Tips for preparing to move to Japan

You've found your opportunity to live in Japan, and you want to chase it: an education, a job, a months-long pilgrimage around Shikoku... Whatever the draw may be for you, there are a lot of reasons to live in Japan. However, it's not as easy as practicing your arigatou jumping on an airplane; there is groundwork to be laid that will make your transition to living in Japan much easier.

This post lays out the stuff you'll want to do before you leave your home country to make your transition as smooth as possible. This post is based primarily on my experience as an American, so the examples presume you are relocating from the United States to Japan, but most of the items are applicable regardless of home country; just tweak the specifics as appropriate.

Set up a way to receive SMS from your country

Unless you're making a total break from your home country, you'll almost certainly need to interact with some services from your home country. Many of these services will require that you be able to receive SMS to confirm account log-ins and the like. Many of these services will only support numbers from their home country – I recently had a friend struggle to pay US taxes because TaxAct required a verification tax US phone number.

If you plan to keep your phone number from your home country active, and your phone provider offers global roaming, then you may be able to simply keep your home country SIM handy and plug it into your phone when you expect to receive a text.

If you don't want to keep your phone plan from home, or if you want the convenience of access to your home phone line without juggling SIM cards, then you'll need to get a phone number that you can access through an Internet connection.

Note that you'll definitely need to set up a real Japan-based phone number once you arrive in Japan, even if you keep the number from your home country. Fortunately, there are now several great phone plans in Japan for less than ¥2000 per month.

The dominant provider in this space for Americans and some Europeans is Google Voice. If you're from one of its supported countries, set up Google Voice for your main Google account and claim a phone number for your country. This is free; you don't need to pay for call credit.

If you don't live in a Google Voice country, or if you just don't want to use Google, there are plenty of consumer alternatives, though I haven't used any and can't speak to the quality of any one in particular.

Get a VPN with exits in your home country

VPNs aren't just for getting to watch the Netflix shows from your homeland. Living overseas, you'll find that a surprising number of websites filter inbound traffic based on IP address, sometimes to the point of entirely blocking access to their websites from Japan. In order to ensure smooth access to your bank accounts, retailers, and the like back home, you'll want to have a VPN ready.

There are VPNs at all sorts of price points, including many free ones. Personally, I take digital privacy and security seriously and keep a VPN active on all my devices almost all of the time, so I'm happy to pay for a well-reputed one. These days, I'm a pretty satisfied customer of NordVPN (referral link), though I hear Astrill remains the best paid VPN if you plan to visit China.

[Android] Create a dedicated Google account for Japan

Google accounts have a "country" setting, which affects what apps you can download from the app store. While your country setting can be changed, it has significant effects, can wipe any gift card balances you hold, and can only be changed once per year.

If you use Android devices, you'll want to create a new dedicated Google account for Japan and add this account to your Android devices. For whatever reason, most major Japanese companies have limited their apps to only be downloadable from the app store by users with their country set to Japan. So, you'll need a Japanese Google account, and you'll need to toggle to that account in the app store before you download important Japanese apps like PayPay, point card apps, and so on.

As a side benefit, you'll find that Japan's laws around aggressive email marketing are more lax than some countries', including America's, meaning that you'll get more spammy marketing email from Japanese companies (at least until you get comfortable navigating Japanese websites to find their well-hidden toggles). Using a dedicated Japan email account to silo this noise away from your primary account makes it all more manageable.

I'm 90% sure this is not an issue for the Mac/iOS App Stores, as all users worldwide are able to download any apps, but if you have trouble finding or downloading a Japanese app on iOS, creating a new Apple ID with Japan as its country may help.

Don't tell your banks that you're going abroad

One important thing not to do when preparing to move to Japan is telling your home country banks about your move. Most banks in most countries see having customers who live overseas as a needless compliance and tax risk, so if you tell a Japanese bank that you're moving to Japan, the odds are very high that they will force you to close your account.

If at all feasible, keep all of the financial accounts in your home country associated with an address there (like a family member's or a close friend's). Opt-in to as many paperless settings as possible to protect your privacy and spare your host's mailbox.

This is true of your investment accounts, your regular banking accounts, and your credit cards. Unless you are confident that you want to burn down your life in your home country and never going back, you will find that the optionality and flexibility of maintaining your financial life in your home country is certainly worth some minor inconveniences.

Japan is still quite a bit behind the US and Europe in terms of flexible debit and credit cards that work overseas; the few cards that do exist are also likely to reject a recent immigrant.  Even if you plan to be in Japan long-term, you will find that it takes months or years to create accounts and learn how to navigate financial life in Japan. Keep your come country accounts open as a fall-back option, to simplify overseas travel, and as a tool to make your ongoing transactions with family and friends easier.

Wrapping up

I hope you found this helpful! Did I miss another important preparation step? Let me know!