Housing Security Benefit in Japan: rent support and foreign residents

This page covers only the rent-subsidy branch of the Housing Security Benefit. Relocation-cost support, added to the program in April 2025, is a separate branch with different conditions and is not described here.

Who it is for

• The applicant is the household's main livelihood supporter, is in financial hardship, and has lost their housing or is at risk of losing it. Two situations lead here: leaving a job or closing a business; or a reduction in work opportunities that came about through neither the applicant's fault nor their own choice, together with an employment situation that has become equivalent to job separation or business closure.
• Every household-income, financial-asset and job-search requirement that applies must be met at the same time. These are examples of what is examined, not a statement that the scheme has exactly three conditions.
• On the job-separation or business-closure route, the eligibility window is ordinarily two years from separation or closure. It marks the period that can be covered, not a filing deadline. If illness, injury, childcare or another circumstance the municipality accepts as unavoidable made job-seeking impossible for a continuous period of at least 30 days, that period can be added, extending the window to four years at most. Those days are added to the window rather than counted as a wait before applying.
• Business-recovery activity may replace job-seeking only on the Article 3(ii) route, where work opportunities fell through neither the applicant's fault nor their own choice and the employment situation became equivalent to job separation or business closure; the separation or business-closure route keeps the job-search requirement. The activity must increase opportunities to earn business income outside salary, and the municipality must recognize that it contributes to self-reliance. It begins in the application month and runs for three months, and it may run for up to six months only when the rent-benefit period is extended and the municipality recognizes continuation.
• A foreign resident may qualify. The regional Self-Reliance Consultation Support Organization checks each applicant's own situation against all the requirements that apply. Housing Security Benefit eligibility and residence-status or immigration determinations are separate in both directions: neither one decides the other.

Points to note

• The Housing Security Benefit is open to any main livelihood supporter who meets the requirements, whatever their nationality, and foreign residents are assessed against those same requirements.
• A decrease in work opportunities alone is not enough — the employment situation must become equivalent to job separation or business closure.
• Business-recovery activity cannot replace job-seeking for the ordinary separation/closure route; it applies only to the no-fault/no-choice reduced-work-opportunities route.

The amount is calculated from the actual rent, up to the housing-assistance ceiling each municipality sets, and it is reduced when household income exceeds the base amount. The rent benefit ordinarily runs for three months and can be extended twice, for a maximum of nine months; each extension is decided on its own rather than granted automatically. In principle the municipality pays the landlord or real-estate intermediary directly, and that party is only the recipient of the payment. The specific ceiling varies by municipality. Confirm the current ceiling and whether an extension is available in your individual case with the regional Self-Reliance Consultation Support Organization.

How it works

1. Check MHLW's official pages for general program information about the Housing Security Benefit.
2. Apply and have your own situation confirmed at the regional Self-Reliance Consultation Support Organization. The municipality makes the benefit decision. This private site neither accepts applications nor decides eligibility.
3. Confirm that payment is ordinarily made directly by the municipality to the landlord or real-estate intermediary, who is only the payment recipient — not an application or decision office.