In Japan, is it legal or illegal to use AirBNB to let rooms out to travelers?
In fact it is illegal.
In Japan, there is a law called the Hotel Business Law. It defines Hotel Business as the business of repeatedly providing a place to sleep to guests and receiving an accommodation fee in return. If you offer Hotel Business, you need to get permission from the governor of your prefecture first. If you offer Hotel Business without having permission, you will be penalized with imprisonment with labour for up to 6 months or a fine of up to 30,000 yen.
However, as you know, the number of foreign tourists coming to Japan is continuing to increase. The Tokyo Olympic Games will be held in 2020, and a serious hotel shortage is expected. Furthermore, although AirBNB has recently become popular in Japan, and many people use it, most of them do not seem to have the correct permission to offer Hotel Business.
Therefore, the Japanese Government is implementing the following three deregulations.
1. Deregulation of Hotel Business law
According to the Hotel Business Law, a normal house is classified as a “Simple Lodge”, but to get permission to use the Simple Lodge, it needs to have a certain minimum floor area and an entrance hall. Because of this restriction, in the past it was difficult to obtain the permission, so now these restrictions have been relaxed.
2. Enforcement of the National Strategy Special Area Act
Within National Strategy Special Areas, if the National Strategy Special Conference permits the use of private houses for Hotel Business, then in those areas it is possible to offer Hotel business without permission. The only requirement is to receive certification from prefectural governors. However, so far, there are only three such special areas. Those areas are Ohta Ward in Tokyo, Osaka City in Osaka prefecture and Kita-Kyushu in Fukuoka prefecture. Because this law previously demanded that travelers had to stay for at least 7 days, it was not used much. Currently, the minimum number of days has been reduced from seven to three, but there are few foreign travelers who stay in one place for three days, so this law is still not used much.
3. Establishment of Housing Staying Business Act
This year, a new law was introduced in February, although it has not yet been enforced. By notifying the prefectural governor, we will be able to use our private houses to offer Hotel Business. However, there is a maximum limit of 180 days over the period of a year that we can use our houses to offer Hotel Business.
Anyway, I hope that the new law will be actively used and that travelers will be able to legally stay in a normal house, even in Japan.