Moving to Japan

Your first weeks run on three documents — the Residence Card, your My Number, and a City Hall registration — before health insurance, banking or a phone contract will work.

The paperwork that starts everything else

If you arrive on a visa valid for more than three months, you get a Residence Card (zairyu card) stamped and printed right at the airport — Narita, Haneda, Kansai and the other major ports all issue it on arrival. The card is blank on address until you take it to your local ward or city office. You have 14 days from moving into your first home to register there: that visit creates your entry in the juminhyo (resident registry) and triggers your My Number — a 12-digit individual number used for tax, pension and health insurance that follows you for life. The physical My Number card itself often takes 4–8 weeks to arrive by mail; the number is usable immediately.

Health insurance: two systems, no opt-out

Everyone resident in Japan for 3+ months must be enrolled in one of two systems. If you work for a company with five or more employees (or any incorporated business), you and your employer are automatically enrolled in Shakai Hoken — combined health insurance and employees’ pension, split roughly 50/50 with your employer. Everyone else — freelancers, students, part-timers under about 30 hours a week — joins National Health Insurance (NHI) directly at the ward office, with premiums calculated off your prior year’s income (which usually makes your first year artificially cheap). Both systems cover 70% of costs, leaving you a 30% co-pay at every clinic visit.

Hanko, signatures, and the slow death of the seal

The registered personal seal (hanko or inkan) is still requested for apartment leases, some employment contracts and certain bank products, though a growing share of banks and landlords now accept a signature instead. A basic hanko costs ¥500–1,000 at any stationery shop; get one in your first week so you’re never caught without it.

Driving: convert, don’t retest, if your country qualifies

Holders of a valid foreign licence from a Group 1 reciprocal country — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea, Switzerland, and most of the EU (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and others) plus a handful of U.S. states (Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, Ohio, Oregon, Colorado) — can convert straight to a Japanese licence (gaimen kirikae) with no written or road test, just document review and an eyesight check. Everyone else sits a 50-question true/false written exam (45/50 to pass) and a notoriously strict practical test that trips up many first-timers — budget for at least one retake.

The fast (and slow) roads to permanent residency

Standard PR requires 10 years of continuous residence, at least 5 of them on a work-eligible status. The Highly Skilled Professional (HSP) points system shortcuts this dramatically: score 70+ points (education, income, age, Japanese ability, research output) and you can apply for PR after just 3 years; hit 80+ and it drops to 1 year. Since April 2023, high earners can skip the points calculator entirely via J-Skip — a master’s degree or 10+ years’ experience plus ¥20 million annual income (research/technical roles), or 5+ years’ management experience plus ¥40 million income (executives) — and move from HSP-I to HSP-II, an indefinite period of stay, after just one year.

Opening an account used to require a hanko, a Japanese phone number and months of residency — none of that is really true anymore if you pick the right bank.

The account that used to be a rite of passage

Japanese banking has a well-earned reputation for being hostile to newcomers: megabanks like MUFG or Mizuho traditionally wanted six months or more of residence, a Japanese mobile number, and a registered hanko before they’d open a personal account. That friction hasn’t disappeared everywhere, but it has a workaround. Japan Post Bank (Yucho) remains the most reliably accessible first account — a Residence Card and your registered address are usually enough, opening deposits run as low as ¥1,000, and its network of 24,000+ ATMs inside every post office in the country makes it the default for cash-heavy daily life, even though English support at branches is limited.

The English-friendly alternatives

For a fully English experience, SBI Shinsei Bank offers an all-English platform and seven-day phone support with no minimum balance requirement, and is notably more flexible about remaining visa duration than the megabanks. Sony Bank is online-only with a clean English app and competitive foreign-exchange rates, useful if you’re still moving money from abroad. SMBC Prestia targets international professionals with a strong English service layer but expects a ¥500,000 minimum balance to waive its monthly fee.

Building credit from zero

Excellent credit history in your home country doesn’t transfer — Japan’s credit bureaus (CIC and JICC) start you at a blank slate. The fastest way to build a file is a Japanese-issued credit card with a low income bar, such as a Rakuten Card or a bank-affiliated card offered the moment you have a Residence Card and a bank account; use it for small recurring bills and pay it off in full every cycle. This matters more than it sounds — apartment guarantor companies and phone contracts increasingly check it.

Cash still wins in a lot of rooms

Japan’s government has pushed cashless payment hard, and adoption has climbed past 40% of transactions nationally, driven by IC cards (Suica, Pasmo) and QR pay apps (PayPay). But plenty of small izakayas, family-run restaurants, temples, local clinics and countryside shops remain cash-only. Carry ¥10,000–20,000 in cash as a standing rule, especially outside central Tokyo and Osaka.

Japan runs one of Asia’s most tiered visa systems — a blue-collar Specified Skilled Worker track, a six-month Digital Nomad pass, and Highly Skilled Professional fast-tracks that shrink a 10-year PR wait to one.

The everyday work visa

The Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa (often just called "gijinkoku") is what most foreign professionals actually hold — it requires a job related to your degree or relevant work experience, and is issued for periods of 1, 3 or 5 years, renewable indefinitely as long as you keep qualifying employment. It is not points-based and has no fast track to PR beyond the standard 10-year route.

Highly Skilled Professional (HSP) and J-Skip

The HSP visa scores you across three tracks — academic research, specialized/technical work, and business management — on education, income, age, Japanese ability and more. 70 points unlocks PR eligibility after 3 years; 80 points after just 1 year, versus the standard 10-year wait. Since April 2023, J-Skip lets high earners skip the point calculation entirely: a master’s degree or 10+ years’ experience plus ¥20 million annual income for research/technical categories, or 5+ years’ management experience plus ¥40 million income for executives. J-Skip holders get HSP-I status and can upgrade to HSP-II — an indefinite period of stay — after only one year.

Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) — the blue-collar track

Introduced to plug labour shortages, SSW now spans 16 industrial fields: nursing care, accommodation, food service, building cleaning, industrial products manufacturing, construction, shipbuilding, automobile repair, food & beverage manufacturing, timber/lumber, agriculture, fishery, forestry, automobile transport, railway and aviation. SSW Type 1 covers all 16 sectors but caps residence at 5 years with no family accompaniment. SSW Type 2 — available in 11 of those 16 sectors (construction, shipbuilding, manufacturing, auto repair, aviation, accommodation, building cleaning, agriculture, fishery, food & beverage manufacturing, food service) — allows unlimited visa renewal and lets you bring a spouse and children, with a realistic path to PR. Nursing care has its own superior route: pass the national Certified Care Worker exam and you qualify for a dedicated visa with strong PR potential.

Digital Nomad visa — new, narrow, and not a residency path

Launched in April 2024 as a Designated Activities status, Japan’s Digital Nomad visa lets remote workers employed by a foreign company (or self-employed with foreign clients) stay for up to 6 months with no extension possible and no route to renewal or PR. Eligibility is limited to nationals of roughly 49 countries and regions that hold a tax treaty with Japan (including the U.S., U.K., most of the EU, Australia, Canada and Singapore). You must show annual income of at least ¥10 million and hold private health/accident insurance covering at least ¥10 million in medical costs; spouses and children can accompany you under a dependent status. Apply at a Japanese embassy or consulate abroad — processing runs 2–3 months.

Working Holiday and student visas

Roughly 30 countries and regions have working holiday agreements with Japan, open to ages 18–30 (18–25 or 26 for a few partner countries), granting a 1-year stay with part-time work rights; some nationalities can extend or use the visa a second time. Student visas require enrolment at an accredited institution and, with permission from immigration, allow part-time work up to 28 hours a week during term.

Wages just had their biggest jump in Japanese history, but hiring still runs on seniority and the job market for experienced foreign hires narrows fast without conversational Japanese.

Minimum wage just had its biggest jump ever

Following the October 2025 revision, Japan’s national average minimum wage rose to ¥1,121/hour — the largest single increase since the system began — and for the first time all 47 prefectures now sit at or above ¥1,000/hour. Tokyo and Kanagawa lead at ¥1,226 and ¥1,225; Osaka sits at ¥1,177; Kochi, Miyazaki and Okinawa trail at ¥1,023. The gap between Tokyo and the cheapest prefectures has narrowed but still shapes where entry-level and part-time (arubaito) work pays best.

Shakai Hoken: the deduction every payslip carries

Any company with 5+ employees (or any incorporated business) must enrol staff in Shakai Hoken — combined health insurance and Employees’ Pension. Under the Japan Health Insurance Association (Kyokai Kenpo) standard plan, the combined premium runs roughly 28.3% of salary — about 10% for health insurance and 18.3% for pension — split 50/50 between you and your employer. On a ¥300,000 monthly salary, that’s roughly ¥43,000 deducted from your pay, matched by an equal employer contribution. It funds real benefits (the 70/30 health cost split, and pension credits that count even for foreign residents who later leave — a lump-sum withdrawal payment exists for those who do).

Unemployment insurance (koyou hoken)

A smaller, separate premium (roughly 0.6% from the employee) funds koyou hoken, which pays benefits if you’re laid off or your contract ends, provided you’ve been enrolled long enough (generally 12 months within the prior 2 years, less for involuntary separation). Benefit duration and amount scale with age and length of employment — this is a real safety net, but it assumes you were on a work-eligible visa status the whole time.

Seniority still shapes the ladder

Traditional nenkou joretsu (seniority-based pay and promotion) has weakened, especially at foreign-capital firms and in tech, but it still visibly shapes salary bands and career expectations at traditional Japanese companies. The bigger practical obstacle for incoming professionals is that Japan’s hiring culture is still built around shukatsu — a single annual hiring cycle (April intake) designed for new graduates — which makes ad-hoc mid-career hiring (chuto saiyo) feel slower and less predictable than in most Western markets, even though it is a fast-growing channel, especially in IT.

Language is the real gatekeeper

Without at least JLPT N2-level Japanese, non-technical office roles narrow sharply; your realistic options cluster around English teaching, IT (where English-only teams exist at some firms), finance, and foreign-capital ("gaishikei") companies that operate in English. Technical roles in software engineering are the most forgiving of limited Japanese, particularly at larger multinationals with Tokyo offices.

Public schools are free and legally open to every foreign child, the daycare shortage has eased dramatically nationwide, and a national university is startlingly cheap compared to almost anywhere else.

Public school: free, and legally open to your kids

Compulsory education (gimu kyouiku) technically guarantees elementary and junior high schooling to Japanese nationals, but in practice every municipality is required to accept foreign children into public school tuition-free, with textbooks provided at no cost. Register through your ward or city’s board of education (kyouiku iinkai) using your juminhyo. Areas with larger established foreign communities — Shinjuku, Toyota City, parts of Osaka — run dedicated nihongo shidou (Japanese-language support) classes with specialist staff; more rural municipalities may offer little beyond mainstream immersion, so check resourcing before you commit to a neighbourhood.

International schools: expensive, and getting more so

Tokyo’s international schools run roughly ¥2.3–3.0 million/year for kindergarten, ¥2.8–3.5 million for elementary, ¥3.2–3.8 million for middle school, and ¥3.4–4.2 million for high school/IB programmes. Layer on a one-time entrance/capital fee of ¥700,000–1,500,000 and a non-refundable application fee of ¥25,000–40,000, and the real annual outlay typically lands 20–30% above the headline tuition once facilities charges, transport, lunches and trips are added.

University: cheap if it’s national

National universities charge international students the exact same tuition as Japanese nationals — no surcharge — at a flat ¥535,800/year plus a one-time entrance fee of ¥282,000. Private universities cost considerably more: ¥800,000–1,000,000/year for humanities, ¥1,000,000–1,500,000 for science and engineering, and ¥2,000,000–6,000,000 for medicine. The MEXT scholarship — Japan’s flagship government award for international students — covers tuition in full, waives the entrance fee at national universities, and pays a monthly stipend of ¥143,000–148,000 depending on study level; it’s genuinely worth building an application timeline around a year or more in advance.

Daycare: the crisis that quietly ended

The infamous "hoikuen wait list children" problem — fierce competition for scarce daycare slots, especially in central Tokyo wards, once forced families into elaborate application strategies (hokatsu) just to secure a spot. The national waitlist peaked at 26,081 children in 2017; it has now fallen for eight straight years to a record-low 2,254 children nationwide as of April 2025, driven mainly by Japan’s falling birth rate expanding available capacity relative to demand. That’s genuinely good news for relocating families, though pockets of high demand still exist in specific central-Tokyo wards — apply as early as your pregnancy allows if you’re targeting a popular area.

Renting still means clearing a wall of non-refundable up-front fees, but a housing surplus and guarantor companies have made this far easier for foreigners without a Japanese cosigner than it was a decade ago.

Reikin and shikikin: the up-front wall

Two fees define moving-in costs. Shikikin (security deposit) typically runs 1–3 months’ rent and is partially refundable, though landlords routinely deduct cleaning fees before returning it. Reikin (key money) — literally "gratitude money" paid to the landlord — runs 1–2 months’ rent and is never returned, full stop. Add a half-to-one month agent commission and you’re commonly looking at 4–6 months’ rent just to get the keys. Key money is fading in newer buildings and in a softening market, so it’s always worth asking if it can be waived — plenty of listings now advertise "reikin nashi" (no key money).

The guarantor company is now the default

Foreigners without a Japanese relative or long-term colleague willing to act as personal guarantor overwhelmingly go through a guarantor company (hoshoinsha) instead — and increasingly, landlords require one regardless of nationality. Expect an initial fee of 0.5–1 month’s rent, plus a smaller annual renewal fee (roughly ¥10,000–20,000) for as long as you stay. This has meaningfully lowered the barrier that used to make renting as a foreigner painful; most mainstream agencies now work routinely with guarantor companies as a matter of course rather than an exception.

Rent: Tokyo’s premium is real but shrinking in perspective

A studio (1K) apartment in central Tokyo’s 23 wards runs roughly ¥80,000–110,000/month; the same unit in central Osaka is ¥55,000–80,000; in a regional hub like Fukuoka, ¥45,000–65,000. Move to the suburbs of any of these cities and rents drop another 30–50%. Globally, Tokyo is far less exceptional than its reputation suggests: Deutsche Bank’s 2026 cross-city survey ranked it just 40th of 69 cities for the cost of renting a three-bedroom apartment, averaging around $2,361/month versus $8,873 in New York.

Finding a foreign-friendly listing

Agencies like GaijinPot Housing, Sakura House and Ichii Gate specialise in English-language service and foreigner-friendly landlords; share houses (Sakura House, Oakhouse) skip key money and guarantor requirements entirely in exchange for a rent premium and shared facilities — a reasonable landing pad for your first 3–6 months while you build a Japanese track record.

Utilities

Electricity, gas and water are contracted separately, usually set up by phone or online within days of move-in — no deposit required for any of them. Gas is the one exception that needs an in-person appointment: a technician must attend to turn on the meter and check appliances, so book this before move-in day if you want hot water immediately.

Tokyo’s reputation as one of the world’s priciest cities is largely nostalgia now — a weak yen and two decades of flat domestic prices have pushed it into the global middle of the pack.

Cheaper than its reputation, by a wide margin

By Numbeo’s 2026 comparison, overall consumer prices in New York run 82% higher than Tokyo excluding rent, and 141% higher once rent is included. Local purchasing power actually favours Tokyo residents by roughly 23.6% over their New York counterparts. The mechanism is straightforward: the yen has weakened about 51% against the dollar since 2012, while domestic Japanese prices rose only around 20% over the same period — a gap that makes Japan remarkably cheap for anyone earning or holding foreign currency, and correspondingly tighter for households paid purely in yen buying anything imported.

Where Tokyo actually ranks globally

Deutsche Bank’s 2026 global cities survey placed Tokyo just 40th of 69 cities for three-bedroom rental costs and 57th of 69 for the price of a meal for two — roughly a third of what the same meal costs in New York, Zurich or Geneva. Japan is also, per the same report, the cheapest place in the world to buy an iPhone once taxes are factored in.

Groceries, dining, and getting around

Grocery prices in Tokyo run about 45.5% cheaper than in New York, and restaurant dining roughly 65% cheaper by the same comparison. Public transport runs on prepaid IC cards (Suica, Pasmo) that double as e-money at convenience stores and vending machines; most full-time employees get a fixed-route commuter pass (teiki) that their employer reimburses in full or in large part, making daily commuting close to free for salaried workers regardless of distance.

The one cost that surprises newcomers

Both National Health Insurance and Shakai Hoken cover 70% of medical costs, leaving a 30% co-pay due at the point of care — a ¥10,000 treatment costs the patient ¥3,000 out of pocket immediately, with no separate billing cycle to soften it. A high-cost medical expense cap (kougaku ryouyouhi) protects against catastrophic bills by refunding costs above an income-scaled monthly ceiling, but the day-to-day habit of paying cash at every clinic and pharmacy visit is a real adjustment for anyone used to insurance networks that bill later.

The bottom line

For a dollar-, euro- or pound-earner, Tokyo in 2026 delivers a genuinely high standard of living — reliable trains, low crime, excellent food — at a price roughly 40–50% below equivalent global cities. For someone earning and spending entirely in yen, that arbitrage disappears, and the calculus becomes ordinary: modest but rising wages, cheap-by-global-standards rent and groceries, and a healthcare system that’s excellent in quality but expects a co-pay every single time you use it. Neither picture is the "outrageously expensive Tokyo" of popular memory — that city priced itself out of most currencies decades ago.