokyo address
Every guide to renting in Tokyo assumes you are a foreigner, or that you already live here. A returning citizen is neither. The ward office will not put you back on the resident register for a three-month stay, and that one refusal decides which apartments you can book at all.
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May 7, 2026
Tokyo monthly apartments: a foreigner's overview
Monthly mansion is what the Japanese property market calls the building. Midterm guest is what you actually are. The two words point at the same 30-night minimum from opposite ends, and the gap between them is where most foreign bookings go wrong.
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May 5, 2026
Tokyo monthly: the only DNV housing option, structurally
You read GaijinPot's rental guide and it lists juminhyo among the required documents. You read Real Estate Japan and it says you need a working or student visa. Neither piece mentions the digital nomad visa, which makes both pieces wrong for you in the exact way that costs the most money.
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May 1, 2026
What the MLIT 30-day-minimum letter actually says
Tokyo midterm operators cite a 30-day minimum like it is a fixed line. The actual 2018 government notification reads 1ヶ月 and pairs the duration rule with two operator-side conditions. Read the four sentences yourself before the next operator email tells you the booking failed for the wrong reason.
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Money & Contracts
See all in Money & ContractsFees, deposits, contracts, and the math that runs the industry.
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August 14, 2026
Tokyo apartment paperwork your employer accepts
A receipt in your own name is what an operator hands a private guest by default, and it is the one document your finance team cannot use. Fixing it takes one email, and it only works before the money moves.
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August 4, 2026
Commuter pass or IC card on a 60-day Tokyo stay
A Tokyo commuter pass is sold in one-, three-, and six-month terms, on one fixed pair of stations. For a guest staying 30 to 90 days, the pass rarely fails on price. It fails on which of your rides count, and on the calendar.
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May 13, 2026
Why Tokyo midterm cleaning fees vary 3x on the same unit
Tokyo midterm operators charge anywhere from ¥25,000 to ¥79,000 to turn over the same one-bedroom. The fee isn't a statement about how dirty the unit gets. It's a statement about which customer the operator priced for.
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May 7, 2026
The kōnetsuhi flat fee, decoded with real kWh math
Most Tokyo monthly furnished listings show one utility line: 光熱費, ¥10,000 to ¥18,000 per month, flat. That number is a bet by the operator about how much electricity, gas, and water you will use. Sometimes you win the bet. Often you lose it. The math is small but it is not zero.
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April 29, 2026
Master-lease economics: who owns your Tokyo monthly mansion
When you book a Tokyo monthly furnished unit, three companies get paid before the rent reaches the landlord. The chain shapes which fees the operator can bend on, which are fixed, and why your operator says no to a 23-night stay even when the building is half-empty.
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April 28, 2026
The 2018 minpaku law's 180-night cap: text and aftermath
Japan's 2018 minpaku law caps a registered residence at 180 paying nights per year. The cap is half the calendar. The other half has to be paid for somewhere, and it gets paid for in the rents on the 30-night residential apartments that the surviving operators put on the market.
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Living in Tokyo
See all in Living in TokyoDay-to-day in a Tokyo apartment, from konbini bill payment to the heating-and-mold dance.
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August 19, 2026
Cooking in Tokyo on one burner and a small fridge
The first big shop is the one that doesn't fit. What breaks in a Tokyo furnished apartment is not the cooking but the shopping, and the supermarket two minutes from your door was built around the version that works.
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August 18, 2026
Tokyo clinic visit without national health insurance
Japan's national price list only governs treatment billed through the public insurance system. Step outside it and each clinic sets its own fee for the same fifteen minutes, which makes asking the price at reception an ordinary question. Here is the sequence from the door to the pharmacy.
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August 11, 2026
Tokyo pollen season when you've never had hay fever
Cedar and cypress seasons overlap, so a first Tokyo spring rarely passes in two weeks. The surprise is where the fix sits. Japan sells nine antihistamines over the counter, some of them not sold at all where you live, and peak weeks close your balcony to laundry.
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August 10, 2026
Tokyo earthquakes: your address has an evacuation site
Tokyo designates an evacuation site for every town-block in the 23 wards, and the assignment follows the address rather than the resident register. Your building already has one. Here is how to find it, and what the shindo number on the alert asks you to do.
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August 7, 2026
Laundry week in a Tokyo furnished apartment
A Tokyo furnished apartment gives you a washing machine, a balcony and no dryer, so the week starts running on the forecast instead of the calendar. Most units do have a dryer. It is in the bathroom ceiling, above the tub, and almost nobody looks up.
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August 6, 2026
Bicycle registration and parking on a 90-day Tokyo stay
A used bicycle stays in the previous owner's name until someone re-registers it, and that is a new number, not a name change. Station parking is paid everywhere, and the price of getting a removed bike back is set by your ward, not by Tokyo.
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Neighborhoods
See all in NeighborhoodsWhere to live for which kind of life — ward by ward.
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August 21, 2026
Nakano: the arcade, and the line going east
Most ward lists file Nakano under the Chuo line and stop there. It is also the western end of the Tokyo Metro Tozai line, which puts Otemachi and Nihonbashi in reach with no change of train. That matters if your office is east, not in Shinjuku.
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May 21, 2026
Yotsuya as a resident
Yotsuya is the quiet edge of Shinjuku. Sophia University on the south, residential blocks running north toward Akebonobashi, and a 2-kilometer running path along the old castle moat one minute from the station. A month here teaches you which combini stays open all night, where to eat for under ¥1,500, and which side of the slope to walk home on.
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April 2, 2026
Summer matsuri and which Tokyo wards stay quiet
Most Tokyo summer guides count the famous matsuri. They do not count the wards that the matsuri make unsleepable for a week. The corollary nobody publishes: which wards stay quiet through the season, and what the resident-eye view of a Tokyo summer actually looks like at 11pm in late July.
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February 17, 2026
Tokyo wards for a nomad couple, ranked by co-working and fiber
Most digital-nomad guides rank Tokyo for a solo remote worker on a six-week dash. This one ranks for two people in the same apartment for three months, where only one of them can take Zoom calls from the kitchen table.
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January 25, 2026
A month in Bunkyō: the resident's rhythm
Bunkyō is the academic ward: Tokyo University on the ridge, hospitals on the slope, residential blocks that thin out by nine. A month here teaches you what a week cannot. Which hill spares your knees, which Lawson restocks the onigiri, why the second cup of coffee comes from the same place every morning.
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January 7, 2026
Quietest Tokyo wards for sleepers, ranked
Most Tokyo neighborhood guides rank for nightlife and shopping. This one ranks the opposite: where you can sleep through Friday at 1am, and what you pay for the privilege.
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