Japan Accommodation Tax 2026: Full List and Tokyo's 3%

What the accommodation tax is: a tax municipalities invented themselves

Unlike resident tax or fixed asset tax, the accommodation tax is not listed in the Local Tax Act. Local governments may create their own tax items by ordinance — these are called non-statutory taxes. Where the revenue is earmarked, it is a non-statutory earmarked tax, and every municipality that levies an accommodation tax does so in this form.

Tokyo was first, on 1 October 2002. Nothing followed for 14 years until Osaka Prefecture in 2017. What changed the picture was inbound travel: 36.87 million foreign visitors came to Japan in 2024, well above the pre-pandemic peak of 31.88 million in 2019. Municipalities with heavy visitor traffic turned to the tax to fund reception infrastructure and overtourism measures.

According to a House of Councillors research paper, as of 9 October 2025, 42 local governments had obtained ministerial consent and only 14 had actually started collecting. In other words, roughly 28 were queued up to start around 2026. Nikkei reported that about 30 municipalities would begin in 2026, taking the total from 17 at the end of 2025 to around 50.

Where it applies and how much (as of August 2026)

All amounts are per person, per night. The room rate used for the brackets is generally the room-only price, excluding meals and consumption tax.

Flatsingle amount　Tieredvaries by room rate　Ratepercentage of the room rate

Coming next

The list reflects what had been published or reported as of August 2026. More municipalities have ministerial consent without a fixed start date, and others are still in consultation.

What Tokyo's 3% flat rate means

On 30 June 2026 the Minister consented to Tokyo's revision. From stays on and after 1 April 2027, the current tiered amounts (¥100 for ¥10,000–under ¥15,000, ¥200 for ¥15,000 and above) are replaced by 3% of the room rate. Tokyo expects revenue to rise from about ¥8.1 billion in FY2026 to roughly ¥19 billion a year.

By design, the more expensive the room, the steeper the increase. At the other end, the exemption threshold rises from under ¥10,000 to under ¥13,000, so some business-hotel stays fall out of the tax. Given how Tokyo room rates have moved in recent years, however, many properties that were once under ¥10,000 now clear ¥13,000.

When the prefecture and the city both tax the same night

Both prefectures and municipalities may levy. As of August 2026 that overlap exists in Hokkaido, Miyagi and Fukuoka, and Okinawa joins in February 2027. How they coordinate differs.

Business trips, hospital visits and funerals are all taxed

The taxable event is the act of staying at a lodging facility, not the purpose of the stay. So the tax applies to work travel, exams and job interviews, staying near a hospitalised family member, returning home for a funeral, and stays during an evacuation unless the municipality has its own relief.

Consideration for non-tourist stays has historically been delivered through the exemption threshold rather than through exemptions. Tokyo set its original ¥10,000 floor precisely to spare school trips and business travel. With room rates where they now are, that design no longer works as intended — which is part of why Tokyo is lifting the floor to ¥13,000.

At hot-spring inns, the bathing tax stacks on top

Hot-spring properties also charge the bathing tax (nyuto-zei), a statutory earmarked tax under Local Tax Act art. 701 levied by municipalities with mineral spring baths. The standard rate is ¥150 per person per day (a one-night stay counts as one day), also collected by the property.

Because the taxable events differ — bathing at a mineral spring versus staying overnight — this is not treated as double taxation. From the guest's side it is still two local taxes on one night, and Fukuoka City therefore cut the bathing tax for overnight bathers from ¥150 to ¥50 while its accommodation tax is in force. Toba City in Mie has published a division of labour: accommodation tax for visitor reception infrastructure, bathing tax for spring-source protection, firefighting capacity and existing tourism programmes.

The bookkeeping trap: no consumption tax on the accommodation tax

Booking the total as a taxable purchase without checking the breakdown means claiming more input credit than you are entitled to. ¥200 a night sounds trivial until a travel-heavy company books hundreds of nights a year. The effect is largest for businesses filing under the standard method. Under the invoice system, qualified invoices break out amounts by rate, so it is worth checking once how your usual hotels present the line. For sole proprietors, an accommodation tax paid on a business trip is a deductible expense; see also ten grey-area expenses for sole proprietors.

Will it become a nationwide statutory tax?

The Japan Association of Corporate Executives proposed in March 2024 that the accommodation tax be added to the Local Tax Act as a statutory earmarked tax and rolled out nationwide. The Japan Local Government Centre has argued that a patchwork risks pushing guests into neighbouring areas, so a uniform national scheme may be needed.

The ministry's position is that it would need broad public understanding as well as the agreement of municipalities that already levy their own, and that "given that taxation is tailored to each locality's needs, there is no strong necessity at present to unify the system, and we are not considering making it a statutory tax immediately."

History matters here too. Until the end of March 2000 prefectures levied a special local consumption tax on lodging and dining at 3%, exempt below ¥15,000 per person per night. It was abolished in the FY1997 reform because the new 1% local consumption tax would have duplicated it. Japan has already once consolidated lodging levies into the local consumption tax.

Earmarked taxes also invite scrutiny of spending, yet the ministry notes that the Local Tax Act does not require disclosure of how non-statutory tax revenue is used, so it does not track disclosure comprehensively. Practices vary from itemised annual figures to narrative descriptions of funded projects. The most practical check a guest can make is to look up what the city they stayed in actually spent it on.

FAQ

Sources

• House of Councillors Research Office, "Tax Policy Issues Surrounding the Accommodation Tax" (Rippo to Chosa No. 479, October 2025)
• Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: Non-statutory taxes
• Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Taxation: Revision of the accommodation tax
• Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Taxation: Accommodation tax (current rules)
• Okinawa Prefecture: Introduction of the accommodation tax
• e-Gov: Local Tax Act
• National Tax Agency: Transactions outside the scope of consumption tax

This article is general information. Accommodation tax rates, exemption thresholds and reliefs are set by local ordinance and change. For individual bookkeeping or filing decisions, consult a tax office or a licensed tax accountant.