Shinjuku moves to ban minpaku in residential streets and beside schools

Shinjuku Ward plans to ban private short-stay lodgings, the minpaku trade that includes Airbnb-style listings, in residential zones and around schools. A ward official supervising the sector said on Monday, 7 September, that the mayor is due to announce the plan on Tuesday. Existing businesses would fall under the ban after a grace period whose length is not yet fixed. Commercial zones would keep minpaku but with the annual cap cut from 180 days to 120.

Shinjuku listed 3,928 notified minpaku dwellings on 31 August, the highest count of any Japanese municipality and close to a tenth of the national total. Officials estimate that about 2,000 of those listings, more than half, sit in the streets that would be closed to the trade. Exceptions would remain where a resident host can show proper day-to-day control. The ward will take public comments in October and send an amendment to the February 2027 assembly session.

Complaints are the stated reason. In fiscal 2025, which ended in March, Shinjuku logged 1,334 complaints about trash, night noise and missing smoking signs. Fiscal 2021 produced 82. Since December 2025 the ward has pulled licences from five operators and 15 facilities, locking those operators out for three years. Multilingual dump notices have gone up near Shinjuku Station. Residents say guests still leave bags on the wrong morning and smoke in stairwells.

Japan legalised minpaku in 2018 to capture inbound tourism. Shinjuku took a large share because it already had nightlife, rail hubs and a stock of small apartments. The same mix now produces the complaint file. A ban that bites existing licences is unusual. Most Japanese lodging rules grandfather what is already open. Shinjuku is choosing the harder path because the complaint curve did not flatten after licence revocations.

Operators will argue that 120 days in a commercial zone cannot replace a lost residential listing, and that a grace period measured in months rather than years is a closure order. Neighbourhood associations will argue the opposite: that a tourist who cannot find the burnable-waste day is a planning problem, not a hospitality problem. The February assembly vote will decide which sentence becomes law.

For visitors the practical effect, if the ordinance passes, arrives in 2027. Hotel towers in Nishi-Shinjuku and Kabukicho will take the overflow. Residential side streets between the Yamanote Line and the ward edge will look more like they did before 2018. Whether that reduces noise is an empirical question the complaint log of fiscal 2028 will answer.

Monday's facts: 3,928 listings; about 2,000 in scope; complaints 82 then 1,334; five operators and 15 sites already banned for three years; comment period October; draft ordinance February 2027; commercial cap 180 days down to 120; mayor's announcement due 8 September. That is the local government paper. National tourism policy is not in it.