Using SUUMO and Japan's rental sites in English
Most rentals in Japan are advertised on a few big sites, and three of the ones below are in Japanese only. Here is what each site is, how to search it with your browser translating, and what the labels on a listing mean.
Last updated .
The sites
- SUUMO (opens in a new tab), run by Recruit, is in Japanese.
- LIFULL HOME'S (opens in a new tab), run by LIFULL, is in Japanese. Its FRIENDLY DOOR service lists agents who help people who often find renting hard, foreign residents among them, and you can search it for agents who work in English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean or Portuguese. More than 7,000 agents' branches had joined by June 2026.
- at home (opens in a new tab), run by At Home, is in Japanese.
- GaijinPot Apartments (opens in a new tab) is in English, and its listings print a total of the move-in costs. How Smoovin adds up rent and move-in fees explains why that total can look higher than the listed fees.
Searching in Japanese
Chrome can translate a whole page into English: right-click the page and choose Translate to English. Some buttons stay in Japanese, so the table gives the ones you need. On SUUMO, LIFULL HOME'S and at home, choose your prefecture first; its rental page offers the same four ways in.
| Search | SUUMO | LIFULL HOME'S | at home |
|---|---|---|---|
| By area | エリアから探す | 地域（市区町村）から探す | エリアから探す |
| By train line and station | 沿線・駅から探す | 駅・路線から探す | 沿線・駅から探す |
| By travel time to a station | 通勤・通学時間から探す | 通勤・通学時間から探す | 通勤・通学時間から探す |
| On a map | 地図から探す | 地図から探す | 地図から探す |
A travel-time search asks for a station and the most minutes you'll travel to it. In the results, open a listing with 詳細を見る (view details); on SUUMO, さらに条件を追加する adds conditions such as rent or floor area to narrow the list.
Labels on a listing
The sites word their labels slightly differently, but a listing's details table uses much the same ones.
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 賃料 | Rent, per month. |
| 管理費・共益費, 管理費等 | The management or common-area fee, paid every month on top of the rent. |
| 敷金 / 礼金 | Deposit and key money, paid when you move in. The move-in costs guide explains them and the other fees. |
| 間取り | The layout, such as 1K or 1LDK: see the room layouts guide. |
| 専有面積 | The floor area of the home itself, in square meters. |
| 築年月, 築年数 | When the building was finished, or its age. New (新築) means under a year old and never lived in. |
| 交通 | The nearest stations, with the walk to each, such as 歩5分 for a five-minute walk. How walking time is counted is below. |
| 所在階 / 階建 | The floor the home is on, and how many floors the building has. |
| 構造 | How the building is built, such as reinforced concrete or wood. A マンション is a concrete or similarly solid building; an アパート is any other. |
| 契約期間 | The lease length, with its type: 普通借家 is an ordinary lease and 定期借家 a fixed-term one. The rental contracts guide explains the difference. |
| 保証会社 | Whether a guarantor company is required, and sometimes what it charges. |
| 入居, 入居可能時期 | When you can move in. |
| 取引態様 | Who placed the ad: the landlord (貸主), an agent acting for the landlord (代理) or an agent between you and the landlord (仲介 or 媒介). Ask whether an agency fee applies. |
| 情報更新日 | When the listing was last updated. |
How the figures are measured
Rental ads in Japan follow an advertising code that sets how some figures are worked out. Walking time counts one minute for every 80 meters of road, and any part of a minute counts as a whole one; for an apartment building it starts at the building's entrance. It measures distance only, so a hill or a long wait at a crossing makes the real walk longer.
A room size in jō means at least 1.62 m² per jō, and a building over a year old, or one someone has lived in, can't be called new.
When a listing is already taken
The same code bans ads for a home that doesn't exist, can't be rented, or that the agent won't rent to you (おとり広告, a bait ad). A real home can also be let before its listing is updated. Before you visit, ask the agent to confirm the home is still available, and check when the listing was last updated.
Reading a listing with Smoovin
Smoovin is a Chrome extension that works on all four sites. On a listing, it shows the rent, fees and access in English beside the page and adds up the listed move-in fees; on the sites' search pages, it says which button to click next. It reads only what the listing states, so ask the agent about anything it leaves out.