Rent by Prefecture in Japan2026 Ranking as Tokyo’s ¥94,800 Is Twice Miyazaki’s, and 2.8 Times the Cheapest per Tatami

When you are thinking about moving, being transferred or relocating to the countryside, rent is one of the first costs that comes to mind. But the "market rents" on property websites only cover rooms that are on offer at that moment, which makes it hard to compare regions on equal terms.

In this article I ranked all 47 prefectures by monthly rent and rent per tatami for private rental housing, using the latest results of the Housing and Land Survey, which Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications runs every five years (as of 1 October 2023, published September 2024)^[2][3]. These are the rents actually paid by people living in rental homes, including households that moved in decades ago, so they come out lower than the rents of recent movers (see section 6). I also looked at the change since the previous survey in 2018, the differences between Tokyo’s 23 wards, the August 2026 Retail Price Survey, and how heavy rent is compared with average pay by prefecture.

1. The short answer: Tokyo leads at ¥94,802, Miyazaki is last at ¥46,290, and the gap widens to 2.8 times per unit of space

• Monthly rent for private rental housing is highest in Tokyo, at ¥94,802. Kanagawa is second (¥76,356) and Saitama third (¥65,848).
• Miyazaki is last at ¥46,290. Aomori is 46th (¥46,340) and Kagoshima 45th (¥46,916).
• The gap between Tokyo and Miyazaki is ¥48,512, or about 2.05 times.
• The national figure is ¥65,496. Only the four Greater Tokyo prefectures (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba) are above it.
• Per tatami, Tokyo’s ¥6,450 compares with ¥2,286 in Aomori, the cheapest, a gap of about 2.82 times. Rental homes in Tokyo are small, so the gap widens once size is taken into account.
• Compared with the previous survey in 2018, rent rose in 45 prefectures. Nationally it went from ¥61,963 to ¥65,496, up 5.7%, and rent per tatami rose in all 47 prefectures^[7][8].

What "rent" means in this article

In the Housing and Land Survey, "rent" is one month’s rent paid most recently before the survey. It excludes common-area and management fees, deposits and key money^[5].

• The figures cover private rental housing (dwellings used only as homes). Public housing, UR and public corporation housing, and company or government staff housing are excluded, as are homes combined with shops.
• I used the average excluding homes with zero rent. About 160,000 private rental homes nationwide pay no rent, for example because a relative lets them live there free, and including them pulls the average down. The national average including zero-rent homes is ¥64,819, about ¥700 lower.
• "Rent per tatami" is rent divided by the number of tatami mats in the living rooms. Western-style rooms are counted as 2 tatami per 3.3 m². Kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and entrances are not counted (a kitchen is counted only when it doubles as a dining room of a certain size)^[5].

The ministry’s own summary quotes rent for all rented homes, including public and staff housing, as "¥59,656, up 7.1% from 2018"^[1]. This article covers private rentals only, so its figures are higher.

2. The full ranking: only Greater Tokyo is above the national average, and everything from 15th down fits within ¥7,600

Monthly rent and rent per tatami are averages for private rental housing (dwellings used only as homes). Living-room tatami is the "number of tatami in living rooms per dwelling"^[4]. The change versus 2018 was calculated from the same table in the previous survey using the same definition (excluding zero rent).

The top: four Greater Tokyo prefectures, three in Kansai, and Aichi

Only Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba are above the national average. Even so, third-placed Saitama (¥65,848) and fourth-placed Chiba (¥65,813) are only just above the national ¥65,496. Hyogo in 5th (¥65,097), Osaka in 6th (¥64,263) and Kyoto in 7th (¥62,210) are close to the national level. Aichi is 8th (¥60,601), followed by Nara (¥57,664) and Miyagi (¥56,735).

The bottom: Kyushu, Tohoku and Shikoku, with little separating them

Last-placed Miyazaki (¥46,290) and 46th-placed Aomori (¥46,340) are almost identical. Places 41 to 45 also go to Kyushu, Tohoku and Shikoku: Ehime, Kochi, Akita, Oita and Kagoshima.

What stands out in this ranking is how small the differences are from the middle down. The 33 prefectures from Okinawa in 15th (¥53,913) to Miyazaki in 47th fit within a range of ¥7,623. The median, 24th, is Hokkaido at ¥51,199. The gap between 1st-placed Tokyo and 2nd-placed Kanagawa (¥18,446) is bigger than the gap between 15th and 47th. Regional rent differences are less a gentle slope across the country than Greater Tokyo, and Tokyo above all, standing far apart.

3. Dividing by size widens the gap: Tokyo’s rentals have the smallest living rooms in Japan, at 14.9 tatami

Monthly rent bundles in differences in room size. Comparing rent per tatami instead makes the gap even larger.

Private rentals in Tokyo average 14.9 tatami of living rooms, the smallest of all 47 prefectures. They are about 5 tatami smaller than in Aomori (20.0), yet the rent is twice as high. Per tatami, Tokyo is about 2.82 times Aomori.

The prefectures with the smallest living rooms are Tokyo (14.9), Kyoto (15.1), Osaka (16.1), Kanagawa (16.5) and Miyagi (16.6), suggesting that big-city rental stock leans towards studio-type homes for single people. The largest are in Nara (20.7), Aomori (20.0), Saga (19.9), Hokkaido (19.7) and Gifu (19.6).

Prefectures whose rank moves a lot per tatami

Dividing by size reshuffles some prefectures considerably.

• Kyoto is 7th by monthly rent but 3rd per tatami (¥4,115). Its rooms are small, so per unit of space it is behind only Tokyo and Kanagawa.
• Nara is 9th by monthly rent but 23rd per tatami (¥2,758). Its living rooms average 20.7 tatami, the largest in Japan, so its rent is high partly because people rent bigger homes.
• Saga (22nd to 38th), Hokkaido (24th to 35th) and Gifu (30th to 41st) also fall towards the cheap end per tatami because their homes are larger.
• Conversely, Ishikawa (32nd to 16th), Niigata (23rd to 15th) and Oita (44th to 33rd) have relatively small rooms and rise per tatami.

When looking for a "cheap prefecture", the price for the same amount of space is closer to reality than the monthly figure alone.

Wooden or concrete: more than ¥1,000 per tatami apart within the same prefecture

Nationally, rent per tatami for private rentals is ¥2,916 in wooden buildings and ¥4,151 in non-wooden ones such as reinforced concrete^[1]. In Tokyo the figures are ¥5,278 and ¥6,687; in Aomori, ¥2,155 and ¥2,745^[3]. Construction type makes a real difference, so when comparing a prefecture’s average with the home you are looking for, match the building type as well.

4. Tokyo’s 23 wards versus the rest: the wards average ¥100,530, Minato ¥210,000, and outside the wards it is about Kanagawa’s level

About 79% of Tokyo’s private rental homes are in the 23 wards. Monthly rent for private rentals there is ¥100,530, up 7.0% from ¥93,938 in 2018 and now above ¥100,000. Per tatami it is ¥6,947, and living rooms average 14.7 tatami^[2][3]. Homes that pay common-area or management fees pay an average of ¥6,691 on top of the rent.

A 2.9-fold gap between wards

Listing the wards one by one from the same table shows a wider gap than between prefectures.

Minato is about 2.9 times Katsushika. Twenty-one of the 23 wards are above Kanagawa’s average (¥76,356), the second-highest prefecture. Even Katsushika, the cheapest ward, is higher than every one of the 45 prefectures other than Tokyo and Kanagawa. Chiyoda has only about 18,000 private rental homes, and because this is a sample survey, ward-level figures carry more error than prefecture-level ones.

About ¥74,000 outside the 23 wards (estimate)

Tokyo’s average (¥94,802) is pulled up strongly by the wards. Using the number of homes and average rents for Tokyo as a whole and for the wards, I back-calculated the average for the rest of Tokyo (the Tama area and the islands). The result is about ¥73,600, slightly below Kanagawa (¥76,356).

Before doing this, I checked that the same method applied to the 47 prefectures reproduces the national average: it gives ¥65,495, almost exactly the published ¥65,496. Even so, it is this article’s own estimate, not a published figure.

Looking up cities in the Tama area directly in the table gives Musashino ¥95,263, Tachikawa ¥78,607, Fuchu ¥77,982, Machida ¥71,111 and Hachioji ¥61,767^[2]. Musashino is higher than 11 of the 23 wards, while Hachioji is below the national average. It is better to look at wards and cities than at "Tokyo" as one block.

5. Change since 2018 and the latest 2026 data: smaller rooms, and rent per tatami up everywhere

Up 5.7% nationally in five years, most in Okinawa, Tokyo and Nara

Between 2018 and 2023, monthly rent for private rentals rose nationally from ¥61,963 to ¥65,496, an increase of ¥3,533 (5.7%)^[7]. It rose in 45 prefectures and fell only in Kagawa (−0.1%) and Wakayama (−0.5%).

The biggest increases were in Okinawa (+7.5%), Tokyo (+7.0%), Nara (+6.7%), Chiba (+5.8%) and Nagasaki (+5.3%). The smallest were in Oita (+0.3%), Ishikawa (+0.7%), Shizuoka (+1.6%) and Niigata (+1.9%).

Rent per tatami rose faster than monthly rent

The figure to watch is rent per tatami. Nationally it went from ¥3,452 to ¥3,795, up 9.9%, well ahead of monthly rent (5.7%)^[8]. Rent per tatami rose in all 47 prefectures, most in Okinawa (+12.3%), Chiba (+11.2%), Kyoto (+11.0%), Tokyo (+10.5%) and Iwate (+10.4%).

One reason is that homes got smaller. Living rooms in private rentals shrank nationally from 17.6 to 17.2 tatami, and became smaller in 40 of the 47 prefectures^[9]. Even where monthly rent seems to have risen gently, rent for the same amount of space rose more.

The August 2026 Retail Price Survey: rents in prefectural capitals

The Housing and Land Survey runs only every five years, so the next results will come from the 2028 survey. For recent movements, the ministry’s Retail Price Survey is the place to look. It surveys private rents every month in prefectural capitals and other cities and publishes them per month per 3.3 m² (about 2 tatami)^[10].

In August 2026, Tokyo’s wards were highest at ¥10,048, followed by Yokohama (¥6,893), Osaka (¥6,357), Saitama (¥6,023) and Kyoto (¥6,019). The cheapest was Saga at ¥3,423, followed by Wakayama (¥3,513), Yamaguchi (¥3,655), Miyazaki (¥3,678) and Matsuyama (¥3,689). Tokyo’s wards are about 2.94 times Saga.

Compared with August 2025^[11], rent rose in 26 of the 47 prefectural capitals and fell in 21. The biggest rises were in Tokyo’s wards (+3.0%), Chiba (+2.4%), and Saitama, Gifu and Tokushima (each +2.3%). The biggest falls were in Naha (−2.4%), Sendai (−1.3%) and Maebashi (−1.0%).

For the latest month, September 2026, only Tokyo’s wards have been published so far, at ¥10,074^[12]. In the 13 months from September 2025, the figure was above ¥10,000 only in August and September 2026. Compared with the same month a year earlier (September 2025, ¥9,987), though, the rise is +0.9%, smaller than the August-to-August comparison (+3.0%).

The survey divides its rent districts into three groups and surveys each group every three months in rotation; districts not surveyed in a given month use the previous month’s or the month before’s data^[13]. A single month’s change can therefore swing as groups rotate. The Statistics Bureau also notes that city prices do not directly show regional differences, partly because the surveyed items can differ by city. Because these are capital-city figures, the order also differs from the prefecture-wide Housing and Land Survey (for example, the city of Nagasaki is 11th, but Nagasaki Prefecture is 27th).

6. How heavy rent is relative to pay: 16.8% of annual pay in Tokyo, with Okinawa second, so a cheap prefecture is not necessarily easier

Prefectures with cheap rent also tend to have lower pay. So I compared private rents with the estimated annual pay calculated in Average Salary by Prefecture (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2025; monthly pay × 12 + annual bonuses)^[14].

Rent as a share of annual pay = monthly rent × 12 ÷ estimated annual pay

Tokyo pays more, but its rent gap is bigger still

Across the 47 prefectures, rent and estimated annual pay move together fairly strongly (a correlation coefficient of 0.84). Even so, Tokyo comes out heaviest. That is because the gap between the highest and lowest prefectures is about 2.05 times for rent (Tokyo ÷ Miyazaki) but only about 1.69 times for estimated pay (Tokyo ÷ Aomori). Using the 23 wards’ rent (¥100,530), the share of Tokyo’s estimated annual pay is 17.8%.

Okinawa: 15th for rent, 46th for pay

Okinawa is the second heaviest. Its rent is mid-table in 15th place, but its estimated pay is 46th, so the share is large. Yamagata (7th, 14.1%) also ranks only 34th for rent but 44th for pay, putting its share above Osaka and Kyoto (both 14.0%). Cheap rent does not necessarily mean a light burden once pay is taken into account.

At the other end, the lightest are Yamaguchi, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Kagawa. Their rents are mid-table or lower, but their estimated pay ranks mid-table or higher (Ibaraki 9th, Tochigi 10th, Yamaguchi 19th, Kagawa 20th, Gunma 22nd), which keeps the share small.

Points to keep in mind

• Pay is measured where people work, rent where they live. The wage survey is compiled by the location of the workplace. People who work in Tokyo but live in Saitama, Chiba or Kanagawa are counted in Tokyo’s pay, so the shares for those three prefectures may be overstated.
• Pay is for one person, rent for one household. Estimated annual pay is the average for one full-time general worker. For a two-earner household, the share of household income is much smaller.
• Rent is the average for current tenants. For all rented homes nationwide (including public and staff housing), households that moved in between 2021 and September 2023 pay an average of ¥62,597, more than ¥7,000 above those who moved in between 2001 and 2010 (¥55,098)^[6]. A room rented now is likely to cost more than the averages in this article.
• Pay is gross. As a share of take-home pay after tax and social insurance, the figure is larger.

To check your own situation, first use the take-home pay calculator to turn your salary into take-home pay, then see what share of that your rent takes. The national average rent of ¥65,496 comes to ¥786,000 a year, 14.4% of estimated annual pay of ¥5.456 million, but a larger share of take-home pay.

If you are thinking about moving

Moving to a prefecture with cheaper rent lowers the rent itself. But as this article shows, the burden relative to pay does not necessarily fall. Costs other than rent, such as buying and running a car or commuting distance, also vary by region. When comparing, match rent, size and building type, then look at the share of take-home pay and at other living costs too.

This article is for information only and does not recommend moving to any particular area. Rents are published figures from the Housing and Land Survey (2023) and the Retail Price Survey (August and September 2026); rent as a share of pay and the average outside the 23 wards are this article’s own estimates calculated from published statistics. Figures are from statistics published as of October 2026.

References

1. [1]Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2023 Housing and Land Survey: summary of results of the basic tabulation on dwellings and households (final), section 7 on rents (published 25 September 2024) (Japanese). Statistics Bureau ↩
2. [2]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2023 Housing and Land Survey, basic tabulation table 112-2: rented dwellings by tenure and monthly rent, with average monthly rent and common-area/management fees, for Japan, prefectures and municipalities (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
3. [3]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2023 Housing and Land Survey, table 107-2: rent per tatami of rented dwellings by type, tenure and period of construction, for Japan, prefectures and 21 major cities (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
4. [4]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2023 Housing and Land Survey, table 110: rented dwellings by tenure, monthly rent and tatami of living rooms, with tatami per dwelling, for Japan, prefectures and 21 major cities (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
5. [5]Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2023 Housing and Land Survey: explanation of terms (tenure, rent, tatami of living rooms) (Japanese). Statistics Bureau ↩
6. [6]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2023 Housing and Land Survey, table 114: rented dwellings by when the main earner moved in and monthly rent, with average monthly rent, for Japan, prefectures and municipalities (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
7. [7]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2018 Housing and Land Survey, basic tabulation table 113-2: rented dwellings by tenure and monthly rent, with average monthly rent and common-area/management fees, for Japan, prefectures and municipalities (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
8. [8]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2018 Housing and Land Survey, table 108-2: rent per tatami of rented dwellings by type, tenure and period of construction, for Japan, prefectures and 21 major cities (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
9. [9]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2018 Housing and Land Survey, table 111: rented dwellings by tenure, monthly rent and tatami of living rooms, with tatami per dwelling, for Japan, prefectures and 21 major cities (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
10. [10]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Retail Price Survey (trend statistics), table 1: retail prices of major items by city (prefectural capitals and cities with 150,000+ people), August 2026, items 3001 private rent to 4515 (published 18 September 2026) (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
11. [11]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Retail Price Survey (trend statistics), table 1, August 2025, items 3001 private rent to 4515 (published 19 September 2025) (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
12. [12]Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Retail Price Survey (trend statistics), table 2: retail prices of major items in Tokyo’s wards, September 2025 to September 2026, items 3001 private rent to 4515 (published 2 October 2026) (Japanese). e-Stat ↩
13. [13]Statistics Bureau of Japan, Retail Price Survey (trend statistics): notes on using the tables (average prices, how private rent is calculated, and the rotation of rent survey groups) (Japanese). Statistics Bureau ↩
14. [14]Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2025 Basic Survey on Wage Structure, prefectural reference table 1 for all 47 prefectures (published 24 March 2026). Estimated annual pay is calculated as in Average Salary by Prefecture in Japan: 2026 Ranking (Japanese). e-Stat ↩