Hiring Household Staff in Tokyo

A private, formal market driven largely by international families.

Tokyo is a distinctive market for household staff, because employing domestic help is far less common among Japanese households than it is across much of the West. As a result, demand here is driven largely by the city's international community: expatriate executives posted to Tokyo, diplomatic families, and globally mobile households who want the professional support they would have anywhere else, adapted to life in Japan.

That community is growing. Japan's foreign resident population reached a record 4.12 million at the end of 2025, and Tokyo is home to the largest share of any prefecture, according to the country's Immigration Services Agency. For households, the requirement that follows most often is language: bilingual professionals, comfortable in English and Japanese, who can bridge an international family and a Japanese setting, schools, vendors, daily life, are in particular demand.

The market rewards a specific temperament. Tokyo households tend to prize formality, reliability, and quiet discretion, and the best professionals here are unobtrusive, precise, and culturally attuned. Governesses and nannies with strong educational backgrounds, household managers who can navigate both worlds, and staff comfortable in a reserved, orderly home are especially valued.

Because so many placements here serve families on international assignments, roles are often tied to a defined posting and sometimes to homes in other countries, which makes the ability to recruit internationally and place across borders particularly useful.

We maintain a presence serving Tokyo and the wider region, and because we recruit to a specific brief and place professionals anywhere, we are well suited to a market built around international families. This is the standard Nannies + more…® brings to every family we serve.

Source: Japan Immigration Services Agency, foreign resident data, 2025.