Japan's Rental Friend Industry: How People Earn $80K/Year Being Someone's Friend

In Japan, you can rent a friend.

Not a tour guide. Not an escort. A friend. Someone to grab dinner with, attend a wedding, walk through a museum, or just sit across a table from you while you talk about your day. The going rate is ¥5,000–10,000 per hour — about $35 to $70. Top rental friends in Tokyo earn $80,000 a year doing it.

It sounds strange. The first time most Westerners hear about it, they laugh, then they get uncomfortable, then they ask the obvious question: who actually pays for this?

The answer turns out to be a lot of people. And once you understand why, the whole concept stops looking strange — and starts looking like the future of travel.

Section 1: How Japan's Rental Friend Industry Works

Japan's rental companion industry has been quietly growing for over two decades. The biggest players are companies like Client Partners, founded in 2009 in Osaka, and Family Romance, the Tokyo-based agency that became internationally famous after a 2018 New Yorker profile of its founder Ishii Yuichi.

The model is simple. You contact the agency, describe what you need, and they match you with a "cast member" — a vetted, trained companion who shows up to play a specific role in your life for a few hours.

Typical Rates

• ¥5,000–10,000 per hour ($35–$70)
• Half-day sessions: ¥20,000–40,000 ($140–$280)
• Full-day or overnight engagements: significantly more
• Special roles (wedding guest, fake family member, "stand-in spouse"): premium pricing

What People Actually Rent Friends For

• Weddings. Japanese weddings are formal and guest-count matters. Renting friends to fill out your side of the aisle is common enough that agencies have specific "wedding guest" packages with rehearsals and backstories.
• Family events. Funerals, school ceremonies, parent-teacher meetings. Single mothers sometimes rent a "father" so their child has someone to introduce on family day.
• Travel companionship. Visiting a hot spring town, going to a theme park, sightseeing in Kyoto — things that feel sad to do alone.
• Meals. A surprising amount of business is just eating dinner with someone. Japan's solo-eating culture is well-developed, but plenty of people would rather not.
• Just talking. No agenda. A few hours in a café with someone who listens.

Why the Demand Exists

Japan is in the middle of what its own government calls a loneliness epidemic. The Cabinet Office appointed a Minister of Loneliness in 2021. Roughly 15% of Japanese men in their 50s say they have no one they can rely on. Single-person households are now the most common household type in the country. Kodokushi — the Japanese word for "lonely death," dying alone and not being found for weeks — is a recognized social phenomenon.

The rental friend industry didn't appear because Japanese people are weird about friendship. It appeared because demand was there, and the market did what markets do.

Section 2: The Numbers

The economics are more impressive than most people realize.

• Industry size: Estimated at over $2 billion in Japan, when you include adjacent services like host/hostess clubs, "rental boyfriend/girlfriend" platforms, and listening services.
• Top performers: The most-booked rental friends see 10–15 clients per week.
• Session length: Typical sessions run 4–6 hours, not just one.
• The math: At $40–50/hour for 5-hour sessions, 12 sessions a week, that's $2,400–$3,000 per week — over $120,000 a year gross. After agency commissions (often 40–50%), top rental friends still clear $60,000–$80,000+ annually.

And it's not just Japan. The model is spreading.

• South Korea has a growing "rental family" industry built around the same demographic pressures.
• China has rental boyfriend/girlfriend services that spike around Lunar New Year, when single adults face family pressure to bring someone home.
• The United States has had RentAFriend.com since 2009 — over 620,000 friends listed worldwide as of recent counts.
• Europe has seen the same model take root in cities with high solo-living rates: Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam.

This isn't a Japanese curiosity. It's a global pattern. Wherever people are increasingly alone, someone is building a business to fix it.

Section 3: Why This Isn't As Weird As It Sounds

Here's the part that surprised me when I started looking into this.

Travelers already rent people all the time. We just call it different things.

When you book a private tour guide in Rome, you're paying a person €60/hour to walk around with you and talk. When you hire a translator in Tokyo, you're paying someone to be next to you in restaurants and meetings. When you book a driver for a day trip from Cusco to the Sacred Valley, you're paying for someone to be in your space for eight hours.

When you book an Airbnb Experience, you're paying a local to spend a few hours doing something with you — cooking, walking, drinking, painting. The host might be lovely, but the transaction is the same: you paid money, they showed up, they spent time with you.

The difference between a "tour guide" and a "rental friend" is mostly framing. One has a clipboard. The other doesn't.

And here's the thing — when you ask travelers what they actually want from a guide, almost no one says "a scripted tour with historical facts." They say things like:

• "Someone who knows the city."
• "Someone fun to hang out with."
• "A local who can tell me where to actually eat."
• "Someone who'll take me where they'd take their friends."

That's not a tour guide. That's a friend who happens to live there.

Japan's rental friend industry just admits that out loud.

Section 4: The Global Version Is Already Here

This is what we built Roavi around — but for travelers, worldwide.

The framing is different. Instead of "rental friend," it's Local Friend. Instead of an agency assigning you a stranger in a suit, you browse profiles, see personalities, read what people are into, and message whoever feels like a fit. Instead of a clinical 60-minute slot, you agree on whatever you want to do — coffee, dinner, a museum afternoon, a weekend hike.

How Roavi Works

• Browse by city. See verified Local Friends in 58+ cities across Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
• See real personalities. Photos, bios, what they love about their city, what they like doing.
• Message directly. No agency in the middle. You chat, you decide.
• Set your own terms. Local Friends set their own rates — typically $10–$50/hour depending on the city.
• No bookings, no commission games. Roavi isn't a marketplace skimming 20% off the top of a packaged "experience." It's a connection platform.

The Japanese rental friend model proved the demand exists for genuine human company you pay for. Roavi takes the same insight and applies it to the one moment in life when almost everyone wants a local friend they don't have: traveling somewhere new.

Section 5: Could You Earn $80K/Year as a Local Friend?

Probably not in your first month. Probably yes if you live in the right city and stick with it.

Let's do the math honestly.

The Side-Hustle Tier

At $25/hour, doing 3 sessions per week at 3 hours each:

• $75 per session × 3 = $225/week
• ≈ $975/month
• ≈ $11,700/year

That's a meaningful side income for a few hours a week of doing things you'd probably do anyway — showing visitors your favorite café, walking them through your neighborhood market, taking them to the mirador your friends always end up at.

The Serious Tier

In high-tourist-traffic cities — Medellín, Bangkok, Lisbon, Mexico City, Bali, Buenos Aires — active Local Friends report 5–10 requests per week. At $30–40/hour for 4-hour average sessions:

• $140 per session × 7 = $980/week
• ≈ $4,200/month
• ≈ $50,000/year

The Top Tier

A Local Friend in a hot tourist city, with strong reviews, who treats it like a real job and accepts long multi-day requests, can absolutely clear $80,000/year. The math is no different than Japan's rental friend industry — it just requires consistent clients.

And here's the part Japan's model doesn't offer: on Roavi, Local Friends keep 100% of what they earn. No 40–50% agency cut. No hidden platform fees on top of your hourly rate. What you charge is what you make.

That's the version of this business that actually works for the person doing the work.

It's not a get-rich-quick thing. It's the most flexible side hustle that exists in tourist cities — and for the right person in the right city, it can become a full income.

Ready to Become a Local Friend?

If you live in a city travelers visit — or want to — and you'd genuinely enjoy showing people around, this is the easiest side hustle you'll ever start. Free to sign up, set your own rates, work when you want.

Join Roavi as a Local Friend →

If you want to see real numbers from Local Friends already on the platform, read How Much Do Local Guides Actually Make? (Real Numbers).

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