Every minpaku operator in Japan eventually hits the same wall: you’ve got a great property, steady demand, and a calendar that legally caps out at 180 nights a year. The rest of the year, the unit either sits empty or you scramble to fill it some other way.

One of the more underused “some other ways” is corporate housing — mid-term furnished leases that fall under a completely different legal framework than minpaku, with no 180-night ceiling at all. We’ve used this mix ourselves across a few units, and it’s worth understanding if you’re trying to smooth out revenue rather than just chase peak-season rates.

TL;DR

  • Japan’s Private Lodging Business Act (住宅宿泊事業法) caps notified minpaku residences at 180 operating nights per year, tracked per property, not per host.
  • Whether a lease falls outside the Hotel Business Act and minpaku framework depends on substance, not just term length — chiefly whether the occupant treats the unit as a residence and the operator isn’t providing lodging-style turnover or hygiene management. A genuine lease (often one month or longer) can fall outside that framework, so it doesn’t count against the cap and doesn’t need a minpaku notification or Hotel Business Act license — but duration alone isn’t a categorical safe harbor.
  • Corporate housing (furnished monthly leases, often booked through relocation or corporate housing agents) is a common way operators fill the “off-cap” months with legally distinct, non-counted occupancy.
  • Blending the two means treating your calendar as two products — short-stay minpaku nights and mid-term corporate leases — not one continuous booking stream.
  • The tradeoff is lower effective nightly revenue for corporate stays in exchange for occupancy stability and not being subject to the 180-day minpaku cap when the arrangement is structured as a genuine lease.

What Is the 180-Night Cap, Exactly?

The 180-night cap limits how many nights per year a residence notified under Japan’s minpaku law (住宅宿泊事業法) can be rented out as short-term lodging. It applies per property and is counted from noon on April 1 to noon on the following April 1, with each night of a stay counted as one day — not a simple calendar-year reset. It’s enforced through the reporting each notified operator submits to their local government. Some municipalities layer on tighter local restrictions in residential zones — commonly a weekday prohibition that leaves only weekends and holidays available for operation, though specifics vary (Shinjuku City, for example, bars minpaku operation in exclusive residential districts from Monday noon to Friday noon) — so the effective usable nights can be lower than 180 depending on where your property sits. Go over the cap, or misreport your operating days, and you risk losing your notification status.

For an operator running one or two units, 180 nights sounds generous. For anyone trying to run a property as a full-time income source, it’s roughly half the year — which is exactly why so many operators look for a second, legally separate way to monetize the remaining months.

What Is Corporate Housing and How Is It Legally Different?

Corporate housing is a furnished apartment leased under a standard rental contract — typically one month or longer — rather than booked as short-term lodging. What actually keeps it outside the Hotel Business Act and minpaku framework isn’t the lease term by itself: MHLW guidance treats the lodging-vs-rental distinction as a question of substance, particularly whether the operator is providing lodging-style turnover and hygiene-management services, and whether the occupant has the unit as their residence (生活の本拠). A lease where the tenant genuinely resides in the unit and the operator isn’t running it hotel-style generally falls under standard lease law (借地借家法) rather than “accommodation,” so it doesn’t require a minpaku notification or Hotel Business Act license — and critically, it doesn’t count against your 180-night cap. Worth noting: the Hotel Business Act itself has a licensed category (下宿営業) for accommodation charged by periods of one month or longer, a reminder that stay length alone doesn’t settle the legal status. The tenant is treated legally as a renter, not a guest.

Demand for this category can include corporate relocations, embassy and diplomatic staff, extended business assignments, and digital nomads and remote workers who want a furnished apartment without a full lease commitment. Agencies specializing in corporate housing (as well as platforms serving relocation companies) act as the booking channel, similar to how an OTA works for minpaku — except the underlying contract is a lease, not a lodging agreement.

How Can You Blend Both Models on the Same Property?

You blend them by running two distinct calendars, not one continuous booking stream, and switching a unit’s legal status between them at defined points in the year. A common pattern: operate as a notified minpaku residence during your highest-demand short-stay months — cherry blossom season, summer, year-end — and switch the unit to a mid-term lease once you’re approaching the 180-night ceiling or heading into a historically slow stretch.

This isn’t a paperwork-free switch. During the lease period you need to stop accepting and providing minpaku stays and keep the lease and minpaku use contractually separate, following your local reporting rules. If your minpaku notification stays active rather than being formally discontinued, you still need to maintain required signage and file periodic reports — including 0-day reports where your municipality requires them for months with no minpaku operation; file a 廃業等届 (discontinuance notice) only if you’re actually ending the notified business rather than pausing it for a lease period. For a planned, time-bound return to minpaku use, operators usually use a fixed-term building lease (定期借家契約) for the corporate stay, since it lets them regain possession on a known date. If you use a fixed-term lease, note that Article 38 of the Building Lease Act requires a written or electronic contract plus a separate advance explanation to the tenant that the lease will not be renewed. Furnishing standards also shift slightly: corporate tenants often expect a “move-in ready” apartment (kitchenware, linens, basic appliances) similar to a minpaku unit, so the physical setup usually transfers well between the two uses.

The revenue math is different, too. A corporate lease’s effective nightly rate is almost always lower than your peak minpaku ADR — you’re trading rate for guaranteed occupancy and not being subject to the 180-day minpaku cap when structured as a genuine lease. Whether that trade makes sense depends on how much of your annual revenue currently evaporates in empty off-cap months. If a unit is sitting dark for two or three months a year past its 180 nights, even a modest monthly lease rate can add meaningful revenue — once you account for agent fees, vacancy, utilities, cleaning, wear, taxes, and insurance costs.

We’ve applied this mix across part of our own portfolio, and the operational lift is mostly in scheduling: knowing well in advance which months a unit needs to flip, and lining up a corporate housing agent relationship before you actually need one, rather than scrambling once the cap is hit.

FAQ

Q: Does corporate housing require a minpaku or ryokan license in Japan?

Generally, a genuine residential lease is governed by standard lease law rather than the Hotel Business Act or minpaku law, so it typically doesn’t require a minpaku notification or Hotel Business Act license. But the line depends on substance — whether the occupant is using the unit as a residence and the operator isn’t providing hotel-style services — not simply on the lease being one month or longer. Confirm your specific setup, including any local ordinance nuances, with a qualified professional before switching a property over.

Q: Can I run minpaku and corporate housing on the same unit in the same year?

Yes, as long as you stop accepting and providing minpaku stays during the periods you’re leasing the unit as corporate housing, keep the lease and minpaku use contractually separate, and follow your local reporting rules — including continued signage and periodic reports (such as 0-day reports where required) if your minpaku notification remains active. The two uses need to be operationally and contractually distinct, not overlapping.

Q: How much lower is corporate housing revenue compared to minpaku rates?

It varies widely by location and unit type, but the effective nightly rate is usually meaningfully lower than peak minpaku pricing, since you’re being paid for guaranteed monthly occupancy rather than premium short-stay demand — the appeal is filling otherwise-empty off-cap months, not maximizing per-night rate.

This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Please consult a qualified professional for your specific situation.