What the MLIT 30-day-minimum letter actually says

The "30-day minimum" most Tokyo midterm operators cite is a paraphrase. The original sits in a joint notification from the 観光庁 (Kankō-chō — Japan Tourism Agency, the cabinet-level body inside the 国土交通省 / kokudo kōtsū-shō, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) and the 厚生労働省 (Kōsei Rōdō-shō — Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare). The notification is dated 平成30年11月6日 (November 6, 2018) and carries two control numbers: 観観産第545号 from MLIT and 薬生衛発1106第1号 from MHLW. Its title is 「住宅宿泊仲介業者等における短期賃貸借物件等の取扱いについて」 (jūtaku shukuhaku chūkai gyōsha tō ni okeru tanki chintaishaku bukken tō no toriatsukai ni tsuite — On the treatment of short-term-rental properties by minpaku intermediaries).

The body of the letter is short. The sentence everyone quotes is one line. The two sentences operators quote past are the conditions that decide whether a stay is a 賃貸借契約 (chintai-shaku keiyaku — rental lease, governed by the 借地借家法 / shakuchi shakuya-hō, Land and Building Lease Act) or a 旅館業 (ryokan-gyō — lodging business, governed by the 旅館業法 / ryokan-gyō-hō, Inns and Hotels Act). Duration is one of three tests, not the whole test. Operators who name only the duration are picking the easy half.

This article reads the four sentences. It quotes the Japanese, translates each clause, and names what gets dropped when the rule travels into a booking-form footnote.

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The line itself, verbatim

The notification's threshold sentence reads:

「目安期間は1ヶ月とすることが望ましい」

A verbatim translation: the reference period should be one month. The Japanese is 1ヶ月 (ikkagetsu — one calendar month), not 30日 (san-jū-nichi — 30 days). On a 30-day February that gap is 2 days. On a 31-day month it is 1 day. Most operators round to 30 nights because the booking calendar is night-counted; the regulator's text is month-counted.

The phrase 「目安」 (meyasu — reference, guideline) matters more than the number. The notification calls 1ヶ月 a guideline period, not a hard floor. A 28-night stay is not automatically illegal. A 35-night stay is not automatically a lease. The 1ヶ月 line tells the saving local 保健所 (hokenjo — public health office) and the operator's compliance team where to start looking. It does not end the analysis.

What ends the analysis is the rest of the paragraph.

The two conditions, verbatim

Right alongside the 1ヶ月 line, the notification restates the substantive test for whether a stay is a lease or lodging. Quoting:

「施設の管理・経営形態を総体的にみて、宿泊者のいる部屋を含め施設の衛生上の維持管理責任が営業者にあると社会通念上認められること」

「施設を利用する宿泊者がその宿泊する部屋に生活の本拠を有さないことを原則として、営業しているもの」

Two conditions, paraphrasing the test the MHLW Q&A on 旅館業 has carried since 2016:

1. The operator holds 衛生上の維持管理責任 (eisei-jō no iji kanri sekinin — sanitation and maintenance responsibility) over the room, judged by general social standards (社会通念上 / shakai tsūnen-jō), looking at the management and business shape as a whole (総体的に / sōtai-teki ni).
2. The guest does not have their 生活の本拠 (seikatsu no honkyo — base of daily life) in the room.

If both conditions hold, the activity is 旅館業, regardless of how the contract is labelled. If both fail, the activity is a 賃貸借. If only one fails, the answer turns on the operator's actual practice, not the booking page's word choice.

The 1ヶ月 line and these two conditions are paired. The notification does not say "30+ nights is automatically a lease." It says, in effect, "if duration is below 1ヶ月, treat as 旅館業; if duration is at or above 1ヶ月, also check the two operator-side conditions." Most operator footnotes drop the second half.

What "operator holds sanitation responsibility" looks like in practice

The first condition is the one that catches the majority of disguised 旅館業 listings. Five operator behaviours signal the operator is still managing the room as a hotel would.

• Linen rotation by the operator. A 6-week stay where the cleaner enters and changes sheets at a fixed weekly cadence reads as operator-managed sanitation. A lease tenant rotates their own linens.
• Mid-stay cleaning included as a fee. A booking page that lists 中間清掃料 (chūkan seisō-ryō — mid-stay cleaning fee) as a separate line item, especially when paid up-front, reads as operator-side responsibility.
• Departure cleaning priced as a guest line item. The MHLW FAQ Q9 explicitly names 「室内清掃費」 (shitsunai seisō-hi — in-room cleaning charge) as one of the costs that count as 「宿泊料」 (shukuhaku-ryō — lodging charge) under the act. A standard residential lease does not bill departure cleaning per stay. It deducts from a 敷金 (shikikin — security deposit) at the lease's end.
• Utilities billed as a flat operator line. Q9 also names 「光熱水道費」 (kōnetsu suidō-hi — utility charges for heat, electricity, and water) as in-scope when bundled into the stay charge. A lease tenant has utility contracts in their own name with TEPCO and Tokyo Gas; an operator-billed flat fee is the hotel pattern.
• Common-area cleaning by operator-paid staff. Hallways, entryways, and shared baths cleaned by the operator's regular contractor (not by the guest or by a residential management firm) read as operator-side maintenance.

A unit that does any one of these can still be a 賃貸借 if other facts point that way. Two or three stacked is the pattern that has the hokenjo asking questions.

What "guest's base of daily life is in the room" looks like in practice

The second condition catches probe-stayers and short-corporate residents. They never planned to make the room their 生活の本拠 in the first place.

The test is not how the guest feels about the stay. It is what the paperwork shows. Three artifacts the hokenjo treats as evidence of a 生活の本拠 in Tokyo:

• A 住民票 (jūminhyō — resident registration certificate) showing the unit's address. Filed at the ward office within 14 days of move-in for stays past 90 days.
• A 転入届 (tennyū todoke — incoming-residence notification) with the unit address as the new 住所 (jūsho — registered address).
• A utility account in the guest's name at the unit address. TEPCO, Tokyo Gas, the local water bureau.

Take a 60-day probe stay on a tourist visa. The guest files no 住民票. The guest holds no Japanese utility contracts. The guest keeps a primary 住所 in the home country. That stay fails the second condition. The room is not the guest's 生活の本拠 by any normal reading. Two months at a 30-night cadence in a furnished unit, with the operator handling sanitation, fails both conditions. The notification's framework treats the stay as 旅館業 regardless of the contract label.

A 6-month stay where the guest files a 住民票, holds local utility accounts in their name, and signs a 定期借家契約 (teiki shakuya keiyaku — fixed-term lease, the contract shape that ends on a stated date with no automatic renewal) generally clears the second condition. The operator's role on the first condition then becomes the deciding factor.

The third sentence operators quote past: the platform rule

The 2018 notification was issued specifically for 住宅宿泊仲介業者 (jūtaku shukuhaku chūkai gyōsha — minpaku-listing intermediaries; the licensed-platform category created by the 住宅宿泊事業法 / jūtaku shukuhaku jigyō-hō, Housing Accommodation Business Act of 2017). The operative sentence:

「目安期間以上の滞在を前提として、仲介サイトにおいて予約の条件として明確に表示」

「短期賃貸借契約の締結を条件とすること、施設の衛生上の維持管理責任を営業者側が負うものでないこと」

Translated: minpaku platforms have three display obligations when they list a property at the 1ヶ月-or-longer end as a short-term lease rather than a minpaku.

• Display the 1ヶ月-minimum as a booking precondition.
• Show that signing a 短期賃貸借契約 (tanki chintai-shaku keiyaku — short-term lease) is a booking precondition.
• Show that the operator does not hold 衛生上の維持管理責任 over the unit.

A platform listing that reads "30-day minimum, fully furnished, weekly cleaning included" does not match the third bullet. The "weekly cleaning included" line tells the regulator the operator is still on sanitation. The platform is supposed to flag that mismatch. In practice, 民泊仲介 sites mostly do not. The unit floats in a grey zone between minpaku and 賃貸借 until a hokenjo inspection forces a choice.

The notification is the document hokenjo inspectors and ward-office desk clerks read when the choice has to be made.

Where the misreading hurts the probe stayer

A 60-day probe-stay booking is the case where this matters most. Three downstream effects flow from the 1ヶ月-and-two-conditions framework when the operator pretends it is just the 30-day line.

The first is cancellation. A 旅館業 stay runs under the operator's hotel-class booking policy. The 旅館業法 standard contract framework lets the operator charge cancellation fees up to the full stay value at short notice. A genuine 賃貸借 runs under the 借地借家法 instead. That act gives the tenant statutory notice rights and rebates remaining rent on early termination. An operator who refuses a day-12 refund on a 30-day stay is usually running 旅館業 mechanics under a 賃貸借 label.

The second is deposit handling. A 賃貸借 collects a 敷金 deductible against move-out damage. A 旅館業 collects a 保証金 (hoshō-kin — pre-payment / security pre-charge) that the operator may apply to the booking total at any point. The two are administratively different. If the operator's contract names "deposit" but the deduction rules read like a hotel pre-authorisation, the unit is functionally 旅館業.

The third is your address. If the unit is functionally 旅館業, the ward office will not accept the address on a 住民票 filing. That blocks 国民健康保険 (kokumin kenkō hoken — National Health Insurance) enrollment. It blocks the 印鑑登録 (inkan tōroku — personal-seal registration) some banks require. It blocks the standard utility-account-in-your-name path. Probe stayers on 60-day visas often do not need any of these. The no-住民票 outcome still has a downstream cost. The unit cannot be the basis of a future longer-visa application. It also cannot be the basis of a Japanese rental-history record.

Reading the four sentences yourself

The four sentences, in order:

1. The threshold. 「目安期間は1ヶ月とすることが望ましい」. Guideline period 1ヶ月.
2. Operator-side condition. 「施設の衛生上の維持管理責任が営業者にあると社会通念上認められること」. Operator holds sanitation responsibility, by social-standards reading.
3. Guest-side condition. 「宿泊者がその宿泊する部屋に生活の本拠を有さないこと」. Guest does not have their daily-life base in the room.
4. Platform-display rule. 「目安期間以上の滞在を前提として…短期賃貸借契約の締結を条件とすること、施設の衛生上の維持管理責任を営業者側が負うものでないこと」. Platforms must show, alongside the duration line, both the lease-signing requirement and the no-operator-sanitation point.

Print the four. Tape them inside the file folder where you keep operator emails. The next time a booking page tells you "30-day minimum" without naming the lease type or naming sanitation, the page is telling you only sentence 1.

Sources, in order. The MHLW Q&A 「民泊サービスと旅館業法に関するＱ＆Ａ」 sits at mhlw.go.jp/content/11130500/000581103.pdf. It carries the substantive 旅館業-vs-貸室業 test in Q1, Q2, and Q9. The joint MLIT-MHLW notification 「住宅宿泊仲介業者等における短期賃貸借物件等の取扱いについて」 was issued 平成30年11月6日 with control numbers 観観産第545号 and 薬生衛発1106第1号. It carries the 1ヶ月 line and the platform-display rule. The 旅館業法 itself sits at e-Gov: laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/323AC0000000138. The 住宅宿泊事業法 sits at laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/429AC0000000065.

Reading a booking page against the four sentences

Run any Tokyo midterm booking page through these four checks before you wire money.

• Duration line. Does the page say 30 nights, 30 days, or 1ヶ月? A page that says 1ヶ月 is closer to the regulator's wording. A page that says 30 nights and adds "or one calendar month, whichever is longer" is closer to compliance. A page that says 28 nights is not in the 賃貸借 zone by the notification's wording.
• Contract type. Does the page say 短期賃貸借契約 or 定期借家契約 by name? If the contract type is left blank, ask. The operator should be willing to email you a sample contract. A unit that cannot send a contract template is not running on lease paperwork.
• Sanitation responsibility. Does the page say cleaning is on the guest? A page that includes "weekly cleaning by our staff" is naming operator-side sanitation in the same paragraph that claims 賃貸借 status. The two contradict. Ask which is true.
• Address-on-住民票. Will the operator sign a 賃貸借契約 with the unit's address that you can use for ward-office filing? An operator who refuses is naming the unit as 旅館業 in everything but the booking page. An operator who agrees has a unit you can probe-stay in cleanly.

If two or more checks fail, the unit is functionally 旅館業 priced as a midterm rental. Either the price is right for what it is and you accept the hotel mechanics, or you keep looking. The operator's labels are downstream of the regulator's framework. The four sentences are upstream.

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— halfkey publishes contract-type and sanitation-responsibility lines on every unit. To ask which units accept 住民票 filing past 90 days, reply to this article's contact form.