Your first weeks in Japan: the card, the fourteen days and the six-month rule

What do you arrange at the municipal office?

As soon as you have a home address, you have fourteen days to report to the municipal office. That puts you in the jūminhyō, the Japanese resident register. It is the equivalent of the Dutch BRP registration you have just cancelled. If you live with your family, bring the marriage and birth certificates, with a Japanese translation.

On the same visit, also arrange:

• health insurance, if your employer doesn't;
• with children, the child allowance: since October 2024 without an income test, ¥ 10,000 to ¥ 15,000 per child per month and ¥ 30,000 from the third child.

You apply for the child allowance within fifteen days of your move, and it only starts from the month after your application. Waiting literally costs money here. All the papers and their deadlines are in residence card, jūminhyō and My Number.

How do My Number, the phone and the bank work?

From the jūminhyō follows your My Number, the Japanese equivalent of the BSN; you apply for the card free of charge and it now also serves as your health insurance card. For a phone contract you need a means of payment: a credit card or a card from a Japanese bank. If you have a credit card the provider accepts, arrange the phone first.

Then the bank, and the six-month rule found on every forum. The foreign exchange law (the law on money flows to and from abroad) treats a foreigner as a non-resident in principle. But whoever works at an office in Japan, or has been in Japan for six months or longer, counts as a resident. If you come with a Japanese employment contract, you are therefore a resident from the start. The rule mainly matters for a partner without a job of their own. Keep your Dutch account as a bridge; see banking and payments in Japan.

When do you exchange your driving licence?

The Netherlands is on Japan's list of countries whose licences are exchanged without a knowledge or skills test (gaimen kirikae). What you need:

• an official JAF translation of your licence (¥ 6,600, only available online);
• proof that you stayed at least three months in the Netherlands after it was issued;
• an extract from the jūminhyō;
• an eye test at the prefectural licence centre.

In the first year you drive on an international driving permit (Geneva Convention, via the ANWB). Do exchange well within that year: the international permit is valid for one year at most. What it costs and which papers you arrange before leaving is in car and driving licence in Japan.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 5 of 5 of the journey: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Japan.