Oita Prefecture’s lodging tax will start on Tuesday, June 1, 2027. The Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications consented to the new tax on September 30, 2026. Implementation had initially been scheduled for January 2027 or later, but Governor Ichiro Sato announced at his regular press conference on October 6 that the start would be pushed back five months. The tax is set in four tiers — ¥100, ¥200, ¥500 and ¥2,000 — according to the lodging charge per person per night (excluding meals, consumption tax, etc.). This article converts the estimated settled ADR of the prefecture’s 18 municipalities into a per-person room-only equivalent, and estimates which tiers properties in each town are likely to fall into and what the effective burden is relative to the room rate.

What Was Decided — From Consent to the Announcement of the Start Date

The Oita Prefectural Assembly passed the lodging tax ordinance on June 26, 2026, and the prefecture began consultations with the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications on July 7. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) announced its consent on September 30; its materials at that time gave the ordinance’s effective date as “January 2027 or later (planned).” The start date was fixed six days later: at his regular press conference on October 6, Governor Sato announced that the tax would start on June 1, 2027.

On the reason for the delay, Nikkei reported that the start was “pushed back five months in consideration of the administrative burden on lodging operators who collect the tax.” Local reports also cited the overlap with the administration of the Kyushu Fukko Oen-wari (Kyushu recovery travel discount) as a reason. For lodging operators, the schedule means they will not have to handle settlement of the discount program at the same time as registering for the new tax and modifying their systems.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MIC, “Establishment of Oita Prefecture’s ‘Lodging Tax'” (September 30, 2026); Oita Prefecture, “Oita Prefecture Lodging Tax System”; and Nikkei (October 6, 2026)

Four Tax Tiers Determined by the Room-Only Rate

The tax applies to stays at hotels and ryokan and simple lodging facilities licensed under the Inns and Hotels Act, and at homes notified under the Private Lodging Business Act. The taxpayer is the guest; the operator of the lodging facility, as the special collection agent, collects the tax together with the lodging charge and files and pays it to the prefecture. The prefecture defines the lodging charge on which the tier is based as “the amount excluding meal charges and consumption tax, etc., and including service charges, etc.” In other words, even for a plan with two meals, the tier is determined by the per-person room-only portion, excluding meals.

Source: MIC, “Establishment of Oita Prefecture’s ‘Lodging Tax'” (September 30, 2026); Oita Prefecture, “Oita Prefecture Lodging Tax System”

Exemptions apply to participants in school trips, etc. (including chaperones) and participants in events of certified centers for early childhood education and care, nursery schools, etc. (including chaperones). The prefecture’s guidance also states that stays by foreign ambassadors, etc. under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations are exempt. According to MIC materials, expected revenue in a normal year is about ¥1.86 billion, with expected collection costs of about ¥60 million. According to press reports, 70% of revenue after necessary expenses will go to municipalities and 30% to the prefecture’s tourism measures. The ordinance also provides for a review roughly three years after implementation and every five years thereafter.

Estimated Settled ADR Across 18 Municipalities — From ¥23,800 in Yufu to ¥6,400 in Nakatsu

To estimate the tiers, we first need the level of lodging rates in each municipality. Averaging MetroEngines Research’s estimated settled ADR (two guests per room, tax-excluded equivalent) over the 12 months from October 2025 to September 2026, the highest is Yufu City at ¥23,800 (median monthly property count 138). Hot-spring areas follow — Kokonoe Town ¥16,900 (45), Beppu City ¥15,700 (123) and Hita City ¥15,200 (28) — while the prefectural capital Oita City stays at ¥7,000 (43) and Nakatsu City at ¥6,400 (12). In other words, there is a 2.2-3.7x gap between towns dominated by onsen ryokan and towns centered on business hotels. The rate tiers and room supply of each municipality are laid out in detail inOita Hotel Investment Map 2026.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (estimated settled ADR; average of monthly values, October 2025 – September 2026. Gray = reference value, fewer than 10 properties per month)

For towns and villages with fewer than 10 properties per month, the average swings widely with price moves at one or two properties. Himeshima Village (1 property), Kusu Town and Bungo-ono City (2 each), Tsukumi City (3) and others are treated as reference values, and are grouped as “9 other municipalities” in the tier tallies that follow.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (12-month average, October 2025 – September 2026; tax-excluded equivalent; per-person values are before removing meal charges)

Converting Per-Room ADR (2 Guests) to a Per-Person Room-Only Equivalent

The lodging tax tier is determined by the “charge per person per night, excluding meals and consumption tax,” whereas estimated settled ADR is a per-room, two-guest, tax-excluded equivalent. We therefore converted in three steps. First, we took each property’s 12-month average estimated settled ADR (478 properties with three or more months of values). Second, we divided the two-guest room rate by 2 to get a per-person figure. Third, because ryokan tend to sell mainly two-meal plans, we backed out the meal portion to get a room-only equivalent.

To back out the meal portion, we used a paired comparison limited to properties that sell both “room only” and “with two meals.” For two guests in Oita Prefecture, the published price with two meals was higher than room only by +32.0% in July 2026, +29.1% in August and +26.4% in September (N=31 properties each), for a three-month average of +29.2%. We divided the per-person amount for ryokan by 1.292 to obtain the room-only equivalent. The paired comparison is dominated by hotels that sell room-only plans, and ryokan kaiseki dinners are often more expensive than this. The room-only equivalent for ryokan may therefore be overstated, and the tier estimates in this article can be read as conservative, skewed toward the higher tiers.

Another point to note is the difference in the number of guests. For two guests, the per-person amount is half the room rate, but for a business traveler staying alone, the room rate is the per-person amount. The published price (tax included) for solo, room-only stays at business hotels in Oita Prefecture was ¥8,500-9,000 in July-September 2026 (N=39 properties). Even after removing tax this exceeds ¥5,000, so stays by solo guests are likely in many cases to fall into the ¥200 tier, even at properties that are in the ¥100 tier for two-guest stays.

Share of Properties by Tier — 21 Properties in the ¥500 Tier, 15 of Them in Yufu

Applying the converted per-person room-only equivalent to the four tiers, of the prefecture’s 478 properties, 203 (42.5%) fall in the ¥100 tier, 254 (53.1%) in the ¥200 tier and 21 (4.4%) in the ¥500 tier. No property has a 12-month average of ¥100,000 or more, so the ¥2,000 tier does not appear at the level of property representative values. However, since the tier is determined by the rate on the night actually stayed, stays in premium rooms or on peak dates may of course fall into a higher tier.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (12-month average estimated settled ADR by property, converted to a per-person room-only equivalent. N=478 properties)

The split by town is clear. In Yufu City, 105 of 143 properties (73.4%) fall in the ¥200 tier, and the ¥500 tier also stands out in the prefecture at 15 properties (10.5%). In Beppu City the ¥200 tier accounts for 60.8% and the ¥100 tier 36.8%, reflecting a mix of mid-priced ryokan and business hotels. In Kokonoe Town and Hita City, too, the ¥200 tier accounts for 50-60%. In contrast, 39 of 44 properties (88.6%) in Oita City and 11 of 12 in Nakatsu City are in the ¥100 tier; in towns centered on business hotels, the per-person amount for two guests tends to fall below ¥5,000.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (no property falls in the ¥2,000 tier; medians rounded to the nearest ¥100)

Weighted by room count, the picture shifts further toward the ¥100 tier. Of the 18,465 rooms at the 478 properties, properties in the ¥100 tier account for 10,760 rooms (58.3%), the ¥200 tier 7,372 rooms (39.9%) and the ¥500 tier just 333 rooms (1.8%). This is because business hotels with many rooms cluster in the ¥100 tier, while ¥500-tier properties are mainly small ryokan. If we estimate without backing out the meal portion for ryokan, the ¥500 tier rises to 35 properties and the ¥100 tier falls to 169, but even without that assumption, ¥200 or less still covers more than 90%.

Effective Burden of 2.2-3.1% — Compared With the Flat ¥200 in Kumamoto and Miyazaki

We estimated the effective burden — tax divided by the per-person room-only equivalent — using the property medians of nine major municipalities. Yufu City comes to 2.2% (¥200 on ¥9,100 per person); Beppu City, Kokonoe Town and Hita City around 3.1% (¥200 on ¥6,400-6,500); and Oita City 2.8% (¥100 on ¥3,600). Under a tiered flat-amount system, the rate falls the more expensive a property is within a tier, and is highest just above the threshold where the tier steps up. Even so, on representative values the effective burden of the nine municipalities stays within a 2.2-3.1% range.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research and MIC materials (nine Oita municipalities use property medians; Kumamoto City and Miyazaki City are estimated as the area’s 12-month average estimated settled ADR ÷ 2)

For comparison, we applied the same approach to Kumamoto City and Miyazaki City, which introduced a flat lodging tax of ¥200 per person per night on July 1, 2026. Since both cities are centered on business hotels, we did not back out meals and simply divided the 12-month average estimated settled ADR by 2. Kumamoto City (property-weighted across its five wards, ¥9,000) comes to ¥4,500 per person and 4.4%, and Miyazaki City (¥8,200) to ¥4,100 per person and 4.9%. Calculated the same way, Oita City comes to ¥3,500 per person and 2.9% at ¥100, showing that Oita Prefecture’s tiered system is designed to keep the burden lower on low-priced stays. How rates moved in the two cities after implementation is analyzed in detail inJapan’s ¥200 Lodging Tax: Kumamoto −5.0% Tracks Untaxed Cities.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research; MIC, “Establishment of Kumamoto City (Kumamoto Prefecture) ‘Lodging Tax'” (July 22, 2025); and MIC, “Establishment of Miyazaki City (Miyazaki Prefecture) ‘Lodging Tax'” (February 13, 2026)

In hot-spring areas, it is also important not to overlook that the bathing tax (nyuto-zei), a municipal tax, is levied separately from the lodging tax. According to materials from Oita Prefecture’s review council, Beppu City applies a tiered above-standard rate based on the lodging charge: ¥250 for ¥6,001-50,000 and ¥500 for ¥50,001 and above. The council was told that this above-standard rate is planned to continue until the end of March 2029. Yufu City also charges ¥250 for lodging charges of ¥4,001 and above, above the standard rate (¥150). Because the bathing tax is levied on the use of hot springs and defines its rate bands differently from the lodging tax, only the amounts are shown here. The combined burden of the two taxes is estimated by price band for 19 hot-spring municipalities inJapan Onsen Bathing + Lodging Tax: 7.2% of ADR at Inns Under ¥10,000.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from Oita Prefecture, “Materials for the 4th Oita Prefecture Tourism Promotion Funding Review Council” (including the prefecture’s Municipal Promotion Division survey of municipal tax rates)

At the same council, a member describing the situation in Beppu City also said that the existing bathing tax bands and the lodging tax tiers would “overlap in a complicated way,” making “on-site operations very cumbersome.” Measures such as showing the two taxes separately on checkout screens and receipts and explaining their uses to guests are all the more worth preparing for operators in hot-spring areas.

June Start and Operator Preparation — The First Month Falls in the Low Season

We checked what kind of month June, the month of implementation, is in demand terms using prefecture-wide estimated settled ADR. June 2025 was ¥12,900 and June 2026 ¥11,900, the lowest month of each year, and June 2026 was the lowest of the 24 months since October 2024 (June 2026 YoY −7.1%, 469 properties). Estimated OCC shows the same pattern: June 2026 was 75.5% (336 properties / 9,421 rooms, based on listings on major booking sites), below May’s 80.9% (301 properties / 9,355 rooms) and August’s 79.8% (380 properties / 10,364 rooms).

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (Oita Prefecture, estimated settled ADR, two guests per room, tax-excluded equivalent. 436-470 properties per month)

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (estimated occupancy based on booking-site listed inventory; covers properties listing at least 30% of total rooms. Rooms not listed are counted as sold, so the figure runs higher than actual occupancy)

Starting in June, when demand is calm, lets operators test collection and settlement procedures in a period with fewer guests and settle their operations before the summer holidays and autumn travel season. Filing and payment are monthly, with each month’s stays in principle due by the end of the following month. The first filing, for June stays, is due at the end of July; since July 31, 2027 is a Saturday, the actual deadline will be the next weekday.

The starting point for preparation is the November briefing sessions. Beginning at the Beppu venue on November 5, the prefecture will explain the schedule up to introduction and the administrative procedures at 13 venues — Yufu, Nakatsu, Amagase, Hita, Saiki, Usuki, Kusu-Kokonoe, Iida, Kunisaki, Oita, Usa and Taketa — and online (Zoom) on November 20. On the systems side, the “Subsidy for Lodging Tax System Modification” covers 10/10 of costs up to ¥2 million per property, with applications accepted until December 28, 2026 (results reports due by February 20, 2027). The accompanying “Subsidy for Promoting DX at Lodging Operators” covers 2/3 up to ¥3 million in the general track and 3/4 up to ¥3.4 million in the wage-increase track. Working backward from the application deadline to get quotes for modifying reservation management and checkout systems would be the realistic approach.

The tier is determined mechanically by the rate the guest actually paid. Since the tax can differ by day of the week and room type even at the same property, setting up the system to determine the tax for each rate automatically will reduce the explanation burden at the front desk.

Summary

Oita Prefecture’s lodging tax will start on June 1, 2027 with four tiers from ¥100 to ¥2,000 per person per night. Converted from estimated settled ADR, 95.6% of the prefecture’s 478 properties fall in the ¥100 or ¥200 tier; the ¥500 tier covers 21 properties (4.4%), 70% of which are in Yufu City. The effective burden on municipal representative values is 2.2-3.1%, lower than the flat ¥200 in Kumamoto City and Miyazaki City. June, the month of implementation, is a low month of the year for both estimated settled ADR and estimated OCC, giving operators some room to get operations up and running. The November briefing sessions and the subsidy application deadline of December 28 are the near-term milestones for preparation.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does Oita Prefecture’s lodging tax start?

The tax applies to stays from Tuesday, June 1, 2027. At the time of the minister’s consent (September 30, 2026) it was planned for January 2027 or later, but on October 6 the governor announced a June 1 start.

How much is the tax?

¥100 if the lodging charge per person per night (excluding meals, consumption tax, etc., and including service charges, etc.) is under ¥5,000; ¥200 for ¥5,000 to under ¥20,000; ¥500 for ¥20,000 to under ¥100,000; and ¥2,000 for ¥100,000 and above.

How is the tier determined for a stay at a ryokan with two meals?

The tier is determined by the per-person lodging charge excluding meals. In this article’s estimate, the median room-only equivalent for ryokan in Yufu City is about ¥9,100, so most fall in the ¥200 tier.

Are any stays exempt?

Participants in school trips, etc. (including chaperones), participants in events of certified centers for early childhood education and care, nursery schools, etc. (including chaperones), and official stays by foreign ambassadors, etc. are exempt.

Is there also a bathing tax in Beppu and Yufu?

For stays that include use of hot springs, the bathing tax, a municipal tax, is levied separately from the lodging tax. Beppu City charges ¥250 for lodging charges, etc. of ¥6,001-50,000, and Yufu City ¥250 for ¥4,001 and above (prefectural review council materials).

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