Osaka City Has Closed New Special-Zone Minpaku Applications (May 29, 2026): What Changed and What to Do Next

Osaka City stopped accepting new applications for Special-Zone minpaku certification (the National Strategic Special Zone lodging scheme) on May 29, 2026. Whether you want to start a rental in Osaka City, already hold a certification, or are thinking of buying a certified property, the impact and the right next step are different. This article lays out what was decided and where things go from here, based on official material from Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture, the Cabinet Office and the Japan Tourism Agency (as of September 18, 2026). TUPONT Inc. operates its own certified Special-Zone stays in Osaka City, so we add the view of an operator directly affected.

What was decided (dates, scope, existing certifications)

According to Osaka City's official page (updated May 2026) and the decisions of its lodging-policy project team, four things were decided.

• New certification applications closed on Friday, May 29, 2026. Applications filed by that date but not yet decided are treated as certified before May 29 if they are later approved.
• For already-certified facilities, change applications to add rooms or increase floor area also closed on the same day, as did new applications for the fire-code compliance certificate and new waste-handling reports for Special-Zone use.
• Facilities certified on or before May 29 may keep operating as before. Neither the city's page nor the national zone plan states any end date for that operation.
• No date has been set for reopening applications. The city says it will decide comprehensively, taking into account its monitoring and enforcement capacity, the legal changes it is seeking, and hotel occupancy.

How the decision came about

The process began at the first meeting of the city's project team on lodging issues on July 25, 2025. At the second meeting on September 30, the team decided to suspend new applications because the city needed to strengthen its monitoring and enforcement system, including legal reforms. The city announced the policy on October 27, proposed the zone-plan amendment at the National Strategic Special Zone council on November 17, and the Prime Minister approved the amended zone plan on November 28, 2025, making it official.

The city's meeting materials point to the surge in facilities (6,038 as of March 2025) and complaints about garbage, noise and one-night stays (399 in fiscal 2024). The city's published list of certified facilities as of May 31, 2026 contains 8,887 entries (our own count), but the final figure including last-minute applications has not been published.

Starting a rental in Osaka City from now on: two options

From May 30, 2026, there are two ways to start a new rental in Osaka City: a notification under the Housing Accommodation Business Act (the Minpaku Act), or a permit under the Hotel Business Act (typically simple lodging). Here are the key points from the city's official material.

Minpaku Act (notification-based)

• Operating days are capped at 180 per year by law. Osaka City counts from noon on April 1 to noon on the following April 1, and the count runs per registered property, so it carries over even if the operator changes.
• In residential-only zones, operation is prohibited year-round in principle (with an exception for sites fronting a road at least 4 m wide). Within 100 m of an elementary or compulsory-education school, operation is prohibited from Monday noon to Friday noon. Both restrictions apply to operations covered by Article 11(1) of the Act, such as host-absent (professionally managed) rentals; a host-present operation with five rooms or fewer is exempt.
• Host-absent rentals must contract a registered housing accommodation management company. You must also brief neighbors before filing, obtain a fire-code compliance certificate, report every two months, and treat guest waste as commercial waste.
• Watch point: on July 15, 2026, the Japan Tourism Agency and related ministries advised municipalities that they may use ordinances to ban new rentals in residential areas (so-called zero-day rules). As of September 18, 2026, there is no official confirmation of whether Osaka City intends to amend its ordinance.

Hotel Business Act (simple lodging / hotel permit)

• No cap on operating days, and one-night stays are allowed. Permits are in principle limited to Category I residential (hotel portion up to 3,000 sq m), Category II residential, quasi-residential, neighborhood commercial, commercial and quasi-industrial zones.
• For simple lodging, guest rooms must total at least 33 sq m (or 3.3 sq m per guest if fewer than 10 guests), measured on inside dimensions. A front desk can be replaced by alternative measures such as a management office within 1,000 m of the property and entrance video cameras (identity checks may then be done by video call or a similar ICT method equivalent to face-to-face). The application fee is 22,000 yen.
• Important: anticipating that operators will move to hotel permits after the Special-Zone closure, the city submitted an amendment to its Hotel Business ordinance (Bill No. 124) to the city council on September 15, 2026, with an effective date stated as October 30, 2026 (passage not yet confirmed as of September 18). It would (1) restrict permits in buildings that also contain residences to reinforced-concrete or steel-reinforced-concrete structures in principle, effectively ruling out partial conversion of wooden or steel-frame row houses and apartments; (2) require staff to be present at the facility while guests are staying, planned to apply to existing permit holders too; and (3) expand mandatory advance briefing of neighbors from facilities under 33 sq m to those under 200 sq m of total guest-room area.
• Transitional rule: applications filed, or building-plan notifications submitted, before the effective date are handled under the old rules. If you are considering a hotel permit, check the effective date and your building's structure and whether it contains residences first.

How to choose (and in what order)

To maximize occupancy the no-day-cap Hotel Business route is strong, but its zoning, structure, fire and management requirements are stricter than the Minpaku Act, and if the ordinance amendment above takes effect it adds reinforced-concrete construction and staff presence while guests are staying. The Minpaku Act is lighter to file, but the 180-night cap means the P&L has to work within 180 nights.

The order matters: check the property's zoning, building structure and fire requirements first, and establish which system it can actually qualify for. Choosing the system first and then hunting for a property tends to end in a restart when zoning or structure rules it out.

Steps to open

• 1) Eligibility check (zoning, structure, fire code, neighborhood)
• 2) Choose the system; prepare documents and drawings
• 3) Fire-code compliance and filing with the authorities (with partner specialists as needed)
• 4) Furniture, amenities, photography, OTA setup, listing
• 5) Launch (rolling straight into management)

What owners who already hold a certification should do

If you are already certified, you can keep operating as before. But the city has stated it will work to prevent complaints through monitoring by its nuisance-rental eradication team (in a June 2026 response), so holding a certification is not the same as being safe.

• Not possible: adding rooms or increasing floor area. Other changes (structure and equipment, reducing the number of rooms, etc.) can still be handled through a change-certification application (fee 10,500 yen with a site inspection, 2,500 yen without).
• Filings: changes to the operator's name, address or representative, the facility name, phone number or website must be filed within 10 days. Closing the business also requires a notification within 10 days.
• Operating standards: on March 25, 2026, the city amended its guidelines to add obligations — explaining house rules to guests by phone or in person, warning them directly when a complaint arises and removing them if the problem persists, posting noise and garbage rules outside the room, reporting the outcome of complaints back to the complainant, and keeping complaint records for three years. The existing rules of arriving on site within roughly 10 minutes and a 24-hour phone line remain. The minimum stay of two nights and three days is unchanged; one-night operation can lead to revocation.
• Subsidy: Osaka Prefecture's fiscal 2026 environment-improvement subsidy for Special-Zone facilities is open to certified operators in the prefecture, covering up to half of costs to a cap of 400,000 yen per facility, with applications from August 20, 2026 to February 26, 2027 (closes when the budget is exhausted).

Can a certification be sold or transferred? (many points still need confirmation)

This is the question we hear most, and parts of it cannot be answered definitively. Here is what we could confirm.

• Unlike the Hotel Business Act, which has explicit succession provisions for transfers, mergers and inheritance, the National Strategic Special Zones Act has no provision for succeeding to a certified operator's status. Certification is granted to the operator, not to the property.
• Osaka City's earlier handbook (November 2021 edition) listed a change of operator (inheritance, transfer of the business, corporate merger, etc.) and a switch between individual and corporate applicant as cases requiring a new certification application. Since new applications have closed, there appears to be no route in the system to inherit a certification through a business transfer.
• The current handbook (July 2026 edition) lists only three procedures — change certification, change notification and closure notification — and does not spell out how a change of operator is handled (the city's page only notes that changing the certified operator itself cannot be done online). The death of an individual operator is treated as a closure.
• How the city treats a share transfer of a company that holds a certification (same legal entity, only a change-of-representative notification) is not stated in any official document. Confirm with the Osaka City Public Health Office's Environmental Sanitation Division (hotel business guidance group) before acting.

Scarcity of certified facilities and the market impact

Going forward, the only ways to run a rental in Osaka City with no annual day cap are an existing Special-Zone certification or a hotel permit, whose requirements are set to tighten. City figures for fiscal 2025 show 8,360 Special-Zone facilities against 1,856 hotel-permit facilities, so most of the city's rentals were Special-Zone. Once the applications filed by the May 29 deadline have been processed, no new certifications will be issued, so the stock of certified facilities can only shrink, not grow.

That does not simply mean certified properties will rise in value. Certification is tied to the operator, not the property; existing facilities face more operating obligations; and future ordinance changes on the Minpaku Act and hotel side will shape supply. What is certain today is that properly operating a certified facility has become a position that cannot be re-created within the city.

Where TUPONT stands

TUPONT Inc. operates its own certified Special-Zone stays in Osaka City and has an operating track record in Kita, Fukushima and Yodogawa wards, so this change affects us directly as an operator. We offer management for owners of certified facilities (zero setup fee, 15% commission) and help those starting out choose the right system, through an individual free assessment. No pushy sales (phone: 090-5904-9988). Because certification succession and permit eligibility are decided by the authorities, we work with the relevant offices and licensed specialists where needed.

FAQ

• Q. How long can a certified Special-Zone rental keep operating? A. Neither Osaka City's official page nor the national zone plan states an end date; certified facilities may operate as before. Because a future zone-plan amendment changing that has not been officially ruled out, keep watching the city's announcements.
• Q. Can I add a room to a certified facility? A. No. Applications to add rooms or increase floor area closed on May 29, 2026. Other changes can be handled through a change-certification application.
• Q. If I buy a certified property, can I keep running it as a Special-Zone rental? A. Certification is granted to the operator and the law has no succession provision. Osaka City has treated a change of operator as a new application, and new applications are closed. Confirm with the Osaka City Public Health Office before signing any contract.
• Q. For a new rental, should I choose the Minpaku Act or a hotel permit? A. If 180 days a year is enough, the Minpaku Act; for year-round operation, a hotel permit. But the ordinance amendment scheduled to take effect October 30, 2026 is expected to add structure (RC/SRC), on-site staffing and neighbor-briefing requirements for hotel permits. The answer depends on your property's zoning, structure and whether it contains residences, so check individually.