Koshinryo, Explained: The Three Fees in a Japan Lease Renewal

Two years into a Japanese lease, a letter or a line on the rent-transfer notice mentions koshinryo, and it isn't obvious whether that's the same charge a neighbor complained about, a new one, or something the management company invented. Some tenants pay nothing at renewal. Others get billed two or three line items on the same notice. The difference usually comes down to which of three unrelated fees actually apply to a given lease, and where in Japan the building sits.

Three fees, three different people getting paid

The confusion starts because all three charges get discussed under the same umbrella word, "renewal cost," when they're paid to three different parties and only one of them is universal.

• Koshinryo (更新料) — paid to the landlord, not the agency. Where it applies, the customary amount is around one month's rent, and it's charged each time the fixed-term lease comes up for renewal (commonly every two years).
• Renewal administrative fee (更新事務手数料) — paid to the management or leasing company for handling the renewal paperwork, separate from whatever the landlord charges. Reported amounts commonly run in the ¥10,000–¥30,000 range, though whether a given company charges this at all varies.
• Guarantor company renewal fee — only applies if your lease uses a rent-guarantee company (hoshou gaisha) instead of, or alongside, a personal guarantor. It's a separate annual or biennial charge for keeping that guarantee active, and it has nothing to do with the landlord or the management company. Our guide to rental guarantor companies in Japan covers what this fee typically looks like and why the guarantor system exists in the first place.

A renewal notice listing two or three of these at once isn't a duplicate charge or an error — it's normal for a lease that has both a landlord-charged koshinryo and a management-company admin fee, and a guarantor company renewal fee on top if one was part of the original contract.

Where koshinryo applies: Kanto, most of Kansai, and the Kyoto exception

Whether koshinryo exists on a given lease depends heavily on region, and the map doesn't split neatly along Kanto/Kansai lines. In Tokyo and the rest of the Kanto region, a landlord charging roughly one month's rent at each two-year renewal is a long-standing, widely reported custom. In Osaka and most of the rest of the Kansai region, that custom largely doesn't exist — many leases carry no renewal fee at all.

Kyoto breaks that pattern. Despite sitting in Kansai, Kyoto follows the Kanto-style custom of charging koshinryo, and multiple sources describe it as a genuine outlier within its own region rather than a rounding error in reporting. A tenant moving from Osaka to Kyoto, or the reverse, can reasonably expect renewal costs to work differently, even though both cities are commonly grouped together as "Kansai."

None of this is a statute — it's regional custom reflected in what typically gets written into local leases. The only way to know what applies to a specific apartment is the lease itself, not the city it's in.

Is koshinryo actually legal? What the 2011 Supreme Court ruling says

Koshinryo has been challenged in court more than once, on the theory that a fee for simply continuing to live somewhere you already rent provides the tenant nothing in return and should be void under Japan's Consumer Contract Act. A Kyoto district court initially agreed with that argument in a tenant's favor, but the dispute didn't stop there.

On July 15, 2011, the Supreme Court of Japan's Second Petty Bench resolved the question at the national level, upholding koshinryo clauses (in the specific cases before it, fees as high as two months' rent) as valid. The Court's reasoning, as reported by legal commentators, turned on clarity: a renewal fee clause does not unfairly harm the tenant's interests as long as the amount is written into the lease clearly and specifically, so the tenant knowingly agreed to it at signing. A vague or after-the-fact charge stands on much weaker footing than one spelled out in the contract itself.

The practical takeaway isn't "koshinryo is always enforceable" — it's that the ruling turned on what your specific lease says. If a renewal charge appears that isn't in the contract you signed, that's a different situation from a fee the lease already disclosed, and it's worth raising with the landlord or management company rather than assuming either way.

Can you negotiate it, or skip paying and stay anyway?

Some tenants do ask a landlord or agency to waive or reduce koshinryo, particularly at renewal time in a soft rental market, and general guides for renters in Japan mention this as something that occasionally works. Whether it actually succeeds depends entirely on the individual landlord, so treat it as worth a polite ask rather than a right you can invoke.

Refusing to pay a valid, clearly-disclosed koshinryo charge is a different matter: it can put you in breach of the renewed lease, with consequences that depend on the contract's own terms and, ultimately, on Japanese contract law rather than anything this guide can resolve for a specific case. A renewal bill can look wrong in two ways: the amount doesn't match what the lease says, or it lists a charge you don't recognize at all. Either way, the itemized-breakdown and consultation-window approach described in our guide to getting your security deposit back applies here too. Ask for the number in writing, and bring in a free public consultation window before paying something you believe is wrong.

What this guide doesn't cover

This is a general explanation of how koshinryo and related renewal charges work as a matter of custom and reported case law — it is not legal advice, and it can't tell you whether a specific clause in your specific lease is enforceable or whether a specific negotiation attempt will work. A renewal dispute that doesn't resolve through direct conversation with your landlord or agency is a question for a lawyer (bengoshi) or one of the free consultation windows named in our security deposit guide, not for a general information site.

Related reading

• Rental guarantor companies in Japan — the separate guarantor renewal fee, and why the guarantor system exists.
• Getting your security deposit back — what a landlord can and can't charge at move-out, for the other end of the same tenancy.
• Moving-in checklist for Japan — the up-front costs this article's renewal fees show up two years after.
• Share house vs. apartment vs. monthly mansion — for comparing how renewal costs differ (or vanish) across rental formats.

Sources

All sources below were checked on 2026-08-26.

• Real Estate Japan, "Koushin-ryou (更新料) — Real Estate Japan's Word of the Day" (Kanto custom, roughly one month's rent, two-year renewal cycle) — resources.realestate.co.jp
• Willow, "[Don't Lose Money!] What is Koushin-ryou (Renewal Fee)? A Complete Guide for Foreigners in Japan" (renewal administrative fee range, guarantor company renewal fee distinction) — willow.ooo
• International Law Office / Anderson Mori & Tomotsune, "Supreme Court: lease renewal fee clauses under Consumer Contract Act" (July 15, 2011 Second Petty Bench ruling, clarity requirement for valid clauses) — internationallawoffice.com
• Stippy, "How to reclaim your apartment 'renewal fee' (Koshinryo)" (Kyoto district court case, Kyoto's exception within Kansai) — stippy.com
• The Japan Times, "Once settled in, chances are you'll have to pay to stay" (2011, general renewal-fee explainer including negotiation angle) — japantimes.co.jp