Japan places no restrictions on foreign ownership of real estate: no residency requirement, no citizenship requirement, full freehold. That is why you own, or are about to own, an apartment in Tokyo or a house in Hokkaido. Turning it into a legal short-term rental while living in another country is a different project, and the internet's answers to it are mostly written by people selling something.
We are 株式会社AG STAY, a licensed operator running our own apartments in Tokyo and Sapporo — permits published on our company page, guest reviews public on this site — and we manage properties for owners, including owners who have never set foot in a city office here. This is the honest shape of what you need.
The four problems distance actually creates
- Licensing is done in Japanese, in person, at a health centre and a fire department. The framework choice itself — permit or 180-night notification — is explained in permit vs notification
- Operations are physical: cleaning between stays, linen, a neighbour with a complaint, a guest locked out at 2am. None of it can be done from abroad, and all of it lands in reviews
- Money: rental income earned in Japan is taxable in Japan regardless of where you live, and a non-resident owner generally needs a tax agent (納税管理人) filing on their behalf. Payment platforms and Japanese banks are their own small project
- Language: every official letter, tax notice and neighbour conversation happens in Japanese
What a manager must actually do for you
For a resident owner, a management company is a convenience. For a non-resident it is the operation itself, so the bar is higher. The checklist we would apply to ourselves:
- Handles the licensing path with the authorities, in Japanese, and tells you honestly when a property will not qualify
- Runs guests, cleaning and pricing daily — the work described in what management costs — not just a listing that sits there
- Reports monthly, in English, with revenue, occupancy, rate and costs. If you cannot read the report, you do not have one
- Speaks to you in English and to city hall in Japanese, and does not charge a premium for the first part
- Can point at its own operation, not only at client logos. Ask for permit numbers and live listings; we publish ours
Taxes, without pretending this is tax advice
The shape is simple even though the details want a professional: Japanese rental income is taxed in Japan; as a non-resident you will generally appoint a tax agent to file for you; treaty rules decide how your home country treats the same income. Accommodation tax, where the city levies one, is collected from guests and filed locally — we handle that filing for managed properties as routine.
What we do that helps: a clean monthly paper trail in English, one file per year for your accountant, and an introduction to a bilingual tax professional if you need one. What we do not do: pretend a blog section replaces one.
What working with us looks like from abroad
Capacity note that applies to everyone equally: we take five managed properties at a time, in Tokyo's 23 wards and Sapporo only.
- You send the property's location and photos; we reply with what it should earn and which framework fits
- Licensing, setup and launch run on the Japanese side; you sign, and everything signable is explained in English first
- Guests, cleaning, pricing and the neighbours are ours day to day
- A monthly report reaches you in English; the money reaches your account on the schedule we agree
- When something needs your decision, you get the options in English with a recommendation, not a forwarded Japanese PDF