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Unpacking dishes on moving day in a bright apartment, with snow on the rooftops outside
Moving here

Living in Japan

Moving to Japan is a chain of dependencies: the phone contract wants a bank account, the bank wants a residence card and a Japanese phone number. Here is what to set up, in the order you actually need it.

  1. 1
    Before you land · Day one

    Get online before you have anything else

    What works with only a passport and a foreign card, and how the timing of your residence card changes your first-month cost.

  2. 2
    First weeks · once your address is registered

    Get a Japanese number

    Which providers accept a foreign-issued card, what identity documents each one asks for, and the cancellation rules that only appear on the Japanese page.

  3. 3
    First month · once you have an address and a number

    Get the apartment connected

    Fibre versus home WiFi at the same monthly price: the installation wait, the landlord's permission, and what you owe when you leave.

Bank accounts, apartment contracts and utilities are next on our list. We publish each one only after reading the Japanese-language terms, so they appear here when they are ready — not before.