UR Housing for Foreigners in Japan: No Key Money, No Guarantor, No Agency Fee

Renting privately in Japan tends to fail for foreign residents at one of two points. Either the up-front package — key money that is never returned, an agency fee, a guarantee company fee, an insurance premium — is more cash than a new arrival has, or the landlord asks for a guarantor and the conversation ends there.

UR rental housing sidesteps both. UR is the Urban Renaissance Agency, an incorporated administrative agency, and its rental stock runs to roughly 700,000 units nationwide. On its own properties it charges no key money, no agency fee and no renewal fee, and it requires no guarantor. Nationality is not a barrier either: UR publishes a specific set of residence statuses that qualify, and a great many foreign residents already hold one of them.

What replaces the guarantor is a documented check on your ability to pay — with published thresholds and several official ways around them. Below are the eligibility rules, the income figures, the paperwork and the costs that actually land on move-in day, taken from UR's own pages as they stood in July 2026.

What UR Rental Housing Is

UR rental housing is neither public welfare housing nor private-market housing. It sits between the two: purpose-built rental stock managed and let directly by a public agency, on ordinary commercial terms but without the intermediary layer that generates most of Japan's rental fees. No real estate agency sits in the middle, so no brokerage commission arises.

Two consequences matter for a foreign tenant. Screening is rule-based and published in advance, so you can work out before you visit whether you qualify. And most units are let first-come, first-served — UR states that almost all of its roughly 700,000 units nationwide are handled this way, with only some newly built properties allocated by lottery. Speed matters more than negotiation.

The Four Costs You Do Not Pay

UR's own summary of its advantages is blunt: 礼金ナシ (no key money), 仲介手数料ナシ (no agency fee), 更新料ナシ (no renewal fee), 保証人ナシ (no guarantor). The practical shape of that at move-in is set out below.

UR states the position on move-in cash directly: the deposit of two months' rent, plus the prorated rent and common service charge for the month you move in. That is the whole list.

Who Can Apply: Eligibility for Foreign Residents

UR's rule for non-Japanese applicants is short. You must be able to fully understand the content of the UR lease agreement, and you must fall into one of three categories:

• Holders of the residence status Permanent Resident, Diplomat, or Official;
• Special Permanent Residents;
• Mid- to long-term residents.

The third category covers most readers, and it is broader than people expect. Under the residence management system operated by the Immigration Services Agency, a mid- to long-term resident is essentially anyone holding a residence card. The Agency defines the category by exclusion: people granted a period of stay of three months or less, people on Short-Term Stay, people on Diplomat or Official status, Special Permanent Residents, certain Designated Activities holders working for designated foreign representative offices, and people with no status of residence sit outside it. Everyone else — Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, Specified Skilled Worker, Student, Dependent, Long-Term Resident, Spouse or Child of Japanese National, and the rest — is inside. UR lists Diplomat and Official separately in its first category precisely because those two statuses fall outside that definition, so the only people clearly shut out are short-term visitors and anyone without a valid status.

Two general conditions apply regardless of nationality: you must need the housing to live in yourself on a continuing basis, and you must be a single applicant or have relatives who live with you or will live with you.

The Income Standard, in Numbers

Since there is no guarantor, UR checks the applicant. The published benchmark is the standard monthly income, and it varies by rent level and by whether you are applying as a household or alone.

A worked example: a single applicant looking at a unit renting for ¥58,000 needs an average monthly income of ¥232,000. Move up to a ¥70,000 unit and the requirement becomes the flat ¥250,000 rather than four times the rent, which is why the band just above the threshold is often easier to clear than the band just below it. Average monthly income means your annual income divided by twelve, evidenced by tax documents rather than by a payslip. Each property listing on UR's site publishes the applicable figure for that unit, so check the listing rather than working from memory.

If You Do Not Meet the Income Standard

This is where UR differs most from a private landlord, who simply says no. UR publishes four alternative routes, and a foreign resident who has just arrived, or who works irregular hours, will often qualify through one of them.

Route 3 deserves a note for company employees: an employer contribution toward the rent shortfall is an established UR mechanism, and a company that already pays a housing allowance may be able to document it in the form UR accepts. Ask your HR department before assuming you fall short.

Documents You Will Be Asked For

UR's document list is specific, and the items with expiry windows are the ones that trip people up.

• Application form on UR's designated format, completed at a UR office.
• Resident record — original, issued within the previous three months, showing you and everyone who will live with you together with their relationship to you, and without My Number printed. For foreign residents it must also show nationality/region, the fact that you are a mid- to long-term resident, and your residence card details: status, period of stay, expiry date and card number.
• Income evidence, which depends on how you earn: employees submit the previous year's withholding slip plus the current year's municipal tax certificate or residence tax determination notice; sole proprietors submit the tax office's 納税証明書（その２）; pensioners submit a public pension certificate or payment notice; those employed for less than a year use UR's designated income certificate form with a copy of their employee ID; and applicants using the savings route submit the seven-day balance certificate.
• Identity verification — your residence card, or a special permanent resident certificate. UR's accepted list also includes a My Number card, a driver's licence, or a passport with your current address written in the holder's entry column.
• At contract signing — your registered personal seal and a seal registration certificate issued within three months. If you do not use a personal seal, UR accepts a signature certificate issued by your consulate in its place. Bring the deposit and the prorated rent and common service charge as well.

The Application Process, Step by Step

UR describes the flow in seven stages, and notes that the sequence and the time limits can differ by property.

Paying Rent, Renewing, and Moving Out

Rent and the common service charge are paid by direct debit from an account at a financial institution designated by UR; credit card payment is not offered. Setting up the account is part of the contract process, so bring your bank book and bank seal if you have them.

Renewal is where UR quietly saves tenants a recurring cost. The contract renews automatically each year, with no renewal procedure and no renewal fee.

On leaving, UR assesses the unit against its own restoration standards and returns the deposit, net of repair costs, in principle within 30 days of the contract termination date. Because the criteria are published rather than improvised, disputes are less common than in the private market — though cleaning and restoration charges can still arise depending on the condition you leave behind.

Discount Programs Worth Checking

UR runs several rent reduction schemes. Nationality is not a condition of any of them; they turn on age, household composition and income.

• U35 discount — for contract holders aged 35 or under, including students. Rent is reduced for three years under a fixed-term lease, which ends definitively at expiry without renewal. People living with you are limited to a spouse of any age or relatives aged 35 or under, and applicants transferring from another UR unit are not eligible.
• Child-rearing discount — for households with a child under 18, or couples married within the last five years, where combined household income is ¥259,000 per month or less. The reduction is up to 20%, capped at ¥25,000 per month. Child-rearing households can receive it for up to six years and newlywed households for up to three, up to a combined maximum of nine years. Eligibility is reassessed annually and it cannot be combined with other discount schemes.
• Nearby-residence discount — a reduction where a child-rearing household or an elderly household lives close to a relative.
• UR Light and free-rent offers — UR Light lowers the monthly rent under a fixed-term lease with no renewal; free-rent campaigns waive rent for the first month or two on selected units.
• House Sharing — lets single people who are not related to each other live together. Everyone becomes a joint contract holder on a single contract; in principle two people, with more permitted depending on the unit type up to the number of rooms, and 1K, 1DK and 1LDK units capped at two. Each contract holder needs income of at least half the standard monthly income.

Because the fixed-term schemes end without renewal, read the lease type before choosing on price alone. A three-year discount is a genuine saving; it is also a three-year clock.

Language Support and Where to Ask

UR publishes an information guide on its non-Japanese page in English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Portuguese and Vietnamese, plus a fuller English resident handbook, A Guide for Residents, covering move-in procedures, rent payment, repairs, restrictions such as pets and subletting, move-out procedures and disaster preparation.

Individual sales centers also offer counter service in foreign languages. The UR Nagoya Sales Center, for example, states that it can assist in English, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Spanish, and is open 10:00–18:00, closing only for 29 December to 3 January and 3–5 May. Check the language support listed for the center nearest you before travelling there.

One point to take seriously: UR's eligibility rule requires that you can fully understand the lease agreement. If Japanese contract language is beyond you, bring someone who can interpret rather than signing on trust. Searching UR's site for 「UR賃貸住宅 外国籍」 will surface the current eligibility page if you want to verify the wording yourself.

Where UR Is the Wrong Answer

UR is not a universal solution, and the honest limits are worth knowing before you build a plan around it.

• Coverage is uneven. The stock is concentrated in and around major metropolitan areas. In many regional cities there may be nothing suitable within commuting distance of your workplace.
• The buildings vary widely in age. Some complexes date from an era of walk-up blocks without elevators; others are recent high-rises. Rent generally reflects this, but so does daily life on the fourth floor with a stroller.
• Screening is still screening. No guarantor does not mean no assessment. If you meet neither the income standard, nor the savings standard, nor the prepayment route, an application will not succeed.
• You need to already be registered in Japan. The resident record requirement rules out applying before arrival.
• Popular units move fast. First-come, first-served means the listing you found this morning may be held by someone else this afternoon.

For a foreign resident who has landed a job, completed municipal registration and holds a residence card, though, UR removes the two obstacles that most often stall a housing search: the cash wall and the guarantor question.

Frequently Asked Questions