What a vacation rental in Japan actually earns: 11 rooms, measured

Most articles about vacation rental income in Japan quote a range and move on. This one publishes the actual numbers from 11 rooms that MOSVA Inc. operates itself, broken down by property type, so you can compare them with the property you are looking at.

All figures are measured over the trailing 180 days. Stays of one month or longer are excluded, because under Japanese law those are leases rather than accommodation and their nightly rate is far lower.

What the three property types earn

	Urban apartment (6 rooms)	Resort area (3 rooms)	Whole-house villa (1)
Occupancy	59.2%	55.5%	49.3%
Revenue per night	¥14,277	¥23,416	¥101,258
Monthly revenue	¥257,000	¥395,000	¥1,520,000
Average length of stay	2.14 nights	1.79 nights	1.22 nights

Across all 11 rooms: 55.8% occupancy, ¥19,803 per night, ¥336,000 per month.

Revenue here is gross: it includes the cleaning fee guests pay and is measured before platform commission. That makes it higher than the ADR figure platforms show you.

The three types are different businesses, not different sizes of the same business. Urban apartments fill more often at a lower rate. Resort properties trade occupancy for a rate about 70% higher. The villa turns over at six figures a night, and its costs move to a different scale with it.

The villa figure comes from 67 days of operation only, so treat it as an early reading rather than a settled average.

What it costs to run

	Urban apartment	Resort area	Villa
Cleaning, per turnover (median)	¥3,000	¥5,500	¥13,000
Utilities, per month (median)	¥8,886	¥18,291	¥17,132

Cleaning is measured over 176 jobs in 90 days; utilities over six months.

Cleaning cost is driven by turnover count, not unit price. An urban apartment at 59.2% occupancy with an average stay of 2.14 nights turns over about 8 times a month, so ¥3,000 per clean is roughly ¥24,000 a month. Shorten the average stay to 1.5 nights and you are at 12 turnovers and ¥36,000, with no change in the unit price. If you want to reduce cleaning cost, adjust your minimum-stay setting before you try to negotiate the rate.

On platform commission, note that Airbnb changed its structure: hosts connected through a channel manager, or on the simplified host service fee, pay 15.5% rather than the older split where the host paid about 3% and the guest paid the rest. Model with 15.5% unless you have confirmed otherwise for your own account.

The part that is not in the spreadsheet

Income projections rarely include the workload. We measured that too.

Across the properties we operate and handle guest messaging for, 2,344 guest messages arrived in about two months. Sorted by time of day in Japan:

Time of day (JST)	Messages	Share
12:00–18:00	839	35.8%
18:00–24:00	723	30.8%
06:00–12:00	563	24.0%
00:00–06:00	219	9.3%

18.6% arrived between 22:00 and 06:00 Japan time. The 219 messages in the 00:00–06:00 window work out to roughly 3.5 every night.

If you live outside Japan this cuts both ways. Your waking hours may cover part of the Japanese night, which helps. But guests expect replies in hours, not the next business day, and response speed shows up in reviews.

What they ask about is also not what owners expect. Check-in and keys account for 13.8% of messages, while equipment faults, hot water, air conditioning and Wi-Fi combined account for only 2.6%. Most of the volume is answerable questions, arriving constantly.

Reading these numbers against a property you are considering

Three checks, in order:

1. Which law can this property operate under? Under the minpaku law you may sell at most 180 nights a year. At 59.2% occupancy an urban apartment is already near 216 nights, so the cap binds. If the numbers only work year-round, you need a simple lodging licence
2. What does rent or debt service take? Our urban apartments earn about ¥257,000 gross per month. Subtract cleaning, utilities, platform commission and management, then rent. In central Tokyo, high rent against minpaku-only operation leaves very little
3. Who reaches the property when something happens? This is a licensing requirement, not a convenience. Confirm the required arrival time and permitted means of travel with the local public health centre before you commit

FAQ

How much does a vacation rental earn in Japan?

In MOSVA's own 11 rooms over the trailing 180 days: urban apartments averaged ¥257,000 per month at 59.2% occupancy, resort properties ¥395,000 at 55.5%, and a whole-house villa ¥1,520,000. These are gross figures including the cleaning fee guests pay, before platform commission.

What occupancy should I expect?

Our measured average across all 11 rooms is 55.8%. Urban properties run higher and resort properties lower, with resort rates about 70% above urban rates to compensate.

What are the running costs?

Median cleaning cost per turnover was ¥3,000 for urban apartments, ¥5,500 for resort properties and ¥13,000 for the villa. Median monthly utilities were ¥8,886, ¥18,291 and ¥17,132 respectively. Platform commission and management fees are on top.

Does the 180-night limit affect profitability?

Significantly. At our measured urban occupancy a property would exceed 180 nights within the year, so the cap becomes the ceiling on revenue rather than demand. Properties with high rent rarely work under the minpaku route alone.

How much guest communication is involved?

About 2,344 messages reached us in two months across the properties we handle, with 18.6% arriving between 22:00 and 06:00 Japan time. Roughly 3.5 messages per night arrive in the 00:00–06:00 window alone.

Are these numbers representative?

They are ours, from 11 rooms in Tokyo, Atami, Okinawa and Chiba. Location, size and season all move them. Use them as a reference point for the shape of the business, not as a forecast for a specific property.

Talk to us

If you are evaluating a property in Japan, send us the address, the size and the rent or purchase price. We will run the numbers against what comparable properties of ours actually do, and tell you which operating route is realistic.