Japan's accommodation tax (宿泊税, shukuhaku-zei) is paid by the guest who stays. The accommodation collects it and remits it to the municipality, which here means us, the operator. It does not come out of an owner's profit. What is under-collected, however, turns into a real cost, paid by the accommodation.
Some ground to stand on first, because none of this is national. Accommodation tax in Japan is levied by individual prefectures and cities, not by the country: some municipalities have one, most do not, the shape differs where they do, and the dates of changes are published years ahead. Tokyo has had one for a long time; the city of Sapporo introduced one on 1 April 2026.
What follows is our own record as of 1 October 2026, over the twelve months from October 2025 to September 2026, with the method published on our operating data page. There is no table of rates or deadlines here. Rates belong in one place and change, so they stay in the guest-facing accommodation tax guide and this article carries the order of the questions instead. No amounts either: everything below is a share of revenue.
Whose money actually moves?
The guest's. We hold it and hand it to the city. It is settled at check-in, per person per night, separately from the room rate, and it appears as its own line on the receipt.
In the books, though, it sits among the costs. It is one of the seven operating lines we publish, and over those twelve months it was 1.6% of revenue (cleaning 17.0%, consumables 4.4%, electricity 2.7%, accommodation tax 1.6%, repairs 1.0%, gas 0.7%, insurance 0.4%, 27.8% together; broken out in what operating a rental costs).
So this is not a line to economise on. Collect too little and the shortfall is paid by the accommodation; collect too much and it has to be given back. The work is not saving money, it is not leaking any.
What share of revenue was it for us?
The twelve-month average was 1.6%, and that is the number not to borrow. It is low because half of the window falls before Sapporo's tax existed. Taking only the months since it began, the same six rooms ran 3.1%.
| Scope | Period | Share of revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Our six rooms (published figure) | Twelve months, October 2025 to September 2026 | 1.6% |
| Our six rooms | Six months, April to September 2026 | 3.1% |
| The three Tokyo rooms (Heiwajima, Kameari 101, Kameari 201) | The same six months | 0.1% |
| The three Sapporo rooms (Kita-15-jo-nishi) | The same six months | 6.8% |
Why are Tokyo and Sapporo more than sixty times apart?
Because the two taxes are built differently. Tokyo's is tiered on the nightly charge per person, and below the first tier there is no tax at all. Sapporo's has no low-price exemption, so nearly every stay is in scope. Both rate tables are in our accommodation tax guide.
An apartment rate is divided among everyone staying, so in Tokyo the per-person figure often lands under the line where tax starts. Our Kameari room 101 generated no accommodation tax at all in any of the twelve months. All three Tokyo rooms together came to 0.1% over twelve months.
Sapporo works the other way: every reservation produces tax in proportion to people times nights. Same company, same way of operating, and this one line is set by the address.
Why did three rooms in one building come out differently?
Because with a fixed amount per person-night the numerator barely moves and the denominator does. Our three Sapporo rooms are in the same building, run the same way, and over the six months since the tax began they came to 6.1%, 6.6% and 7.6% of their own revenue. The lower the nightly rate, the heavier the same tax sits on it.
Month by month it is clearer still. Across the three Sapporo rooms the share was 9.3% in April 2026 and 9.2% in May, then 5.9% to 6.5% from June through September. Sapporo's weakest occupancy of the year falls in exactly those two months, 71.1% in April and 78.5% in May (seasonality), and rates move the same way.
That sets the way to budget it. Do not apply a percentage to forecast revenue: multiply people by nights, apply the municipality's fixed amount or rate, and divide by your own nightly rate. A share that rises in the quiet season is what correct looks like.
What do we actually do every month?
Once the month closes, we count people and nights again, reservation by reservation. Person-nights are what the tax is built on, not the revenue figure.
The volume follows the number of reservations, not the revenue. At 83.7% occupancy and an average stay of 3.3 nights a room turns over seven to eight times a month (the cleaning turnover), so that is how many reservations there are to recount. For a single property it is a realistic amount of work; it gets heavier with the count, and heavier again across municipalities, since we straddle two cities and run two forms and two timetables side by side.
- Work out people times nights for each reservation. Because the base is not revenue, a platform payout statement cannot produce it
- Recount against who actually stayed. The number on the booking and the number who arrived are not always the same
- Separate out what is not taxed and what is exempt. Tokyo turns on the per-person nightly charge; Sapporo exempts qualifying school trips
- File and pay on the municipality's own form. Both the form and the timing differ by municipality
- Show the tax as its own line on the receipt, issued for the stays that ask for one
What does Tokyo's April 2027 change do to an owner?
Start here: our 0.1% across three Tokyo rooms is a pre-change figure, not a post-change one.
From 1 April 2027 Tokyo replaces its tiered fixed amounts with a flat percentage of the per-person nightly charge, exempts stays below a set per-person figure, and brings properties operating under the 180-night notification framework (住宅宿泊事業) into scope for the first time. The rate and the exemption line are in our accommodation tax guide.
Two things for an owner to do. Do not delete the line from the budget because it is near zero today, and, since the change is already published, recalculate it against your own nightly rate band.
How do I find out what applies to my own property?
Call the accommodation tax desk at the city or ward office where the property is, say the address and that it will be used for paid accommodation, and get these five answers in one call. Answers assembled from searches flip either side of a change.
- Whether that municipality levies an accommodation tax at all, and if so whether both a prefectural and a municipal tax apply
- How it is built, a tiered fixed amount or a flat percentage, and where the line is below which nothing is charged
- What is exempt, and what documentation an exemption needs
- The filing form, the timing, how it is submitted, and whether registering as a collector is required
- Whether a change is already legislated, and the date it takes effect
Can you handle the counting and the filing as well?
Yes. For a property in Tokyo's 23 wards or the city of Sapporo that can run on a hotel-business permit (旅館業許可, the same framework as a hotel, with no 180-night cap), we build the person-night count, the exempt and non-taxable split, the filing and payment, and the receipt line into the monthly cycle the way our own six rooms run. The monthly report carries accommodation tax as its own line (reading a monthly P/L).
Tax judgement itself belongs to a licensed tax accountant. What we do is the counting and the procedure, and this article does not pretend to stand in for either an accountant or the city's own desk (the same reason there is no table of ward rules in Tokyo's 23 wards).
We take on properties that already hold a hotel-business permit or are going to get one. We cannot run a property that stays under the 180-night notification framework (permit or notification). We hold at most five properties at a time and we do decline after a viewing. The fee is performance-based from 20% of revenue, with nothing fixed to pay in an empty month. The shares in this article are our own record, not a promise about another property.
Send the address and your rate band for a read on the tax