Your First Two Weeks in Japan: An Arrival Checklist

The order that matters

The first weeks in Japan are less a to-do list than a sequence: each step unlocks the next. You need your residence card before you can register your address; registering your address is what gets you a bank account; a bank account is what makes a phone contract and rent payments work. One legal deadline drives the whole thing — you have 14 days from moving into your home to register at the city office — so the trick is knowing the order and not getting stuck.

Here’s the whole sequence at a glance; the rest of this guide walks through each step and links to the deeper guides.

1. At the airport — receive your 在留カードzairyū kādo (residence card)
2. Within 14 days — register your address at city hall (this also handles 住民票jūminhyō, My Number, health insurance, and pension)
3. Then — open a bank account, sort out a phone
4. Settling in — housing, utilities, converting your driver’s license

At the airport: your residence card

If you’re arriving as a mid- to long-term resident (a work, spouse, student, or similar status — not a tourist), you’ll usually receive your 在留カードzairyū kādo the moment you clear immigration. The card is issued on the spot at ten ports: New Chitose, Sendai, Narita, Haneda, Chubu, Kansai, Kobe, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Naha. Land anywhere else and your passport is stamped “residence card to be issued later” — the card is then mailed to your address after you register it at city hall, which makes that first city-hall visit even more important.

Two things to know from day one:

• Carry it at all times. Mid- to long-term residents aged 16 and over are legally required to have the 在留カードzairyū kādo on them, and not carrying it (or refusing to show it when asked) can carry a fine. It also doubles as your photo ID for most procedures.
• Everything is keyed to the address on the back. That address gets written in when you register, and you must keep it current.

The card itself — what’s on it, renewals, and re-entry — has its own guide: Your Residence Card and the 14-Day Rule.

Within 14 days: city hall

This is the appointment that unlocks everything else. Within 14 days of settling into your residence, take your 在留カードzairyū kādo (or your passport, if the card is being mailed) to your municipal (city or ward) office and file a moving-in notification (転入届tennyū todoke). That single filing puts you on the 住民票jūminhyō, the resident register — and from there, several things happen in one visit:

• My Number. Once you’re on the resident register, a 12-digit マイナンバーmai nambā (My Number) is assigned to you and mailed out (as a paper notification) a couple of weeks later. The number is what employers and banks will ask for; the My Number Card — the photo IC card — is optional and applied for separately.
• Health insurance. Japan has universal coverage, so you must be enrolled in a public health plan. If you’re a company employee, your employer enrolls you in 健康保険kenkō hoken; otherwise you sign up for 国民健康保険kokumin kenkō hoken (National Health Insurance) right here at the city office. Either way you then pay about 30% at the clinic.
• Pension. Residents aged 20–59 must be in the public pension. Employees are enrolled in 厚生年金kōsei nenkin through work; everyone else registers for 国民年金kokumin nenkin at the city office. (How this fits with US Social Security is covered in Nenkin and US Social Security.)
• A seal, if you want one — some procedures still ask for a registered 印鑑inkan, though signatures increasingly suffice.

What to bring, how the visit flows, and the My Number and seal details are in Registering at City Hall.

The cross-border line: registering makes you a Japan tax resident

This is the step that matters most for a US person, and it’s invisible if you’re not looking for it: the date you register your 住民票jūminhyō is, in practice, the moment you become a Japanese tax resident. It starts the clock on Japanese national and local tax — and it sits alongside, not instead of, your continuing US filing obligations, because the US taxes its citizens and green-card holders on worldwide income wherever they live (Filing US Taxes from Japan).

Two early cautions worth flagging before you settle in:

• Don’t rush to open Japanese investment accounts. A NISA or iDeCo looks attractive, but for US persons the funds inside are almost always PFICs, which can erase the benefit — see Investing from Japan as a US Person before you sign up for anything.
• Your new Japanese accounts are reportable. Once you’re banking here, the FBAR threshold can sneak up on you — even a single large transfer counts.

Arriving under SOFA status is different. SOFA-status personnel and their families don’t register a 住民票jūminhyō at all and sit on the other side of this tax-residency line — which changes the whole playbook. That has its own section: SOFA Status in Japan.

Then: a bank account and a phone

With your residence card and a registered address, the next two unlock daily life:

• A bank account. You’ll generally need your 在留カードzairyū kādo and address, and sometimes your My Number or a seal; some banks have a residency-length requirement, so Japan Post Bank (ゆうちょyūcho) and online banks are often the most accessible early on. Full detail in Opening and Managing Japanese Bank Accounts.
• A phone. There’s a mild chicken-and-egg here — many contracts want a bank account or address first — so a data SIM or eSIM on arrival, then a full contract once you’re set up, is the usual path: Getting a Phone and SIM in Japan.

Settling in

These aren’t deadline-driven, but they’re the rest of getting set up:

• Housing. If you didn’t arrive with a place lined up, renting has its own upfront costs and quirks (key money, deposits, guarantor companies): Finding and Renting an Apartment in Japan.
• Utilities and internet. Electricity, gas (with an in-person safety visit), water, and home internet — the last of which can take a few weeks to install.
• Your driver’s license. An International Driving Permit generally covers you for up to a year; after that you’ll need to convert your license through the 外免切替gaimen kirikae process, which for Americans includes a practical test: Converting Your Foreign Driver’s License.

Coming and going while you settle in

If you need to travel before everything’s sorted: a resident leaving and returning within one year can usually re-enter on a special re-entry permit — you simply present your 在留カードzairyū kādo and passport and mark the intent on the embarkation card when you leave. Plan to be away longer than a year and you’ll need a regular re-entry permit first.

The short version

• One deadline rules the first weeks: register your address at city hall within 14 days of moving in.
• Get your 在留カードzairyū kādo at the airport (10 ports) or by mail, and carry it always.
• City hall, one visit: 住民票jūminhyō, My Number, health insurance, and pension.
• Registering = becoming a Japan tax resident — keep US filing in mind, and don’t open NISA/iDeCo without checking the PFIC trap first.
• Then open a bank account and get a phone; after that, housing, utilities, and your license.
• SOFA status skips the 住民票jūminhyō path entirely — see its own section.

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This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice. Procedures vary slightly by municipality and change over time — verify against the official sources below and your local city office, and bring cross-border tax questions to a professional experienced with US–Japan situations.