By the HalfKey team
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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Your company approved ¥520,000 for a three-month furnished apartment in Setagaya. Before you send any of it, ask the operator (the company that runs the furnished rental) to make the invoice out to your employer instead of to you.
That request is most of the job, and it only works in one direction. Operators give a private guest a receipt in the guest's own name, because that is what a private guest asks for. Once your money has arrived, asking for the same document again under a different name is a request most operators turn down.
Your default: raise the paperwork in the same email where you confirm your dates. Not at check-in, and not on the day finance asks you for it.
Two documents, two jobs
A 請求書 (seikyūsho — "billing document," the bill a business sends before you pay) asks one named person or company for a set amount. A 領収書 (ryōshūsho — "receipt document," proof that money arrived) is written afterwards. The National Tax Agency describes a receipt as a document made to prove that money was received, and given to the person who paid it (tax answer No.7105, Japanese).
Read that last part again. The receipt goes to whoever paid. If the money left your account, the receipt names you, and it is doing its job correctly. It is just not doing your employer's job.
So the question to settle up front is not which of the two documents you get. It is whose name the document says paid.
Finance checks the name, not the title
Japan has run a qualified-invoice system, called インボイス制度 (inboisu seido — "invoice system") in Japanese, since 1 October 2023 (tax answer No.6498, Japanese). Under it, a company can only claim back the consumption tax it paid on something if it keeps an invoice with certain details on it. Only a business registered with the tax office can issue one.
The National Tax Agency lists those details in tax answer No.6625 (Japanese). Two of them decide whether your paperwork works:
- The issuer's name and 登録番号 (tōroku bangō — "registration number," the letter T followed by 13 digits).
- 宛名 (atena — "addressee name"), the name of the business the document is made out to. That is the box that has to say your employer.
The word printed at the top of the page decides nothing. The agency's own guidance says the format is not fixed in law, and that a bill, a delivery note, a receipt or a shop's printed slip all qualify as long as the required details are on them (question 25 of the invoice Q&A, PDF, Japanese). A ryōshūsho with your employer in the atena box does the job. A seikyūsho with your own name in it does not.
You can check the registration number yourself before you pay. The agency runs a public lookup; enter the 13 digits without the T. If the number returns nothing, check the digits, then ask the operator again. Tell finance about a missing number before you book, not after.
Fix it before you pay, not after
Operators write one receipt per payment. Writing a second one for the same money in someone else's name leaves two documents for one payment, so most will not do it, and the ones who agree usually want the first copy back. Ask before the transfer and it is a two-line email. Ask afterwards and it is a favour.
If you have already paid and the receipt carries your name, ask anyway, in writing, and say what it is for. Put the contract, the invoice and the bank transfer record in one folder while you wait. Send those three to finance with your request and let them tell you what they can work with.
The deposit line is not a cost
Most furnished stays ask for a 敷金 (shikikin — "deposit money," a refundable amount held against damage and unpaid charges). It comes back. The National Tax Agency says a deposit that comes back at the end of the contract is not payment for anything, so it carries no consumption tax (tax answer No.6225, Japanese).
Run the arithmetic before you agree to front it. Take a three-month booking at ¥180,000 a month, a ¥30,000 departure cleaning fee, and a deposit of one month's rent. The invoice total is ¥750,000. Only ¥570,000 of that is money spent; the other ¥180,000 is money held, and it lands back in somebody's account after move-out.
That question usually goes unasked until move-out week. Settle two things before the transfer leaves: who fronts the ¥180,000, and where it goes back to. Get both answers in writing, from the operator and from your employer, and expect the size to move around, because operators split rent, deposit and cleaning differently.
What each line is doing on the invoice
Ask the operator to show refundable and non-refundable lines separately on the invoice. Most will, and it removes an argument later.
| Line | What it is | Comes back |
|---|---|---|
| Rent for the period | The stay itself | No |
| Departure cleaning | One-off charge, usually billed at booking | No |
| Utilities | Flat monthly fee, or metered | No |
| Refundable deposit | Held against damage and unpaid charges | Yes, after move-out |
| Signing fees | One-off charges at contract, where they apply | No |
Signing fees are usually smaller than long-term renters expect. Key money does not normally apply to a furnished stay under a year, and the one-month agent fee does not apply to midterm bookings either.
The email to send before you confirm
Copy this. Fill in the unit reference, your dates, and your employer's legal name.
Hello. My employer is paying for this booking. Before I confirm [unit reference] for [start date] to [end date], please confirm the following in writing:
- You can issue the invoice to [employer's legal name], with that name as the 宛名, rather than to me.
- Your registration number (登録番号), if you are registered.
- The invoice split into refundable and non-refundable lines, with the deposit shown separately.
- A PDF sent by email to me and to our finance address, before the payment date.
- Who receives the deposit refund after move-out, and to which bank account.
Thank you.
Get your employer's legal name in English and in Japanese before you send this. Billing systems here usually need the Japanese one. Send both, and let the operator use the one their system takes.
If your employer approves the stay a month at a time, ask for one invoice per period instead of a single invoice for the whole booking. Check the minimum stay first. Tokyo furnished rentals start at 30 nights for a licensing reason, so there is nothing to book if finance approves 21 nights. Staying on in the same apartment keeps the same invoice running instead of starting a new one.
If your employer is paying, do this first
- Get your employer's legal name in English and Japanese, plus the finance email address, before you contact any operator.
- Send the five requests above in the same message that confirms your dates.
- Check the operator's registration number on the National Tax Agency lookup, and tell finance now if there isn't one.
- Settle who fronts the refundable deposit and which account it returns to at move-out.
- Pay only once the invoice has arrived with your employer's name in the atena box.
- Keep the invoice, the contract and the transfer record in one folder from day one.
The receipt with your name on it is not an operator error. It is the document a private guest gets, handed to you because nobody told them otherwise. Tell them otherwise first.
— HalfKey runs furnished Tokyo apartments for stays of 30 days to 12 months. Browse listings for your dates.