A Study of the Japanese Housing Accommodation Business Act (Act No. 65 of 2017): The First National Law in the World Legitimizing Home-Sharing

We are living in the era of the Internet and sharing economy. The Japanese Housing Accommodation Business Act came into effect in 2018, as the first national-level law in the world which legalized home-sharing. This note reviews both: (a) the 3-year law-making process in Japan; and (b) the past regulatory framework without almost no update since 1948. Our findings highlight that the Act is not the best model law for other jurisdictions. This note identifies and reviews three legal issues: (a) extraterritorial application outside of Japan; (b) lacking the consistency between other existing Japanese laws in terms of regulating digital platforms; and (c) illegal local ordinance beyond the Act, preventing the sharing economy by imposing additional restrictions.