The short version
- Japan splits storage into two different products: a traditional trunk room you can walk into anytime, and delivery-type "cloud storage" where a courier picks up a box and mails items back to you on request.
- Trunk rooms give you 24-hour self-access but cost more — a small central-Tokyo unit can run ¥20,000 or more a month — and English support depends entirely on which operator you pick.
- minikura and Sumally Pocket both start from roughly ¥300–330 per box a month, far cheaper than a trunk room, but getting something back takes about 2–3 days and usually a small retrieval fee, plus a 2–3 month minimum before you can pull a box out without an early-withdrawal charge.
- Neither minikura nor Sumally Pocket showed clear evidence of a fully English sign-up flow or app in the sources checked for this guide, though minikura's operator, Warehouse TERRADA, does publish an English landing page describing the service.
- This is a comparison of public information, not a booking service — this site doesn't hold your deposit, pack your box, or mediate a dispute with any of these companies.
A share house room usually comes furnished, which solves the bed and the fridge but creates a smaller problem: where does everything you already own go? Suitcases, off-season clothes, the desk from your old apartment — none of it fits in a room that was designed around not needing your own furniture. The same gap shows up for anyone leaving Japan for a few months, or waiting out a two-week stretch between one lease ending and the next one starting. "Just rent a storage unit" turns out to mean choosing between two fairly different Japanese industries, and most English-language write-ups on the topic don't say which one they're describing.
Two industries, not one
A traditional trunk room (torankuru mu) works the way self-storage does in most countries: you rent a locker or a small room at a physical facility, keep a key or a code, and come and go whenever you like, usually 24 hours a day. You do all the carrying yourself, which means you also need a way to get a sofa or a stack of boxes to the facility in the first place.
A delivery-type storage service — minikura and Sumally Pocket are the two names that come up most often — skips the facility entirely. You order boxes, pack them at home, and a courier collects them for storage in a warehouse you never see. Getting something back means requesting it through an app or website and waiting for delivery, not driving over and unlocking a door. Some plans also photograph each item so you can browse what's inside a box without opening it.
Trunk rooms: instant access, a wider price range
Trunk room pricing depends heavily on location and unit size. A roughly one-square-meter unit near a central Tokyo station can run ¥20,000 or more a month, according to Tokyo Cheapo's survey of local operators, with units further from a station or outside the city center coming in noticeably cheaper. Most operators ask for a residence card, a phone number, and sometimes a personal seal (hanko) to sign up, though GaijinPot notes that larger chains increasingly let you skip the hanko.
English support varies by operator rather than by the industry as a whole, so it's worth checking before you assume either way:
- Trunk Room Tokyo is run by a foreign resident. Its website is Japanese, but English support is available if you ask, across a handful of central Tokyo wards and cities.
- Quraz publishes an English information page and offers email support in English, with around 47 locations in Tokyo and smaller numbers in Kanagawa, Chiba, and elsewhere.
- Hello Storage is the largest network by far — well over a thousand facilities nationwide — but its site and day-to-day service appear to be Japanese-only, based on the sources checked for this guide.
A bigger network buys you a facility closer to home; a smaller, English-friendly operator buys you a smoother sign-up. Neither wins outright, and this guide isn't set up to tell you which trade-off matters more for your own situation.
minikura and Sumally Pocket: cheaper, but you wait for it back
minikura is operated by Warehouse TERRADA, a long-established warehousing company, and its box-based HAKO plan is publicly listed at around ¥300–320 per box a month depending on box type, dropping to roughly ¥300 once a box has been in storage more than a year. Pulling an item out inside the first three months triggers an early-withdrawal fee on top of the retrieval charge; after that, retrieval generally takes two to three days, with same-day or next-day delivery possible within the Kanto region if you request it before 11 a.m. TERRADA publishes an English landing page for the service, but nothing in the sources reviewed here confirmed that the sign-up flow or day-to-day app is available in English past that page.
Sumally Pocket, run by Sumally Inc., starts from about ¥330 per box a month on its standard plan, with a three-month minimum storage period (two months on its cheaper oxygen-free plan for clothing). Getting a box back costs roughly ¥1,100 and up, or from about ¥880 if you retrieve a single photographed item rather than the whole box, and typically arrives in two to three days. No English-language version of the site or app turned up in the sources checked for this guide, so plan on a Japanese-only sign-up unless you have help or a translation app on hand.
Both services are worth double-checking directly before you commit: published rates on comparison blogs can lag an operator's current pricing page, and neither company's fee structure is simple enough to summarize in one number.
Side by side
| What matters to you | Traditional trunk room | minikura / Sumally Pocket |
|---|---|---|
| Getting an item back | Immediate — walk in with your key or code, 24 hours a day at most facilities | Request online, then wait roughly 2–3 days for delivery (faster in Kanto with minikura if requested before 11 a.m.) |
| Typical monthly cost | From roughly ¥20,000/month for a small central-Tokyo unit; cheaper further out | From about ¥300–330 per box, plus a retrieval fee each time you want something back |
| Minimum commitment | Varies by operator; generally no long lock-in for a self-access unit | 2–3 months before an early-withdrawal fee applies (service-dependent) |
| English support | Operator-dependent — Trunk Room Tokyo and Quraz offer it, Hello Storage appears Japanese-only | Not confirmed for either service's sign-up/app; minikura's operator has an English landing page |
| Best fit | Things you'll need to grab on short notice, or a large item you don't want to pack into a courier box | Off-season items and boxes you can plan a few days ahead to retrieve, at a fraction of the monthly cost |
Matching this to the reason you're looking
If you're moving into a furnished share house room and just need winter clothes and a couple of suitcases out of the way until the season turns, a delivery-type box is usually the cheaper, simpler call — you're not planning to open that box for months anyway. If you're storing something you might need on short notice, a musical instrument, sports gear, or anything too irregularly shaped for a courier box, the 24-hour access of a trunk room is worth the higher monthly cost. And if you're weighing this against not keeping the item at all, that's a separate comparison worth making before you commit to paying monthly for either option.
What this guide does not cover
This is a general comparison of how two Japanese storage industries work, not a recommendation of one named company over another, and not an assessment of any operator's insurance coverage or liability if an item is lost or damaged — that's covered in each company's own terms of service, which you should read before packing anything valuable. It also doesn't cover business or commercial storage, which usually runs under different contract terms than the personal plans described here.
Where this connects
This guide exists because a furnished room doesn't leave anywhere for your own things to go. Our comparison of share house operators in Japan and our broader guide to how share houses work both cover the guarantor-free, furniture-included rooms that make this storage question come up in the first place — read either one first if you're still deciding whether a share house is the right move for you.
Storage is also worth considering on the way out, not just the way in. If you're leaving an apartment and torn between throwing something away and paying to store it a little longer, our guide to disposing of furniture and appliances at move-out walks through the sodai gomi and appliance-recycling process this guide is meant to be an alternative to — useful to read side by side before you decide which items are actually worth a monthly storage fee.
Sources
Checked 2026-08-16.
For minikura's plans, pricing, and English-language service page, see Warehouse TERRADA (terrada.co.jp). For Sumally Pocket's plans and pricing, see Sumally Inc.'s official pricing page (pocket.sumally.com) and its retrieval-fee help page (support-pocket.sumally.com). For trunk room pricing, unit sizes, and sign-up requirements in Tokyo, see Tokyo Cheapo (tokyocheapo.com) and GaijinPot (blog.gaijinpot.com). For Quraz's network size and English support, see the operator's own Trunkroom Channel pages (quraz.com). If a dispute arises with any storage provider, Japan's National Consumer Affairs Center (国民生活センター) coordinates local consumer consultation centers nationwide (kokusen.go.jp). Fees, minimum terms, and language support change over time; confirm current details directly with any operator before you rely on the figures above.