You Can Join or Leave a Neighborhood Association Freely, but the Common-Area Fee Is Different: The Supreme Court Ruling and How Jichikai Work

When you rent a room or buy a house in Japan, a neighbor or the management company may ask, “Would you like to join the neighborhood association (自治会, jichikai; 町内会, chōnaikai)?” A neighborhood association is an organization formed by people living in the same area. The Guidebook on Living and Working (生活・就労ガイドブック), Japanese edition, 8th edition, February 2026, supervised by the Immigration Services Agency of Japan (ISA), lists disaster-preparedness drills, watching over children on their way to and from school, welfare activities for elderly people and people with disabilities, circulating notices from city hall and elsewhere, and festivals and sports days as its main activities, and explains that members bear the cost of these activities.

Do you have to join? Can you leave? Can you not put out garbage if you don’t join? Below, we explain based on the text of the Local Autonomy Act (地方自治法, via the e-Gov law search database), a 2005 Supreme Court ruling, a MIC survey and study group report, and official guidance from several municipalities. This was confirmed in September 2026. This article does not determine the rules of any particular association or what you personally should do — check with your municipality’s relevant counter or with the association itself.

About 300,000 Nationwide, Under Various Names

According to a MIC survey (as of April 1, 2023), municipalities across Japan were aware of 295,838 such local organizations. By name, “jichikai” accounted for 44.1%, “chōnaikai” for 22.8%, and “chōkai” (町会) for 6.0%, with others called “burakukai” (部落会), “kukai” (区会), “ku” (区), and so on. Even though the names differ, these are basically the same kind of organization. This article refers to them collectively as “neighborhood associations.”

Under the Law, an Organization Residents Form Voluntarily

Most neighborhood associations are voluntary organizations without legal personality, and under the law they are treated as an “association without legal capacity” (権利能力のない社団). A MIC study group’s report (April 2022) states that, for a neighborhood association that has not received authorization, “no framework exists within the national legal system.”

That said, Article 260-2 of the Local Autonomy Act provides a path for a neighborhood association to become a legal entity by receiving authorization from the mayor of the municipality. This is called an “authorized area-based association” (認可地縁団体, ninka chien dantai). It was originally created by a 1991 amendment as a system for registering real estate, such as a meeting hall, in the organization’s own name, but a 2021 amendment (effective November 26, 2021) made it possible to receive authorization regardless of whether the organization owns real estate. According to a MIC survey, there were 56,078 authorized area-based associations at the end of FY2022.

The same article sets out the following for an authorized association:

• Authorization “must not be interpreted as meaning” the organization becomes “part of a public body or other administrative organization” (Paragraph 6)
• It may not refuse membership to a person who has an address within its area, without a legitimate reason (Paragraph 7)
• It must operate autonomously under democratic management and must not unjustly discriminate against members (Paragraph 8)
• It may not be used for the benefit of a specific political party (Paragraph 9)

The requirement for authorization (Paragraph 2, item 3) is that “every individual who has an address within its area may become a member,” and the text of the article states no nationality requirement. The MIC report explains that an authorized area-based association is a private legal entity that residents may join and leave voluntarily.

Wartime “Chōnaikai” and Today’s Neighborhood Associations

Even under the same name “chōnaikai,” the character of these organizations differs by era. The MIC report states that prewar and wartime chōnaikai were institutionalized as subordinate organs of municipalities by the 1940 “Guidelines for Organizing Burakukai, Chōnaikai, and the Like” and the 1943 revisions of the City System Act and the Town and Village System Act, and that they are fundamentally different in character from today’s system of authorized area-based associations.

Free to Join, Free to Leave: The 2005 Supreme Court Ruling

In a case disputing whether someone could leave a neighborhood association, the Third Petty Bench of the Supreme Court issued a ruling on April 26, 2005 (Heisei 16 (Ju) No. 1742, a case demanding payment of neighborhood association fees and the like). The neighborhood association of a prefectural public housing complex in Niiza City, Saitama Prefecture, demanded that a resident who had given notice of withdrawal pay outstanding common-area fees and association fees. The court of second instance, the Tokyo High Court, had held — citing the association’s public character and other reasons — that giving notice of withdrawal on the basis of personal feelings and the like was not permitted, and ruled the withdrawal invalid.

The Supreme Court overturned this. The ruling held that this association was an organization whose purpose was fellowship among members, maintaining a comfortable environment, and members’ welfare and mutual aid, that it was “not what is called a mandatory-membership organization,” and that its bylaws contained no provision restricting withdrawal — so a member could leave the association “at any time” by a unilateral declaration to that effect, and it held the notice of withdrawal valid. It ruled that association fees for the period after withdrawal need not be paid.

What Remained Payable Even After Leaving: The Common-Area Fee

The same ruling held that the obligation to pay the common-area fee (共益費, kyōekihi) does not disappear upon withdrawal. In this housing complex, the common-area fee covered the cost of keeping shared facilities running — electricity for streetlights and stairway lighting, outdoor water charges, elevator maintenance, pest control, and the like. The prefectural housing supply corporation that managed the complex had instructed each resident to pay the common-area fee to the association, and residents had complied. From this fact, the Supreme Court concluded that, on moving in, residents could be said to have promised to pay the common-area fee to the association for as long as they lived there.

In other words, this case treated “fees as a member of the neighborhood association” and “costs for the shared parts of the building you live in” as separate. The ruling is a judgment based on this particular complex’s facts. Check your lease agreement, building management rules, and the association’s bylaws to find out what money you pay to the association at your own residence is for. Costs when renting a room are covered in our article on renting a room.

The Relationship Between Garbage Collection Points and Neighborhood Associations Differs by Area

Even though membership is voluntary, neighborhood associations handle no small number of things in daily life. The MIC report lists notices circulated through the kairanban (回覧板, a notice board or folder passed from house to house), installing and maintaining crime-prevention streetlights, crime- and fire-prevention patrols, and keeping the area clean, among others. The garbage collection point (ごみ集積所 / ごみステーション) is a particularly frequent source of trouble.

Chigasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, explains in the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of its official site that the city’s garbage collection does not depend on whether you belong to a neighborhood association, but that where to place a collection point and how to manage it are left to the association to decide, and that local people centered on the association handle the rules for use and the cleaning. If you cannot join an association, or have circumstances that force you to leave one, the city asks that you discuss with the association managing that collection point how to use it — for example, by joining the cleaning rotation. The city writes that an association is “a voluntary organization, so joining is not compulsory,” while at the same time encouraging people to join.

According to a researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, in a 2019 survey of neighborhood association heads in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture (402 respondents), about 70% of associations answered that they “do not permit use by non-members,” and about half of the roughly 30% that did allow use charged a usage fee (from ¥500 to ¥12,000 per year). In the same research group’s 2020 nationwide survey of municipalities, 70% of municipalities had experienced trouble such as non-members being unable to use collection points. It notes that there are also examples of municipalities advising people to bring garbage directly to a recycling center, or explaining that a new collection point can be set up once a certain number of households gather.

Kagawa Prefecture, responding to a resident’s complaint that they were told they would not be allowed to use the garbage station after leaving the neighborhood association, replied that each city and town handles garbage from non-members according to local circumstances, and advised consulting the city or town where the person lives. How to sort and put out garbage itself is covered in our article on garbage rules, and notifying a move is covered in our article on resident registration.

Membership Fees and Membership Rates

The amount of the membership fee is set by each association’s own bylaws. There is no uniform nationwide amount. Chigasaki City says that since the city does not know the details of fees, it looks up and provides the contact information of the local association head. In the association involved in the Supreme Court case above, the bylaws set the association fee at ¥300 per month per household and the common-area fee at ¥2,700 per month (facts from around 1998–2003).

The proportion of households that join has continued to fall. In a MIC survey of municipalities, the average (simple average) for the 600 municipalities that tracked the household membership rate every year from FY2010 through FY2020 was as follows.

As an example of city-level figures, Yokohama publishes the membership rate for neighborhood associations as of April 1 each year; it fell from 69.4% in 2021 to 65.3% in 2025. In a 2025 survey the city conducted of neighborhood association heads, the most commonly cited reason people declined to join was “not wanting to become a group leader or officer” (65.1%), followed by “rarely home, unable to participate in activities” (48.0%).

Where to Check When You Are Unsure

• Contact information for the local association and how to join: the department of your municipality responsible for neighborhood associations (in Yokohama, each ward office’s Community Development Division, 地域振興課, provides this)
• How to use a garbage collection point: your municipality’s garbage department, and the neighborhood association that manages that collection point
• What the common-area fee and association fee paid together with your rent are for: your lease agreement, the management company or landlord, and the building’s management rules

Neighborhood association meetings and circulated notices are almost always in Japanese. Counters where you can consult in Ukrainian are covered in our article on consultation counters.