Japan STR Zoning (用途地域): Is Your Property Actually Legal for Hosting?
When I first started looking at properties for short-term rental in Tokyo, I assumed the main legal question was “can I get a minpaku license?” It took a painful conversation with a local property consultant to learn there’s a more fundamental question underneath that one: what zoning category is this property in?
Japan’s 用途地域 (yōto chiiki) — literally “use area,” or land-use zoning — is the invisible layer underneath all the minpaku licensing discussion. Get it wrong, and you either can’t operate at all, or you’re capped at far fewer nights than the national 180-day limit.