Where to live in Hiroshima

Japanese leases run two years and renew with a fee — kōshinryō, typically one month's rent — rather than rolling on automatically. Tenants have strong protection against eviction and can normally leave on one month's notice. Hiroshima uses the Tokyo-style format rather than the Kansai hoshōkin-and-shikibiki system: a refundable shikikin deposit plus separate non-refundable reikin key money. Confirm which you are being offered anyway, because agents in western Japan handle both. The Hiroshima-specific step is checking the address against the prefecture's sediment-disaster mapping and the city's flood mapping before you get emotionally attached to a flat.

1. 1

   Look the address up on 土砂災害ポータルひろしま before the second viewing

   Hiroshima Prefecture publishes designated sediment-disaster warning areas (yellow) and special warning areas (red) down to street level, and Hiroshima City publishes its own landslide hazard map. A yellow area means evacuation planning applies; a red area carries actual building restrictions under the Building Standards Act, and structures there must be built to resist debris impact. Neither necessarily rules a property out. Not knowing does. This became mapping you can actually rely on after the 2014 amendment to the Sediment Disaster Prevention Act obliged prefectures to publish their basic-survey results.

2. 2

   Check the flood side of the map too, because the centre is a delta

   The Ōta river splits into six channels through the middle of the city and much of the central and southern ground is low or reclaimed. Hiroshima City publishes flood, storm-surge and tsunami hazard mapping alongside the landslide layer. In practice the delta wards trade landslide risk for water risk rather than escaping hazard altogether, and the honest question is which one a particular building is exposed to.

3. 3

   Ask for the construction confirmation date, not the completion date

   Japan's shin-taishin seismic standard applies to buildings whose construction confirmation was granted from June 1981, so a block completed in 1982 may still have been approved under the old code — the year on the listing can mislead by two years in the direction that matters. For wooden houses there is a second line at the 2000 revision, which added ground-survey, foundation and hold-down requirements.

4. 4

   Work out whether your address is a tram address or a bus address

   Hiroden's network covers the delta densely and reliably, and since August 2025 runs into Hiroshima Station itself. Above the flat, and in Asaminami and Asakita, you are on buses run by several competing operators with separate route maps, or on the Astram Line. The difference between a five-minute walk to a tram stop and a fifteen-minute walk to a bus you have to look up is the single largest daily-life variable in a Hiroshima search.

5. 5

   Expect a guarantor company, and know refusal still happens

   Most landlords require a guarantor and, since you will not have a Japanese one, a guarantor company stands in for roughly half to one month's rent plus an annual renewal. Some landlords still decline foreign tenants, which remains lawful in Japan. Going through an agency that routinely handles foreign residents saves discovering this property by property.

6. 6

   File the move-in notification within fourteen days

   Moving means a move-out notification at the old office and a move-in registration at the new one, both within fourteen days, with the residence card updated at the same counter. Moving between two Hiroshima wards still needs both. Where you are registered on 1 January also determines which municipality bills your residence tax for the whole following year.