Guides
Living in Tokyo, made simpler.
Practical guides to renting, settling, and getting the most out of Tokyo — from the HalfKey team.
Start here
The handful of guides we point everyone to first.
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Booking & Decisions · December 21, 2025
Choosing a 1–6 month Tokyo stay: which kind to book
A 1–6 month Tokyo stay sits between a tourist booking and a residential lease. Four options serve it: furnished apartment, sharehouse, hotel or aparthotel, and Airbnb. The right one depends on who you are.
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Booking & Decisions · December 8, 2025
Renting in Tokyo as a foreigner without a 2-year lease
The relocation forums describe a world of guarantor companies, key money, and 2-year contracts. For a 90-day furnished stay almost none of that applies, and the real hard parts are different ones. A walk through what actually happens between inquiry and keys.
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Living in Tokyo · April 28, 2026
What I'd tell a friend planning the Japan digital nomad visa stay
The Japan digital nomad visa got real in early 2024 and the threads about it are loud. Most of what people argue about online does not matter. A few things matter more than the threads admit. Here is the order I would put them in if you were sitting across from me.
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Booking & Decisions · May 7, 2026
Tokyo monthly apartments: a foreigner's overview
Monthly mansion is what the Japanese property market calls the building. Midterm guest is what you actually are. The two words point at the same 30-night minimum from opposite ends, and the gap between them is where most foreign bookings go wrong.
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Booking & Decisions
See all in Booking & DecisionsWhat to know before you book — choices, prep, and the questions to ask the operator.
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September 4, 2026 NEW
No-guarantor apartments in Tokyo: where the check moved
No landlord in Tokyo skips the check. The five products that advertise no guarantor each replaced it with something else: an income multiple, a savings bar, a prepayment, an operator's own risk, or your employer. Pick the substitute you can clear.
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September 4, 2026 NEW
Sublet a Tokyo apartment: what Article 612 decides
The sublet offers in expat Facebook groups are not a grey area in Japan. An unconsented sublet gives the landlord grounds to end the tenant's own lease, which is why the informal market stays small and why furnished mid-term apartments are built on consent agreed in advance.
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August 22, 2026
Tokyo move-out: what to cancel first, what to close last
Most departure checklists are sorted by how important each job feels. Sorted that way, you pay for a month of internet you never used, and your deposit gets sent to an account you already closed. Sort by lead time instead.
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August 17, 2026
Student visa: your first 14 days at the Tokyo ward office
The digital-nomad guides on this site rest on one sequence: no residence card, no resident record, no ordinary lease. A Student residence status changes the first two steps. It does not change the third, and that is the part students get wrong.
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August 13, 2026
A Japanese passport doesn't come with a Tokyo address
Every guide to renting in Tokyo assumes you are a foreigner, or that you already live here. A returning citizen is neither. The ward office will not put you back on the resident register for a three-month stay, and that one refusal decides which apartments you can book at all.
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May 7, 2026
Tokyo monthly apartments: a foreigner's overview
Monthly mansion is what the Japanese property market calls the building. Midterm guest is what you actually are. The two words point at the same 30-night minimum from opposite ends, and the gap between them is where most foreign bookings go wrong.
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Money & Contracts
See all in Money & ContractsFees, deposits, contracts, and the math that runs the industry.
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September 5, 2026 NEW
Late rent on a Tokyo furnished apartment: what happens
Japanese law caps the late fee on rent at a rounding error. What it does not cap is what starts the morning after the due date: reminders, a guarantor company that becomes your creditor, and a three-month line the courts actually enforce.
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September 5, 2026 NEW
Who owes the NHK fee in a furnished Tokyo apartment
The envelope from NHK is addressed to whoever lives in the room, and the courts read the law the same way. One fact changes the answer: whether the operator already holds a contract for that room. Then the math on a 30, 90 or 180-day stay.
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August 22, 2026
Why foreign cards fail on Tokyo apartment payments
A declined apartment payment does not tell you which system said no. Separate the merchant, 3-D Secure check, card issuer, and account limit before you retry or send a bank transfer.
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August 14, 2026
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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August 4, 2026
Commuter pass or IC card on a 60-day Tokyo stay
A Tokyo commuter pass is sold in one-, three-, and six-month terms, on one fixed pair of stations. For a guest staying 30 to 90 days, the pass rarely fails on price. It fails on which of your rides count, and on the calendar.
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May 13, 2026
Why Tokyo midterm cleaning fees vary 3x on the same unit
Tokyo midterm operators charge anywhere from ¥25,000 to ¥79,000 to turn over the same one-bedroom. The fee isn't a statement about how dirty the unit gets. It's a statement about which customer the operator priced for.
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Living in Tokyo
See all in Living in TokyoDay-to-day in a Tokyo apartment, from konbini bill payment to the heating-and-mold dance.
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September 5, 2026 NEW
Inspection notices in a Tokyo apartment: who may enter
Four visits reach a Tokyo apartment building every year or so: a gas safety check, a fire-equipment inspection, a water-tank cleaning, and a drain flush. Three have a law behind them. The drain flush is a building rule, and every visit has a recovery path if you miss the date.
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September 5, 2026 NEW
Locked out of your Tokyo apartment: what to do tonight
Three lockouts look identical and cost different amounts. A key left inside is a spare-key run. A dead keypad wants a 9V battery. A lost key means a new cylinder on your bill, and a locksmith found by phone search at 11pm can cost more than all three.
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September 5, 2026 NEW
Utility cut-off notice in your landlord's name: what to do
The notice names the operator, but the meter feeds your apartment. Electricity can stop 20 days after the due date, gas around day 50 from the meter read, and the slip on the notice can be paid by anyone at a konbini. Here is the order to do things in.
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August 22, 2026
Build a Tokyo furnished-apartment move-out packet
A move-out checklist is easy to lose across five email threads. Put every accepted date, return instruction, photograph, address, and payment detail into one departure packet.
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August 19, 2026
Cooking in Tokyo on one burner and a small fridge
The first big shop is the one that doesn't fit. What breaks in a Tokyo furnished apartment is not the cooking but the shopping, and the supermarket two minutes from your door was built around the version that works.
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August 18, 2026
Tokyo clinic visit without national health insurance
Japan's national price list only governs treatment billed through the public insurance system. Step outside it and each clinic sets its own fee for the same fifteen minutes, which makes asking the price at reception an ordinary question. Here is the sequence from the door to the pharmacy.
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Neighborhoods
See all in NeighborhoodsWhere to live for which kind of life — ward by ward.
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September 4, 2026 NEW
Naka-Meguro: the river, and the streets behind it
The cherry corridor along the Meguro River is where this ward gets photographed, not where it gets lived in. A resident's Naka-Meguro runs uphill toward Ebisu on one side and flat toward Yutenji on the other, and the railway under your feet starts here rather than passing through.
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August 21, 2026
Nakano: the arcade, and the line going east
Most ward lists file Nakano under the Chuo line and stop there. It is also the western end of the Tokyo Metro Tozai line, which puts Otemachi and Nihonbashi in reach with no change of train. That matters if your office is east, not in Shinjuku.
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May 21, 2026
Yotsuya as a resident
Yotsuya is the quiet edge of Shinjuku. Sophia University on the south, residential blocks running north toward Akebonobashi, and a 2-kilometer running path along the old castle moat one minute from the station. A month here teaches you which combini stays open all night, where to eat for under ¥1,500, and which side of the slope to walk home on.
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April 2, 2026
Summer matsuri and which Tokyo wards stay quiet
Most Tokyo summer guides count the famous matsuri. They do not count the wards that the matsuri make unsleepable for a week. The corollary nobody publishes: which wards stay quiet through the season, and what the resident-eye view of a Tokyo summer actually looks like at 11pm in late July.
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February 17, 2026
Tokyo wards for a nomad couple, ranked by co-working and fiber
Most digital-nomad guides rank Tokyo for a solo remote worker on a six-week dash. This one ranks for two people in the same apartment for three months, where only one of them can take Zoom calls from the kitchen table.
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January 25, 2026
A month in Bunkyō: the resident's rhythm
Bunkyō is the academic ward: Tokyo University on the ridge, hospitals on the slope, residential blocks that thin out by nine. A month here teaches you what a week cannot. Which hill spares your knees, which Lawson restocks the onigiri, why the second cup of coffee comes from the same place every morning.
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