You and your family or group rent a whole home to stay in. A vacation rental (minpaku, 民泊) is a way of staying where an ordinary house or apartment is used as your accommodation. You find and book one on a booking site such as Airbnb. They range from a single room to an entire house.
Many of the rules for vacation rentals come from one idea: “This is an ordinary home in a residential neighborhood.” What you’d ask at a hotel front desk is written on paper inside the home, trash goes into bins inside the home, and at night you match the quiet of the neighborhood. Once you see that, how to stay there falls into place.
Some vacation rentals are run after registering, some are run under the same permit as ryokan and hotels, and there are other types too. Many of the rules in this article are for registered vacation rentals.
This article covers six things.
- Before you book — the number, how many people, and the home’s own rules
- When you arrive — the sign at the entrance, your face and passport, the key
- Inside the home — how to use things and who to call in a disaster are written down
- Trash — under guidance in Tokyo and elsewhere, it goes in the bins inside, not outside
- Night — a quiet night in a residential neighborhood
- Something to look forward to — if the home has a kitchen you can use, buy food at a nearby shop and eat at home
1 Before you book — the number, how many people, and the home’s own rules
Before you book, check that you can find the following three things on the booking page. They’re the three things the Japan Tourism Agency urges travelers to check when choosing a vacation rental.
- Whether the conditions of use are shown in advance
- Whether you can find the registration number (届出番号), or tell whether the property holds a permit
- Whether the property’s address is shown
Before you book, check for yourself whether the number and the address are shown. If you’re a family or group, also check first that the home can take everyone.
The home’s own rules
Unlike ryokan and hotels, vacation rentals are allowed to set reasonable conditions for guests. That’s the “conditions of use” in the first item above. Read the home’s own rules (house rules) before you book.
When you book, also check how you’ll get the key and how to contact the host.
The number, the address, how many people, the home’s rules, the key, how to get in touch. Check all of that on the booking screen, and you’ll see how your arrival day will go.
2 When you arrive — the sign at the entrance, your face and passport, the key
When you arrive, first check in the way you were told when you booked. That’s when you’ll come across the sign at the entrance and the passport check.
Registered vacation rentals are supposed to put up a sign with the registration number at the entrance or another spot that’s easy to see from outside. In an apartment building, a small sign also goes up at the building’s entrance and on the shared mailboxes, in addition to the one on the unit’s door.
Some signs also have English on them. For example, Shinagawa City’s sign format has the words “Private Lodging Business,” “CERTIFIED,” and “Number.” With a sign like that, the English words let you confirm on the spot that it’s a registered vacation rental. Fukuoka Prefecture’s sign also has a QR code that links to a page listing the registered homes.
Vacation rentals run under a permit for operating lodging such as ryokan and hotels, or under a special-zone certification, fall outside this sign rule. For these, you can check on the local government’s website or by contacting them.
Your face and passport
At check-in, everyone in your family has their face and passport checked. Your face and passport are checked in person, or as images through a video phone, tablet, or similar device set up in the home.
The guest register includes the names of everyone staying. Foreign nationals without an address in Japan write down their nationality and passport number and show their passport. At a registered vacation rental, a copy of your passport is made as well (this applies to foreign nationals without an address in Japan). Hotels do the same; for example, Toyoko Inn makes a copy of the passport of foreign nationals without an address in Japan.
Keep the whole family’s passports together in one place so you can hand them over right away. If check-in is in person, you can also ask how to use things in the home at the same time.
The key
How you get the key differs from home to home. Check the instructions when you book, and you’ll find your way in on the day without getting lost.
3 Inside the home — how to use things and who to call in a disaster are written down
What you’d ask at a hotel front desk is written down inside a vacation rental.
The law requires hosts to give foreign guests a guide to the home in a foreign language. Here’s the kind of thing it covers.
- How to use the home’s equipment
- The way to the nearest station and other places, and the transportation you can use
- Who to contact in a fire or earthquake (fire station, police station, medical facilities, the management company)
- Things to be careful about with noise, trash, and fire (opening and closing the gas stove’s main valve, how to use the fire extinguisher, escape routes, and so on)
The guide is supposed to be available throughout your stay, on paper or on a tablet left in the room, with the disaster contacts set out so you can check them right away. The language is the one the host indicated when you booked.
A collection of sample phrases that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government made for hosts includes the line “If you don’t know how to use something or something breaks, contact us here” and the line “When you call an emergency contact, give the address too.” When you arrive, read the guide once and note down the home’s address. In Fukuoka Prefecture, the sign for a vacation rental where the owner doesn’t live in the home also lists an emergency contact.
The same collection also includes “Please take off your shoes before you step inside.” For how to step into a Japanese home, see the Shoes Off, Slippers and Yukata article.
4 Trash — under guidance in Tokyo and elsewhere, it goes in the bins inside, not outside
Trash from a vacation rental is handled differently from household trash: the host takes responsibility for disposing of it. That’s why guests throw it away the way the host specifies. In guidance from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and its city wards, trash goes in the bins inside the home. It doesn’t go out to the trash collection spot outside. Sometimes there are separate bins for each type, with sorting instructions in the guest’s own language or in illustrations.
Here’s an example of how to sort, from the Tokyo collection of sample phrases.
- Burnable trash (燃えるごみ) — paper, food scraps, etc.
- Non-burnable trash (燃えないごみ) — ceramics, glass, metal items, etc.
- Plastic (プラスチック) — film, bags, trays, cups, etc.
- Recyclables (資源) — PET bottles, cans, glass bottles
Sorting differs from town to town, so follow the guide inside the home and the labels on the bins.
If things work the way the guidance in Tokyo and elsewhere says, you don’t need to remember which day is trash day, or where the neighborhood collection spot is. Just sort your trash into the bins in the home, following the labels. As you sort, you start to see: so this is how a Japanese home sorts its trash.
5 Night — a quiet night in a residential neighborhood
The homes around a vacation rental are places where people live every day. The host is also supposed to explain, in a foreign language, what to be careful about for the sake of the neighbors’ daily lives. For example, things like these:
- Inside, use your normal voice. Keep loud voices down, and close the windows late at night
- Doors and suitcases, quietly
- Avoid running the washing machine at night
- No parties outside, like on the balcony, and no hanging out in hallways or lobbies
- Inside the home, don’t play musical instruments
If you arrive at night, keep the sound of your suitcase especially low.
This is a night spent not inside a hotel’s walls, but in a Japanese residential neighborhood. In a home with the windows closed, your family looks back on the day together. That quiet is part of a vacation rental night, too.
6 Something to look forward to — if the home has a kitchen you can use, buy food at a nearby shop and eat at home
If the home has a kitchen you can use, you can make an evening of eating food from a nearby supermarket at the home’s own table. Bring back the prepared dishes and fruit you found, and gather around the table together. Staying like you live there, with your family or group. It’s a joy special to vacation rentals.
A registered vacation rental home is required to have four things: a kitchen, a bathing room, a toilet, and washbasin facilities. The bathing room counts even without a bathtub as long as there’s a shower, so some homes may have only a shower.
Whether guests can use the kitchen, and whether there are pots and dishes, differs from home to home. Some vacation rentals have you rent one room in a home where the owner lives. A washing machine is not one of these four. If you want to use the kitchen or a washing machine, check the booking page.
For now, just this
- On the booking page, check the registration number (or the permit number) and the address. Also how many people can stay, and the home’s own rules
- When you book, check how you’ll get the key and how to contact the host
- When you arrive, look at the sign at the entrance. Keep the whole family’s passports in one place
- Read the guide inside the home once, and note down the home’s address. Sort trash as the guide says (under guidance in Tokyo and elsewhere, that means the bins inside the home)
- At night, close the windows and keep voices and sounds low
Then do some shopping at a nearby shop, and spend a night in a Japanese home.
