To receive your 住宅宿泊事業 (hotel operator) business license you will have to send a notification to your local government. To be approved you will have to meet certain requirements; submitting a floor plan of your property, illustrating that it has all of the necessary components to be livable (e.g, no bath = no go). You are also required to show how you are marketing the property, to ensure that the representations being made are truthful. At present, there are 20 pieces of information required in the application.
 There must be 3.3㎡ or more of floor space available for each guest.
– they are not physically present at the property themselves during the period of stay. Absence for short periods of time, as would be reasonable under the conditions of "daily life" are acceptable, but the operator should otherwise remain on-site full-time if looking to avoid 住宅宿泊事業者 classification under the above guidelines.
Where an operator has out-sourced or subcontracted a third-party to be involved with the business, these third parties must also adhere to the rules above.
Authorized properties must clearly display their authorisations so as to be visible from the outside.
Last year we asked "Is Air BnB in Japan Easy Money?". The answer was "compared to what..?". Air BnB operators are essentially independent business owners, so any profit must be weighed up against the expense and time inputted. What has become overwhelmingly apparent in the new regulations is that if somebody wishes to run what is essentially a private hotel business, then they are going to have to be held to the same standards and regulations as commercial hotel businesses. If these standards are outside of the scope of what a private operator is willing to do, then they are likely not providing the level of comfort and safety that Japan legally requires of its operators. In short, if it was "easy money" before, it certainly isn't now.