Calendar
The housing year
Renting and owning in Japan has a rhythm — a loud spring, an honest summer, a paperwork autumn, a planning winter. Learn the rhythm and nothing on the timeline surprises you.
January – April · The moving season
Japan's school and company year turns over in spring, so the rental market compresses into its annual rush: the most listings, the most competition, the fastest decisions, the busiest movers — peaking in late winter.
If you must move in this window, preparation beats speed: have your documents, guarantor arrangements and budget settled before you start viewing. If your dates are flexible, the months right after the rush are noticeably calmer.
May – August · The viewing months
The market breathes out after the rush — fewer rivals per room, more negotiating room on timing. Summer viewings are honest viewings: heat, humidity, sun angle and airflow show you what a floor plan really lives like.
For akiya hunters this is the season for site visits — vegetation, drainage and building condition are all at their most visible.
September – November · The paperwork season
A natural time to take stock. Owners have seen the year's tax paperwork arrive; buyers-to-be can use the quiet months to line up documents, understand the juusetsu step, and read up on the closing costs no one itemises for you.
A smaller second moving wave arrives with autumn corporate transfers — milder than spring's.
December – February · The planning season
The quietest stretch — and the best one for deciding rather than reacting: compare areas, walk neighbourhoods, and set your budget before the spring rush begins.
Japan's tax rules move on an annual reform cycle tied to the fiscal year, so figures that were true this year can change with the next one. This is why every number on SUMIKA carries an as-of date — and why we re-verify them around each turn of the fiscal year.
Institutional dates, as concepts
The specific amounts and deadlines belong to official sources and change with the tax year — so here they stay concepts, and the Money & Tax guides carry the verified detail with as-of dates.
- Fixed-asset tax follows the owner of record
- The annual fixed-asset tax is assessed to whoever is registered as the owner at the start of the calendar year, with bills arriving from spring and payable in installments. Timing a purchase or sale around the year boundary changes who receives that bill — a settlement point your judicial scrivener will prorate.
- The acquisition-tax bill arrives late
- The one-time real-estate acquisition tax is billed by the prefecture months after your purchase closes — long after the excitement has faded. Budget for it at contract time so it never reads as a surprise.
- Lease renewals come in cycles
- Fixed-term leases commonly run on multi-year cycles, and where renewal fees are customary they arrive with the renewal. Your lease states the cycle and the terms — the calendar's job is only to remind you the date exists.
- Rules are revised on the fiscal-year rhythm
- Tax reliefs, registration measures and housing programs are typically revised with the annual tax-reform cycle and take effect around the new fiscal year in April. When a rule that affects our guides changes, it lands in the news strip below and the affected pages get re-verified.
General information, not legal or tax advice — dates and amounts in your own case come from your contracts, your municipality and current law.