Rent a girlfriend in real life: where you can, and what it costs

Can you rent a girlfriend in real life? Yes, in a few places, and Japan is the main one. Agencies in Tokyo and other Japanese cities rent out a "girlfriend" for a few hours of company in public, usually at ¥3,000 to ¥6,000 an hour. It's the same business the anime *Rent-A-Girlfriend* is about. China and South Korea have their own versions, and in the US the closest thing is a platonic friend-for-hire site.

This post is about strictly non-sexual company, because that's what the real services sell. The ones that trade in the open ban sex and kissing in writing. Offers of anything more are where the law and the scams come in. Heading to Thailand? You can rent a girlfriend in Thailand the platonic way on Rent Thai Friend, which we run: a Thai friend booked by the hour to come along to your plans.

Prices below come from each service's own price list, read on 28 October 2026, or from the dated report linked beside them. They change, so check before you book.

What does it cost to rent a girlfriend?

Most of these prices cover the person's time. The meal and the tickets are usually extra, so budget for two.

Is rent a girlfriend real, or just the anime?

Real, and older than the anime. *Rent-A-Girlfriend* began as Reiji Miyajima's manga in Weekly Shōnen Magazine in July 2017, and its fifth anime season aired from April to June 2026, Wikipedia notes. Japan's rental-companion trade goes back to the early 1990s, and the girlfriend and boyfriend side of it got noticed in the early 2010s, according to Time Out Tokyo. Rent-Kano, one of the agencies Time Out names, says it has been arranging these meet-ups since 2014.

What the anime skips is the paperwork. A real booking is a block of hours, in public, under a written rule book. Time Out sums it up as paying for company, with any romance mostly for show.

How to rent a girlfriend in Japan

A rental girlfriend in Japan is someone whose time you book for a plan in public. Time Out's February 2026 guide describes the agencies as companion services with clear rules. Plenty of people book because a plus-one dropped out. Others are travelling and want company, or just want an easy day of conversation. Time Out names four agencies: Koikano, WarmRelation, Cattleya and Rent-Kano, which it calls the industry heavyweight.

Rent-Kano works in English, so it's the one most visitors end up on. When we read its site on 28 October 2026, booking went like this:

1. Pick someone from the cast profiles.
2. Send her a free intro message and agree on a day.
3. Book through the order form. Once she accepts, the office emails you an invoice.
4. Pay the whole amount by PayPal before the day, plus PayPal's 5% fee.

The minimum is two hours, and meet-ups run between 6am and the last train. Two hours costs ¥12,000 before tax. Add ¥3,000 for her travel within her own city, a ¥500 office fee and tax, and the bill is ¥17,050. PayPal's cut takes it to ¥17,903. Booking the same person again adds a ¥2,000 nomination fee, and running over costs ¥3,300 a half hour, paid to her in cash. Then there's the day itself: Time Out reckons a longer plan passes ¥20,000 once travel and the day's costs are in.

Their rules

Each agency writes its own, and the agency's list is the one that counts. Time Out says Rent-Kano rules out anything physical, hugs and kisses included. Rent-Kano's own rules page adds:

• No meeting at your home, an internet cafe, a rental room or any other private, closed space.
• A sexual request ends the meet-up on the spot, with no refund.
• No asking for her LINE or phone number, and no meeting her outside the agency. The penalty for meeting a cast member privately is written in at ¥1,000,000.
• Messages are only for arranging meet-ups, and the office reads them.

Family Romance, a Tokyo company that rents out stand-in partners, rules out anything physical with its staff on its own page.

Prices have barely moved. In 2019 a rental girlfriend told SoraNews24 that her company charged ¥6,000 an hour with a two-hour minimum, the same hourly rate Rent-Kano lists now. She kept roughly half, and tips and expensive gifts were banned.

Rental boyfriends, and rent a friend in Japan

It's one trade. Time Out's list includes WarmRelation, whose cast pick is a rental boyfriend, and Rent-Kano has a boyfriend side. Search "rent a friend Japan" and you reach the rest of it: companies that send stand-in friends and relatives, and Shoji Morimoto, the "rental person who does nothing". He charged ¥10,000 a booking plus travel and food when he talked to Reuters in 2022, Fortune reported.

Rent a girlfriend in China, Korea or the Philippines

China

In China, renting a partner is mostly seasonal and informal. Single people under pressure to bring someone home for Lunar New Year hire a stand-in through social apps. In March 2023 the South China Morning Post reported an undercover story by The Paper. A woman found through a website, then reached on WeChat, charged 1,000 yuan a day, 2,500 yuan on public holidays, 500 yuan up front, 350 yuan for travel and 20 yuan just to see her photo. The report said the line between that and sex work looked blurry.

The other risk is your money. A 2019 investigation by The Beijing News, summarised by Sixth Tone, found rent-a-partner platforms that didn't protect users' data, and users who'd been scammed. One man paid a woman a 1,700-yuan advance and never heard from her again.

South Korea

Korea's version grew out of wedding guests for hire. Role-substitute agencies send stand-ins to weddings and family events. In 2015 Lee Hyun-su, who runs one called Role Rental 1-1-9, told NPR that requests for boyfriends, girlfriends and lovers were rising. Pay is modest. Korea JoongAng Daily reported in October 2025 that wedding role players usually earn 15,000 to 30,000 won a wedding. We found no published price for partner roles.

The Philippines

We found no reputable reporting of a rental-girlfriend agency there. Searches turn up dating apps and personal pitches on social media, which is where the scams below live.

Paid friendship sites: RentAFriend.com

Outside Asia, the real option is a platonic friend-for-hire site, and RentAFriend.com is the biggest name. Its own explanation says the service is strictly platonic and only for friendship, and its page on girlfriends for hire says they offer no sex, no cuddling and no kissing. To contact anyone you pay a membership: US$19.99 a month, or US$99.99 for six months, when we checked on 28 October 2026. Each friend sets their own fee. Many start at about US$10 an hour, open to negotiation.

It works more like a listings board than an agency. You find someone, message them and agree the plan yourselves, so the safety checks are yours to do. We went through those checks, and what its terms say, in is rent a friend legit?

It's also the honest answer to "rent a girlfriend near me". In most cities outside Japan, a platonic site like this is the only real thing nearby. An ad that promises more than company is selling sex or setting up a scam.

Is there a rent a girlfriend app?

Not one that books a real person, as far as we can tell. On 28 October 2026 we searched Apple's App Store for "rent a girlfriend" in the US, Thailand and Japan. Back came Tinder and other dating apps, girlfriend simulator games and AI companion chat apps. None of them books someone to meet you.

The real services are websites. Japan's agencies take bookings on their own sites, and RentAFriend is a website. Some subscription sites sell a "girlfriend" who texts and calls you. You never meet her, so that isn't renting a girlfriend in real life.

How to spot a rent a girlfriend scam

The same patterns turn up in every country:

• Money before you meet. A deposit by bank transfer, a "booking fee" in a private chat, or a charge to see a photo. The man in Sixth Tone's report paid an advance and lost it. The US Federal Trade Commission's advice is to never send money to someone you haven't met in person.
• A profile that looks too good. Thai police counted 5,164 romance-scam cases and more than 1.6 billion baht in losses between 2022 and 2024, the Bangkok Post reported in March 2026. An officer at the forum it covered warned that the scammers' fake profiles usually look perfect. Run a reverse image search on the photo, which the FTC suggests too.
• No rules or prices in public. Agencies that run properly publish both. If the price only arrives in a private message, walk away.
• A push to go private. Japan's agencies ban swapping numbers for a reason. If someone wants your LINE before you've met, or a first meet-up somewhere private, drop it.

Is renting a girlfriend legal?

Renting someone's company is legal where it stays company. Paying for sex is another matter, whatever name it goes under.

• Japan. Agencies trade openly. SoraNews24 noted in 2019 that the work isn't classed as fuzoku, Japan's word for the adult trade, and Rent-Kano ends a meet-up over any sexual request.
• China. A lawyer told The Beijing News that renting a partner doesn't necessarily break the law, but a deal to swap sex for money during the rental is prostitution.
• Thailand. Prostitution is illegal under the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act B.E. 2539 (1996). Under section 8 of the Act, sex with someone over 15 and up to 18 in a prostitution establishment carries one to three years in prison and a fine of 20,000 to 60,000 baht, consent or not. With a child of 15 or under it's two to six years and 40,000 to 120,000 baht.

What "rent a girlfriend" means in Thailand

In Thailand the phrase usually means something else. In Pattaya and parts of Bangkok, a "holiday girlfriend" or a "rental wife" is paid sex dressed up as a relationship, and that's prostitution under the 1996 Act. We explain those phrases and the risks around them in holiday girlfriend in Thailand and rental wife in Thailand.

What a rental girlfriend doesn't do

Every service that runs in the open draws the line in the same place: time together in public, and nothing sexual. Ours is short. A booking on Rent Thai Friend is strictly non-sexual: no sex, no kissing, no harassment. No romance or flirting either, and no acting like a couple. Where you meet, and where a friend never goes, is on our list of what a booking doesn't include. Anyone who asks a friend for more loses their account, and the friend can end the meet-up on the spot.

Want company in Thailand?

On Rent Thai Friend, the rent a girlfriend experience in Thailand is a Thai friend's time, booked by the hour in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket or Pattaya. They come along to whatever you've planned. A long dinner, say, or a concert you've got two tickets for. Each friend sets a rate in credits and a minimum number of hours, and food, drinks and tickets are paid on the day.

Every friend is 18 or over, with their ID checked. Drinks and nightlife are only with friends who are 20 or over. Members are approved before they can book, first meet-ups start somewhere public, and one booking covers one plan of up to 12 hours. Friends are women and men. Browse the friends or read how booking works.

Questions people ask

Can you rent a girlfriend in real life?

Yes, as company. Japan's rental-girlfriend agencies are the best known, at about ¥3,000 to ¥6,000 an hour (Time Out Tokyo, February 2026). Platonic sites such as RentAFriend.com, and Rent Thai Friend in Thailand, book a person's time for a plan in public. The legit ones ban sex.

Is Rent-A-Girlfriend based on real life?

Its premise is. Japan had rental-girlfriend agencies before the manga started in 2017, and they still run in Tokyo, Osaka and other cities. Real bookings are shorter and stricter than the anime: a few hours, in public, under rules that ban hugs and kisses at agencies like Rent-Kano.

Can you kiss a rental girlfriend in Japan?

No. Rent-Kano bans hugs and kisses, and a sexual request ends the meet-up with no refund. Family Romance rules out anything physical with its staff.

How much does it cost to rent a girlfriend for a day?

In Japan, 12 hours with Rent-Kano lists at ¥83,050 including her travel, the office fee and tax, before PayPal's fee (October 2026). The South China Morning Post's 2023 report found 1,000 yuan a day in China, rising to 2,500 on public holidays. On Rent Thai Friend one booking covers up to 12 hours at the friend's hourly rate.

Can you rent a girlfriend in the US?

Not from an agency like Japan's. The closest is RentAFriend.com, a platonic site where members pay US$19.99 a month to contact friends, many of whom charge from about US$10 an hour. Its girlfriends for hire offer no sex, no cuddling and no kissing.

Can you rent a boyfriend instead?

Yes. Most "rent a boyfriend" searches are about anime and dramas, but Japan's agencies rent out boyfriends too, and Korea's role agencies get requests for them. On Rent Thai Friend, friends are women and men, and each profile shows which.