By the HalfKey team
Why a regular Tokyo lease usually waits a few weeks
The lease application wants a Japanese phone number and a bank account. The bank wants that phone and an ID showing your current address. The phone wants the same ID. Here is the order that works, and what you can finish before your flight.
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If you have just arrived in Tokyo and want to sign a regular apartment lease in your first week, expect the application to ask for things you don't have yet: a Japanese mobile number, a Japanese bank account and a residence card with your address on it. Each of those depends on another one, so plan to spend the first weeks in a temporary home and do the steps in order.
What the application asks for
Japan's land and transport ministry, MLIT, publishes an English guidebook for finding a room that lists the paperwork a landlord's agent usually wants: a passport, your residence card, proof of earnings, and a certificate from your employer or school. The personal information sheet at the back has lines for your address in Japan, a telephone number, a mobile number, your workplace or school, and an emergency contact in Japan.
The same guide says you need a rent guarantee company or a guarantor when you sign, that rent is generally paid in cash or by bank transfer, and that it usually takes one to two weeks from applying to moving in.
The address comes first
If you entered at Narita, Haneda or another major airport as a mid- to long-term resident, you received your residence card at the airport. The Immigration Services Agency says you must then take the card to the municipal office where you live and report your address within 14 days of settling on it. The office records that address on the back of the card.
A temporary home can be the address you report, if you will actually live there for a while. Ota ward's page on address reports says that a mid- to long-term resident who stays for a period in a hotel or training centre must still file the immigration address report there, even though the ward cannot create a resident record for that kind of place.
Reporting your address does not always mean the ward will also create a resident record, called a 住民票 (jūminhyō). Banks and employers sometimes ask for that record, so before you book a furnished apartment, ask the ward office whether it can create one for that address. Our student housing guide explains the difference between the two records.
Until the card shows an address, the next two steps stall, because both of them check for one.
Then the phone
Under the mobile phone identity law, 携帯電話不正利用防止法 (keitai denwa fusei riyō bōshi hō), a carrier must confirm your name, address and date of birth before it signs a contract with you (Article 3). docomo's identity document page shows how a carrier applies that: the document must show your name, date of birth and current address and still be valid, and foreign residents show a residence card together with a foreign passport. A passport on its own is not on the list.
You can usually sign up for a Japanese phone number once your residence card shows your address. A data-only SIM or eSIM bought with a passport keeps you online in the meantime. Our phone plan guide explains which plans include a Japanese number and incoming SMS, which you will need for the next step.
Then the bank account
Banks check the same three items under the anti-money-laundering law, 犯罪収益移転防止法 (hanzai shūeki iten bōshi hō): your name, address and date of birth (Article 4). The Financial Services Agency's pamphlet for foreign residents adds that banks confirm your address, your residence period and status, and your work or school situation, and may ask for a residence card, an employee or student ID and a passport.
Each bank then adds its own conditions. Japan Post Bank will not open an account if your permitted stay ends within three months of the application, and asks students and technical interns to show a student or employee ID with the residence card. SMBC Trust Bank's Prestia conditions are a clear example. You qualify if you entered Japan at least six months ago, or if you work at an office in Japan. You also need at least three months left on your permitted stay, a smartphone with a Japanese number that can receive SMS, and an ID that shows the address where you live now. If your bank asks for a Japanese phone number and an address on your ID, as this one does, arrange both before you apply for the account.
For a furnished stay you can often pay rent without a Japanese account, and our banking guide covers those options. For a regular lease, the monthly transfer usually needs one, so open it third.
The order that works
- Move into a temporary home you can live in for several weeks, and report that address at the municipal office within 14 days.
- Sign up for a Japanese phone number once the card shows the address.
- Open the bank account with the card, the phone and your employee or student ID.
- Apply for the regular apartment with the phone number, the account details, the card and your employer's or school's certificate. Allow the guidebook's one to two weeks for screening and the contract.
As a rough example, if each of the first three steps takes a week and screening takes two, you collect keys about five weeks after landing. Book the temporary home for at least that long, with a way to extend it.
What you can finish before you fly
Your employer or school letter can be ready before you land. MLIT's document checklist for tenant screening includes a certificate of planned salary payment for people who have not yet started work, so a new job does not have to wait for a first payslip. Ask HR or the international office for that certificate in Japanese.
Save enough cash for signing. The guidebook's rule of thumb for the money due at signing is four to seven months' rent. That covers the deposit, the agent's fee, insurance, the first month's rent and 礼金 (reikin — key money, a payment to the landlord that you do not get back). With an invented rent of ¥100,000 a month, that is ¥400,000 to ¥700,000, paid in cash or by bank transfer. If that money sits in a bank abroad, work out now how you will move it, because your Japanese account will not exist yet when you start looking.
Ask an agent by email which guarantee company it uses and what that company accepts from someone newly arrived. The no-guarantor guide explains what a guarantee company does and how its fees work.
Before you arrive, choose the areas you want to search and decide how much you can spend. The hunting timeline guide walks through the steps between finding a room and getting the keys.
HalfKey's furnished homes are rented by the month. You can browse the current homes or send us your arrival date and how long you expect the search to take.