Everyone tells you about the trains, the food, and the convenience stores. Nobody sits you down and explains that your first month will be spent in municipal offices, holding a numbered ticket, discovering that the thing you came to do requires a different thing you have not done yet.
The paperwork is not especially hard. What makes it exhausting is that it has an order, the order is not written down anywhere obvious, and getting it wrong means coming back tomorrow.
This is the order, roughly, as it applied when I did it. Rules change and vary by municipality — treat this as a map, not a legal document, and confirm the specifics with your own ward office.
At the airport: your residence card 在留カード
If you arrive on a mid- or long-term visa, you are issued a residence card at immigration on landing. Keep it on you. Not at home in a drawer — physically on you. It is your identity document here, and you are legally expected to be able to produce it.
Every step below depends on this card. It is the root of the tree.
Within fourteen days: the ward office
This is the one with a real deadline, and the one people miss. You must register your address at your local ward or city office within two weeks of moving in. Bring your residence card, your passport, and your lease if you have it.
They print your address on the back of the residence card. From this moment you exist administratively, and a number of things unlock at once.
While you are there, and in the same visit if you can manage it:
- National Health Insurance — if you are not covered through an employer. Enrolment is not optional, and premiums are calculated from your previous year’s income, which is why the first year is often pleasantly cheap.
- National Pension — likewise, if you are not enrolled through work. If your income is low there are reduction and exemption applications worth asking about.
- My Number — a tax and social security ID that gets sent to your registered address, usually a few weeks later. You will be asked for it constantly.
- A residence certificate (住民票) — get two or three copies while you are standing there. Banks and phone shops ask for them, and returning for one is a wasted morning.
A bank account, which is the hard one
This is where people get stuck, because banks have their own requirements that do not always align with reality.
Many banks want a Japanese phone number, a registered address, and — depending on the branch and your visa length — six months of residence before they will open a normal account. Some are markedly more flexible than others. Japan Post Bank has a reputation for being the most accommodating early on, and it is a reasonable first account even if you move elsewhere later.
The chicken-and-egg problem is real: some banks want a phone number, and some phone contracts want a bank account. The usual way through is a prepaid SIM or a carrier that accepts a credit card for payment, which gets you a number, which gets you the account.
About the hanko
The personal seal — a small cylinder that stamps your name in red — is used in place of a signature on many documents. Its role has been shrinking for years, and a lot of institutions now accept signatures, especially from foreign residents.
Still worth having one. They are inexpensive from a specialist shop or online, and the moment you need one and do not have one, you will lose a day. Get a plain one in katakana or romaji; you do not need anything elaborate unless you are registering it officially for property or company matters.
The rest, in rough order of urgency
- Phone contract — needs residence card and usually a Japanese payment method. The budget carriers are much cheaper than the big three and increasingly have English support.
- Utilities — electricity, gas and water are often arranged by the landlord or agency, but confirm rather than assume. Gas typically needs someone home for the connection appointment.
- Re-entry permit — if you leave Japan and want your residence status intact, you tick the special re-entry box on the departure card. Forgetting this can invalidate your status. It is a checkbox, and it matters enormously.
- Driving licence conversion — if you drive. The process varies a great deal by your original country; some convert on paperwork alone, others require a practical test.
Three things that make all of it easier
Bring more documents than you think you need. Passport, residence card, all your residence certificates, your hanko, your My Number card, and cash. Offices are surprisingly cash-oriented, and a missing document means a return trip.
Write your address in Japanese and keep it in your wallet. You will be asked to write it repeatedly, including on forms with small boxes. Having it copyable removes a small, constant friction.
Ask for the English form, and ask anyway if they say there isn’t one. Many wards have English versions that are not on display, and many have a support desk or interpretation line that is not advertised. The staff are, in my experience, consistently patient — the system is bureaucratic, but the people running it are generally trying to help you get through it.
What nobody tells you about how it feels
The tiring part is not any single errand. It is doing ten of them in a language you are still learning, while jet-lagged, in a city where you do not yet know which train exit you need.
It compounds. By the fourth office in a week you can find yourself unreasonably upset about a form. That is not a personal failing — it is the ordinary cost of rebuilding an entire administrative life from scratch, and it is temporary.
Do one thing a day if you can afford to. Take the afternoon off afterwards. The paperwork is finite, and one morning in month two you will notice you have not been to a government office in weeks.
None of this is the interesting part of moving to Japan. But getting it done early buys you the thing you actually came for: a year where the admin is behind you and the city is in front of you.
Essays, audio and drawings about building a life you can keep up with. Written in Tokyo.