Company housing and staff dormitories — for owners, general-affairs managers, supervising organizations and registered support organizations / Toyama, Ishikawa and Hida
A housing allowance is taxed in full as salary; company housing is not. This is a way to house transferees and technical intern trainees in a detached house in Toyama. From the search to the renovation, one builder in Yatsuo does it all.
A housing allowance is taxed as salary from the first yen. Company housing is not, for employees, if at least 50% of the deemed rent is collected from them.
Under the National Tax Agency's guidance, allowances paid to directors and employees are in principle salary income, and a housing allowance is included (No. 2508). There is no tax-free band as there is for commuting allowances. Company housing or a dormitory provided to employees, on the other hand, is not taxed as salary if a set monthly rent — at least 50% of the deemed rent — is collected (No. 2597). This applies not only to housing the company owns but equally to housing leased from a third party. A leased vacant house works the same way.
The sum of three parts. Under the National Tax Agency's rule, the deemed rent is the total of (1) to (3) (No. 2597).
If the rent received is less than 50% of this, the difference from the deemed rent is taxed as salary. The formula is the same for a leased house, so the practical first step is to confirm the property tax assessment values with the landlord or the municipality. We help with that too.
The 2023 Housing and Land Survey counted 69,700 vacant houses in Toyama, a record 14.7%, above the national 13.8%. And yet rentals a staff family can live in are hard to find. There is a structure behind that contradiction.
Home ownership in Toyama is 74.9%, third in Japan, and the average floor area of 138.77 ㎡ is the largest in the country. Big homes are mostly owner-occupied, and family houses for rent are relatively scarce. Meanwhile, by the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training's figures (2025 average), the jobs-to-applicants ratio in the three Hokuriku prefectures is well above the national average. Neither hiring nor transfers can begin until housing is settled.
Toyama Prefecture packages its subsidies for companies taking on and retaining foreign workers, and the guide also covers a loan scheme for small and medium-sized companies that can be used to build or renovate staff dormitories. Check the conditions and timing on Toyama Prefecture's guide to support for retaining foreign workers.
Accommodation for technical intern trainees is provided by the host company or the supervising organization. The requirements are in the operational guidelines for the Technical Intern Training Program: bedrooms of at least 4.5 ㎡ per person, excluding alcoves, closets and other space that cannot actually be used; storage for each person; a daylight window of at least one-seventh of the room's area; and heating, cooling and similar equipment. For Specified Skilled Workers the host company must support securing housing, and living rooms must be at least 7.5 ㎡ per person (for a shared room, the whole room's area ÷ the number of residents).
If you provide company housing to Japanese employees, foreign employees must get the same size. Toyama's average floor area per dwelling is 138.77 ㎡, the largest in Japan; a detached house with plenty of rooms makes separate bedrooms easy and suits these rules. But total floor area is not the number of people who can live there: what counts is bedroom area.
A building with bedrooms upstairs needs only one stairway to the outside if it houses fewer than 15 people. Residential smoke alarms are compulsory in every dwelling. The Technical Intern Training Program becomes the Employment for Skill Development system on 1 April 2027. Stage 1 training plans should be filed by February 2027, and intake after that goes through the new system, but its operational guidelines, revised in August 2026, keep the accommodation rules almost the same, including at least 4.5 ㎡ of bedroom per person.
The intake process and when to fix the housing, how to count bedrooms, a worked room-allocation example and the schedule counted back from the arrival date are set out separately on Housing for technical intern trainees in Toyama: rules and steps.
Company-housing rent has two yardsticks. The first is tax: the line for "at least this much must come from the employee". When you let housing to an employee, it is not taxed as salary if you collect at least 50% of the deemed rent. Below 50%, the difference becomes salary.
The second is immigration: the line for "no more than this may be collected". When a company lets housing to a Specified Skilled Worker, it must not make an economic gain from it. For a leased house, the ceiling is the cost of the lease (including management and common-service fees, but not the deposit, key money, guarantee money, agent's fee, renewal fee or early-termination charge) divided by the number of residents. For a house the company owns, the ceiling is a reasonable amount calculated from the actual cost of construction or renovation (excluding the land), its useful life and the number of residents. If a rent guarantee company is used, the company pays the guarantee fee.
Regular charges for furniture, appliances or fire insurance are allowed only if the benefit goes to the worker, the worker understands them, and the amount stays within actual cost, calculated from useful life and the number of residents.
So the rent goes between the tax floor and the immigration ceiling. The floor comes from the property-tax assessed value and the ceiling from the lease cost or the purchase and renovation cost, so there is no figure until the house is chosen. Once a candidate house appears, we check the assessed value, give a rough renovation estimate, and draw these two lines first. Confirm the final figures with your tax adviser and with the supervising organization or registered support organization.
There are two forms. (1) Leased company housing, where the company leases directly from the owner: we find the house and carry out the renovation. The steps and the form of contract when you ask a provider are on How to choose a leased-housing provider in Toyama. (2) The company buys the house and owns it: we find the house and renovate it.
| Lease (directly from the owner) | Buy and own | |
|---|---|---|
| Up-front cost | Deposit etc. and renovation (needs the landlord's consent) | Purchase price and renovation |
| Freedom to renovate | Within the landlord's consent | Free |
| Depreciation | None | Yes. For a wooden house over 22 years old, 4 years by the simplified method (No.5404; not allowed if capital expenditure exceeds 50% of the purchase price) |
| When the period ends | Hand it back | Remains |
| Tax when let to employees | Same calculation (No.2597) | Same |
Which comes out ahead depends on how long you'll use it, how many people, and the property's condition. The usual split is: lease if the headcount is likely to change within about three years; buy if you plan to use it for ten years and want to fix things up. That's not a hard rule, though. We set the numbers for both side by side, through the same team.
Housing for directors. The calculation differs from employees: if the rent received is less than the deemed rent, the difference is taxed as salary, and the 50% rule does not apply. The formula also depends on whether the house counts as "small": 132 ㎡ or less for buildings with a statutory life of 30 years or less, 99 ㎡ or less above that; for a wooden house (22-year life) the threshold is 132 ㎡ (NTA No. 2600). Toyama has the largest average floor area in Japan, so houses over 132 ㎡ are common. We check the floor area when choosing the house.
Depreciation if you buy. For a used asset whose remaining life is hard to estimate, a simplified method applies: for an asset past its full statutory life, "statutory life × 20%". A wooden house has a statutory life of 22 years, so one older than 22 years depreciates over 22 × 20% = 4.4, rounded down to 4 years (NTA No. 5404). The simplified method cannot be used if capital expenditure after purchase exceeds 50% of the purchase price.
How the lease works from the owner's side is set out in Use a vacant house without selling.
* Tax amounts and which option is better depend on the company and the house. Confirm with your tax adviser before acting.
For trainee and Specified Skilled Worker housing, the other party may be a supervising or registered support organization rather than only the host company, and because the plan application needs a floor plan, the house comes before the application. The schedule counted back from the arrival date and how it ties in with the post-arrival training are on Scheduling housing for trainees and Specified Skilled Workers.
With both a real estate licence and a construction permit, search, repair and contract stay in one company. When there is a start date to hit, nobody changing hands mid-way is what makes it fast.
Not a company-housing project: a house we restored as a home (two months' work, construction cost ¥9 million). → See this case in detail
For a detached company house in Toyama, winter is the real test. From December to February snow builds up on the roof, and on a warm day it comes down all at once, breaking eaves, gutters and the neighbour's fence. January and February bring frozen pipes: on a cold night the water inside freezes and expands, splitting pipes and joints. With people living there, someone notices the dry tap that morning — but over the New Year holiday, when staff go home, the house is as good as vacant.
Snow on the plain is wet and heavy; in the hills the depth itself jumps. It differs by district even within Toyama City, so when searching we look at how much snow the district gets and which way the roof sheds it (not towards the neighbours?).
Decide the winter arrangements in advance. Who clears the roof? Never let your employees climb onto the roof: every year in snow country people fall from roofs. Book a snow-removal contractor or a builder in autumn. If everyone goes home over the New Year, give the residents the drain-down procedure (close the stopcock, open every tap in the house to drain the pipes, empty the water heater and the toilet cistern). The water heater's freeze protection needs power, so leave the electricity on.
And then insulation. Toyama houses are cold because four things coincide: high ceilings and large rooms, connected rooms that let the warm air escape, cold rising from the ground under the floor, and big single-glazed windows. Since the company does not pay the utility bills, a cold house is the tenant's burden, and they will not stay. Our renovations fix the insulation first. In order of cost-effectiveness: windows, underfloor, ceiling. In the house pictured, sprayed urethane insulation and underfloor heating went into the ground-floor LDK and the upstairs tatami room: two months, ¥9 million in construction.
We cover all of Toyama Prefecture: Toyama City (including Yatsuo), Takaoka, Imizu, Uozu, Kurobe, Namerikawa, Tonami, Oyabe, Nanto, Himi, Kamiichi, Tateyama, Nyuzen and Asahi. In Ishikawa we cover the whole prefecture, Kanazawa included; in Gifu, the northern Hida region such as Takayama and Hida City. Our office is in Yatsuo, Toyama City, and the same company comes for the viewing, the renovation and any winter trouble.
When the workplace is already fixed, the distance from it and the winter commute narrow down the candidate areas. Tell us where the workplace is and we search within commuting range across the houses we have bought, listed properties and the akiya banks.
Benefits in kind such as housing are converted to a cash value using the prefectural rates set by the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare and counted in the standard monthly remuneration. From 1 October 2026 the method of calculation changes: the value is worked out per ㎡ of floor area instead of per tatami mat. Check the latest table published by the Japan Pension Service. The effect of switching differs by company, so we recommend confirming with your labour and social security attorney and tax adviser.
Yes, but the calculation differs from employees: if the rent received is less than the deemed rent, the difference is taxed as salary, and the employees' 50% rule does not apply. The formula also depends on whether the house counts as "small": 132 ㎡ or less for buildings with a statutory life of 30 years or less, 99 ㎡ or less above that — for a wooden house the threshold is 132 ㎡. Over 240 ㎡ may be treated as luxury housing. Treat this as something to confirm house by house.
The number depends on the layout and floor area. For foreign workers there are floor-area rules: in the Technical Intern Training Program each person needs at least 4.5 ㎡ of bedroom (excluding alcoves, closets and other space that cannot actually be used); for Specified Skilled Workers the basic rule is at least 7.5 ㎡ of living room per person, and in a shared room it is the whole room's area divided by the number of residents. Residential smoke alarms are compulsory in every dwelling. A large dormitory may be treated differently under building and fire rules, so check with the authorities or a specialist. How to count bedrooms and a worked room-allocation example are on Housing for technical intern trainees and Specified Skilled Workers in Toyama.
We propose houses we have bought ourselves, and also search the open market and the akiya banks. The builder joins the viewing and tells you on the spot whether it can be made into company housing and roughly what it costs. Viewings are free. Start from the house-search page.
It depends: cash flow, how long you will use it and the condition of the house all change the answer. We handle both leasing and finding and renovating a house to buy, through the same person. The tax effect depends on your company's circumstances — confirm with your tax adviser.
The operational guidelines say the company must not make an economic gain from the housing. For a leased house, the ceiling is the cost of the lease (including management and common-service fees, but not the deposit, key money, guarantee money, agent's fee and the like) divided by the number of residents. For a house the company owns, the ceiling is a reasonable amount calculated from the actual cost of construction or renovation, its useful life and the number of residents. On the tax side, meanwhile, the housing is not taxed as salary if the employee pays at least 50% of the deemed rent. The rent goes between that floor and that ceiling.
Do not have your employees clear snow from the roof: falls happen every year. Book a snow-removal contractor or a builder in autumn, and if everyone goes home over the New Year holiday, give the residents the procedure for draining the pipes. Problems with housing we have renovated come back to us, the builder, at the same desk.
"Three people next spring" is enough. We come back with candidate houses, a rough cost and the general tax picture.
* Tax treatment depends on the company and the house. Confirm with your tax adviser before acting.
How to find a house that can serve as company housing, and the quality of the renovation.