Who owes the NHK fee in a furnished Tokyo apartment

The TV in your furnished Tokyo apartment was bought, carried in and plugged into the wall by the operator (the company that runs the furnished rental). That does not make the NHK fee theirs. Since 2018, Japanese courts read the law so that the person living with the set is the one who owes it. The operator takes the fee off your hands only when it already holds a contract for that room, and whether it does depends on how the unit is licensed.

So the envelope from NHK (日本放送協会, Japan's public broadcaster, funded by a fee on every household with a TV) is not a mistake. What follows is the statute, the two court cases that settled the furnished-apartment question, the money at three stay lengths, and the one question to send your operator before you pay anything.

The law says "installer", and the courts say that means you

放送法 (hōsō-hō — the Broadcasting Act), Article 64, paragraph 1, reads: 「協会の放送を受信することのできる受信設備を設置した者は、協会とその放送の受信についての契約をしなければならない」 ("anyone who installs equipment that can receive NHK's broadcasts must make a contract with NHK for receiving them"). Nothing about watching. Nothing about owning. The verb is 設置 (setchi — to install).

A tenant in a furnished apartment run by Leopalace21 tested that exact word. He had paid one month of fees and sued for the money back, arguing that the company installed the TV, not him. On 27 October 2016 the Tokyo District Court agreed and ordered NHK to refund him ¥1,310. That is the ruling still quoted on some monthly-mansion operators' blogs, sometimes as "tenants have no obligation."

It lasted seven months. On 31 May 2017 the Tokyo High Court reversed it: the installer includes people who occupy and control the set (「テレビを占有・管理している住人も含まれる」), so the tenant was the installer. On 29 August 2018 a Supreme Court panel refused his final appeal, and the High Court reading became the rule.

The Supreme Court had already dealt with the bigger question. On 6 December 2017 its Grand Bench held that Article 64 does not violate the Constitution (「憲法１３条，２１条，２９条に違反するものではない」), that NHK can sue a person who refuses to sign, that the contract forms the day that judgment becomes final, and that the fees then run back to when the set was installed. As of September 2026 the rule is simple: the fee follows the person who has a working TV, not the person who bought it.

One existing contract changes the whole answer

NHK contracts by household at home, and by room for businesses. Its page for business customers says 「ホテルや旅館等の場合も、部屋ごとに契約が必要です」 (hotels and ryokan also need a contract per room). A hotel with 100 TVs holds 100 contracts, at a business discount.

That sentence is the whole furnished-apartment question. Some Tokyo operators run their units under a hotel-type licence, the 旅館業法 (ryokan-gyō-hō — Hotel Business Act) tier described in the licensing tiers guide. For them the room counts as a business site, the contract is the operator's, and you owe nothing extra. Other operators rent the same kind of unit on a residential lease. Then the room is your residence for the term, and under the 2017 reading you are the installer of the TV that came with it.

You cannot see which from the listing. One line to the operator settles it:

この部屋のNHK放送受信契約はありますか。ある場合、契約者はどなたですか。 ("Is there an NHK reception contract for this room? If so, who is the contract holder?")

If the answer is yes, keep the reply. Any letter or visitor at that address gets the operator's contract number, and you are done. If the answer is no, or silence, the contract is yours to make, and the clock in the next section is already running. If the unit has no TV at all, which happens more than the word "furnished" suggests, there is nothing to contract.

What the fee costs on a 30, 90 and 180-day stay

Since 1 October 2023 NHK charges one rate whatever way you pay, after a 10% cut. The amounts sit in Article 5 of NHK's 放送受信規約 (hōsō jushin kiyaku — the reception regulations, the contract terms approved by the communications minister) (PDF). 地上契約 (chijō keiyaku — terrestrial contract): ¥1,100 a month, ¥6,309 for six months paid ahead, ¥12,276 for twelve. 衛星契約 (eisei keiyaku — satellite contract): ¥1,950 a month, ¥11,186 and ¥21,765 ahead. Bills come every two months.

The satellite rate is the trap in a Tokyo building. If the block has a shared BS dish and the set in your unit can tune it, NHK's rate for that room is ¥1,950, not ¥1,100. Press the BS button on the remote before you assume the lower number.

Article 5 also fixes the start and the end. Fees run 「受信機の設置の月の翌月から」 (from the month after the set is installed) until the month before the cancellation month. For you, "installed" is the month you moved in. One floor applies: cancel in the installation month or the month after, and that one month is still charged.

• 30 days, arrive 5 September, leave 4 October: October is charged, nothing else. ¥1,100.
• 90 days, arrive 5 September, leave 4 December: October and November. ¥2,200.
• 180 days, arrive 5 September, leave 4 March: October through February. ¥5,500.

Notice what the free first month does to the prepayment discount. Six months paid ahead cost ¥6,309, and a six-month stay is charged five months, or ¥5,500. Twelve months ahead cost ¥12,276, and a twelve-month stay is charged eleven, or ¥12,100. Prepaying wins only when you will be charged the full six or twelve months, which means staying seven or thirteen months. Prepay and leave early and Article 11 refunds the balance at the monthly rate, so you lose nothing, but you gain nothing either.

Then the surcharge. Article 3 gives you until the end of the second month after installation to send the contract form. Miss it without a good reason, contract later, and Article 12 lets NHK bill the skipped months plus a 割増金 (warimashi-kin — surcharge) of twice the fee, three times the normal amount in total. NHK introduced it on 1 April 2023. On the 90-day example, October and November become ¥3,300 each, ¥6,600 instead of ¥2,200. Fall three billing periods behind on a contract you did sign and Article 12-2 adds 2.0% interest per period.

Full exemption exists, on application with proof: households on 生活保護 (seikatsu hogo — public welfare), and students living away from family on a need-based scholarship or tuition waiver. A visiting student on such a scholarship may qualify. A working tenant on a 90-day project does not.

Why NHK stopped knocking on most doors and started charging triple

Until 2023 NHK's contracting ran on visits by outsourced sales staff. NHK ended those outsourcing contracts at the end of September 2023; about 550 individually contracted visitors were still working in May 2024. NHK's own page now lists visits as one channel next to broadcast, post, direct mail and phone, staffed by 地域コミュニケーター (chiiki komyunikētā — "community communicators") who carry NHK ID. A knock is rarer, not extinct. A caller with no NHK ID, or one asking for cash or a card number at the door, matches the fake visits NHK warns about on its own site.

The incentive is easy to read. NHK's 2021 to 2023 management plan announced the fee cut and the move to "sales without visits" in the same reform. Once the 2017 judgment gave NHK a court route, and the 2023 surcharge made late contracting cost three times the fee, the expensive part of the system, a person at every door, could be replaced by letters. The letter in your mailbox is that replacement, and the surcharge is what gives it teeth.

One more change, from 1 October 2025: NHK's internet service, NHK ONE, also needs a contract. Using it is what triggers the obligation. NHK's own contract page says 「スマホやパソコンを持っているだけでは受信契約の対象とはなりません」 (owning a phone or a PC is not enough), and a household that already has a TV contract pays nothing extra. Internet-only users pay the terrestrial rate. So a unit with no TV stays fee-free until the day you sign up for NHK ONE to watch the news.

Leaving is a phone call, and only in listed cases

A contract does not end when you fly out. Article 9 says to notify NHK "immediately" when you no longer need one, and the cancellation is dated the day of the notice once NHK confirms the facts. NHK's cancellation page lists the facts it accepts: nobody lives at the residence any more, a move abroad (海外転居), or every receiver gone. For a tenant leaving Japan, the move abroad is the clean case. Call NHK's contract line, 0120-151515 (9am to 6pm), a few days before departure. NHK refunds payments for the months after it accepts the cancellation. Moving to another Tokyo apartment with a TV is an address change, not a cancellation. A false cancellation notice is one of the three cases that trigger the surcharge.

If you paid at the konbini and are staying past a second bill, the auto-debit switch has its own NHK-specific timing. If you are still choosing between operators, the overview of Tokyo monthly apartments explains which product types run under which licence, which is the same line that decides whose NHK contract the room sits on.

If the operator holds a contract for the room, answer any letter with its number and pay nothing. If it does not, the fee is ¥1,100 a month from the month after you arrived, the form is due by the end of the second month, and three times that is the price of forgetting. If there is no TV and you never open NHK ONE, there is nothing to contract.