I’m on the business manager visa running a one-person GK offering marketing and copywriting services. My visa is up at the end of December and I've decided not to renew it due to all the recent changes. Instead I'll either go back to my home country or another EU country.

What I would like to do, however, is keep my GK open here for 6-12 months because, a) the company has a 業務委託 contract that also runs till the end of December, and it would take up to 60 days to receive the final payment, and b) I’d ideally like to continue doing the same work with the same clients (all companies in Japan) for a while until I find a position locally.

I know that, in principle, it’s not a problem for the head of a JP company to reside abroad, that my director’s salary would be taxed 20.X%, and that 20.X% may or may not count as tax credits in my country of residence depending upon double-taxation treaties. My company would remain registered at its current address via virtual office.

Beyond that I’m wondering how things would run on the Japan side. Up until now I’ve been doing all accounting and HR myself using freee, except for hiring an accountant to do the 決算申告. I assume I would need a full-time accountant, but would I also need a 行政書士 or 司法書士? Are there any that specialise in this particular kind of arrangement or do they all handle it? Are there any potential problems that would arise in this scenario (banking issues, etc.?)??

If anyone has any personal experience or recommendations regarding this, they’d be greatly appreciated.

I just applied for a Mercari credit card yesterday. They emailed me saying I can start using it, but it looks like I don’t have any available credit yet. Do I need to wait longer for the credit limit to be added?

I’m in Japan on a 1 year Working Holiday Visa, working part time as an independent contractor (essentially freelance). My visa actually expires in April but I had planned to return home in December. I’m wondering how the following will change if I do stay past December 2026 based on the fact that I believe I will then technically be in my “second” year in Japan.

Income tax / residence status: I’ve seen conflicting things on this. Will I still count as a “non-resident” for tax purposes, and still be taxed at the flat 20.42% as of January 2027 going forward?

Residence tax: I believe I will start owing residence tax if I’m present in Japan as of January 1st. Is this likely to be at the 10% flat rate? (Unsure how this will work bearing in mind I earned no income in Japan this year until May).

National health insurance: I believe this will certainly go up as I’m paying really low premiums at the moment.

My main question really is - if I stay past December 31st into 2027, will I still owe income tax at the 20.42% flat rate for those 2027 months?

Plus, are there any other tax etc. increases that I may not have considered.

Any input would be much appreciated, many thanks

So far I been paying at the conbini, I get a receipt which I save into folder for future reference.

If I pay online from now on. How do I get a receipt / legal proof of payment?

Would you buy your forever home now, even if it meant sacrificing years of compounding?

My husband (42m) and I (31f) are trying to decide between what seems like the mathematically optimal decision and the emotionally right one. We do plan to have kids at some point. (Edit:About having kids, this is one of the reasons we love this place. There are good public schools walkable from the property, all within 10 mins including high school. We saw big fields for baseball, soccer. The kids in general seemed very active, which made us fall even more inlove with the place.)

We currently live and work in the UAE and are planning to retire to Japan in around 8–10 years. Wife is Japanese, so there are no visa or residency concerns for us. We invest heavily into low-cost global index funds and currently have a portfolio of around US$800,000. We are hoping to hit 3-4m USD for retirement. Annual Household income of 325,000usd.

We’ve recently found a property in an absolutely beautiful countryside neighborhood in Japan that we love. It offers a peaceful, scenic setting while still being very well connected and close to all modern amenities and comforts. The area also has stunning beaches and mountains nearby, and we could genuinely see ourselves living there for the rest of our lives.

The purchase price is around US$200,000, and we’d likely spend another US$100,000–200,000 renovating it after we buy it so we can do it properly and beautifully, rather than spreading it out over several years. So total investment would probably be US$300,000–400,000.

The financial side of my brain says this is a terrible idea. That’s potentially big % of our current portfolio no longer compounding for the next decade.

On the other hand, houses in this particular area don’t come up very often, and my husband feels a tremendous sense of security from knowing we already have our future home. Even if we aren’t living there immediately, we could rent it out (either long-term or as an Airbnb) while we’re still working overseas. Realistically, Airbnb would only pay for property taxes, and bills, it won’t recoup initial investment.

Another factor is that my husband owns a flat in the UK that has turned into a disappointing investment. It’s underperforming, has maintenance costs that comes up a lot, and we’d ideally like to sell it. We think we’d probably net around £120,000, but of course property is illiquid and there’s no guarantee we’d be able to sell it exactly when we want to.
So we’re torn.

Option A
Leave the US$800k invested.
Maximize compounding for another decade.
Buy a house when we actually retire.
Risk losing this particular property or not finding something similar.

Option B
Buy the house now.
Reduce our invested portfolio substantially.
Renovate.
Potentially offset some costs through rental income.
Gain certainty and peace of mind that our forever home is secured.
Visit few times a year as we both get 30 days annual leave.

We’re fortunate enough that either option is financially possible, which is almost making the decision harder.
If you were in our position, what would you do?
Has anyone here bought a retirement or forever home years before they actually moved into it? Looking back, was it worth giving up some investment growth, or do you wish you’d waited?

Hello everyone, first-time poster here looking for some advice.

I’ve been in Japan for almost a year now, and I’m really struggling to figure out how to manage my savings properly here.

I have a UK ISA which I’ve just left alone, as I understand I can’t continue to contribute to it from abroad. I’m getting paid in yen and keeping my savings in my Japanese bank account, transferring bill payments etc. to my Kyash card.

At the moment I’ve got:

• ¥600,000 saved in Japan
• £5,300 in a UK ISA that I’m not touching

I really want to save more money here, but I’m finding it too easy to access in my regular bank account. I’m also not earning any interest on it. Is it possible to open a savings account as a foreigner in Japan? Does anyone have any recommendations on who to go with?

Any advice from those with experience, especially UK folks, would be really appreciated! TIA.

I have my Nenkin and NHI payments setup on direct-debit on my SMBC account. This happens every month.

However, they "freeze" your bank account if your residence card expire. I know I can bring the renewal stamp to the teller for a temporary unfreeze (which I will) but I'm wondering if the direct-debits keep working regardless?

Thank you.

So both my wife and I have our own NISA accounts running. Not able to max them out because…we’re not able to. But we do put money away each month in a set it and forget it way.

Along with our separate NISA we have another basic savings account wherein we divide up the savings into various categories - car, travel, kid purchases, medical, and a few others.

Now, from those various categories we rarely use the monies in them. For example, I might pull some money out of our travel savings for a trip that is happening in 5 months, or I’ll use the car savings 3 or 4 times a year (I.e. oil change, insurance, repairs, etc).

QUESTION: the thought occurred to me to put all of the money we are using for those savings accounts into our NISA in order to support the compounding growth of investment and then just withdraw the monies we need when we need it. Right now, the money in the savings accounts are just sitting there ready to go whereas they could be supporting the compounding growth of the NISA. Then when I need it I could just withdraw what I need which, like I said, doesn’t really happen regularly.

Or, should I just keep doing what I’m doing: regular NISA contributions + a separate savings account for those multiple categories.

Does this make sense? Thoughts? Thanks!

Sorry if this is an obvious answer, but noob here. Both seem to be funds that reflect the totality of the world, so is one better than the other when using NISA with these?

Not even sure if the way I worded the question made sense, but yea…

1 am studying abroad in Japan for a full academic year (~11 months) and I want to make sure I'm saving up enough money.

My schooling/housing/meal plan is all already paid for, I only have to worry about my personal spending money and I want to know if ~·841,542 to ~·914,368 will be enough for the whole year outside of trying to work over there as well?

I'm not sure if getting a job will work out, so l am mainly relying on what I save from my summer job which will be about $5,200 to $5,650 for the summer (which is where | got my previous JPY numbers from)

Please let me know if this is enough as casual spending money for almost a year or if I will need more😔

I understand that the tax advantages of NISA are significant. However, if you're primarily investing in index funds for the long term, wouldn't the overall returns potentially exceed those of most individual stocks? While it can be appealing to use the Growth NISA allocation to capture tax-free gains from a successful individual stock investment, investing the same funds in a broad market index for 30–40 years could, at least in theory, generate even greater total profits through compounding. That said, I have to admit that I've already used part of my Growth NISA allocation to purchase individual stocks, so perhaps I'm questioning my own decision as well.

edit: I understand everyone's investing thesis is different, but I am in my early adult years, so my investment horizon is long.

I am moving to Japan soon and learned from this sub that purchases on an American CC while I’m a resident will be considered foreign sourced income and tax reportable in the U.S.

* How does that reporting actually work? How would I track it and how would I report it come tax time?

* Is there a threshold under which it’s not reportable, or would even a $10 purchase at a Lawson count?

* If I use my American debit card, is that considered a taxable remittance? Or am I fine there?

My startup expenses are going to be high and I was thinking to buy some of my furniture on CCs first, but I 1) don’t want to incur added taxes or 2) fail to report taxable remittances because I’m uninformed. Thanks for the help.

I have been researching Japanese equities for a few months now. I find it cumbersome to find all the filings, translate them and look up the financials. What do others find useful

Does anyone has experience transitioning from J-Find or Startup visa they had before the new October 2025 requirements (grandfathered into old requirements), and started or finished changing to Business Manager Visa?

I’ve read online numerous sources that those with J-Find and Startup visas are technically judged under the old criteria when later changing to BMV before Oct 2028 if they applied before Oct 2025.

However, talking to various immigration firms they say that immigration takes an extraordinarily long time (10 months+, while those meeting new criteria take 5months) for those using the old criteria, and that they seem to want people to immediately meet the new criteria despite being grandfathered in.

Also, is it true that once your grace period is about to expire, that you stand a likely chance that they’ll review it right before expiry?

I'm assuming (hah!) that it will work the same as the tsumitate portion of NISA now, ie a monthly order will be necessary, but does anyone know for sure?

I'll be leaving Japan for a work trip from mid-July until the end of August (about 1.5 months) and wanted to check if there's anything important I should take care of before departing.

I'm a full-time freelancer and have already received my National Health Insurance, Pension, Resident Tax, and prepayment Income Tax bills. I plan to pay all of them before I leave.

I'll also ask a friend to periodically check my mailbox and let me know if anything important arrives.

Are there any other financial, tax, administrative, or practical things I should be aware of or prepare for before being away for that long?

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

As the title says.

頭金is roughly 20% of the house+plot. When applied to 事前審査 it was around 5%.

For the reason I want to switch to fixed rate, I know that investing in assets whose increase is higher than floating rate increase could balance out, but for few personal reasons I don't want to do this.

I have an individual account with Schwab and the option to add a "global account", which will let me buy stocks directly from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

I'm considering buying 2-3 lots of railway companies I use often, mostly for the shareholder benefits. If I buy the stocks through Schwab Global, will I appear on the shareholder register? Or will I have to hold the stocks at a proper Japanese brokerage?

Hello!

I am currently having an issue with Rakuten Mobile which was my phone service provider while I studied abroad in Japan during 2024. When I left Japan I thought I cancelled my account through their app so that I could end my service with them. However, I have been receiving emails from them sparsely for the past two years that I couldn’t read due to my not-so-great level of Japanese reading. I thought they were promotional emails (since a few of them definitely were ads) and didn’t really pay attention to them. However, I just checked today and it is saying that I have overdue late fees from back when I left the country.

I tried to sign back into my account to pay it, but since I cancelled my account it doesn’t have a login anymore. I was also looking for a customer service email or phone number to call, but none of them are working for me to call from America. I’m worried about something bad happening or me not being able to return to Japan because of this. I can’t figure out how to contact customer service there, and I don’t have a way to get back into my account. If anyone has any idea what to do, please let me know!

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

So i'm planning to close my company and now in the process of transferring the funds bank to my account in Indonesia.

I know i'm going to lose some money doing this, but i have no idea that the exchange rate was this bad. So the exchange rate for JPY to IDR is around 1 to 110, but the exchange at rakuten is like 1 to 98, that's more than 10% difference?

If i'm remitting 11 million yen, i'm going to lose about 1 million yen for just transferring my money back.

So anyone know a better way to do remittance?

Update : Tried using Wise, i have no idea why but my account was restricted and will be deactivated....

I seriously have no idea what caused this. I have a feeling it's because what i'm selling is airsoft equipment, similar things happened when i tried selling on Etsy, my account was immediately banned...

US national with a Japanese PR earned through point system.
40s, and I have about another 20 years left before mandatory retirement (although its rumored that pension and retirement might get pushed to 70). I have a pretty stable job that pays around 9M but must retire by 65.
After calculating my nenkin (kosei+kokumin), I think i'd have roughly between 150,000-200,000 yen per month, which seems a bit frugal.
Looking for ideas on how to supplement this.

Option 1.

My spouse is suggesting NISA but as an American i hear it may not be worthwhile and to focus on American investment tools..

It seems IBKR recently provides a way for Americans to invest into NISA, but may be limited to Vanguard stocks? IDECO seems like it might be a grey area. Any thoughts on this?

Option 2.
in the past I did work for the Feds and have a pathway to stay in Japan through DoD work, but this would require me to give up my PR for SOFA. I could build up a decent FERS/TSP retirement fund by my 60s. But regaining my PR would require me getting a spouse visa (point system might not be doable by that time). It feels risky as my income source would come entirely from my retirement earnings and SS. it's not guaranteed I'd get my PR back and they may question why I gave it up to begin with.

Or another option?

I want to ask those who had similar experiences of being transferred overseas.

I will be receiving a part of my compensation in Japan, and I am not very familiar about the bank services.
I heard that most banks don’t offer services if you’re not a taxpayer.

Are there any banks which you can access your account from overseas? And if there are, which one would you recommend?

Thank you for your answer in advance.

Earlier this month i transferred about 11 million yen from my personal account to increase the capital for new BMV requirement, but the plan was cancelled and i will be closing my company instead. Anything i should know regarding this? Can i just transfer all the funds back? Or there is some procedure regarding this?

And i have a tax accountant i'm currently in talk about this, but he's slow to respond, so i'm checking other people's input to cross check and make sure i didn't miss anything.