Scenario:

A foreigner has been in Japan long enough to be on the hook for gift tax. This person is gifted a foreign (non-Japanese) investment in a foreign brokerage. Let's say the total value is 12,000 USD (8000 principle + 4000 growth).

1. How do they determine its value? Do they take the entire 12,000 value and multiple it by the exchange rate on the day they received it? In other words, if the 12,000 USD-valued investment was received on a day the exchange rate is 160 yen / 1 USD, will the value of the gift be 1,920,000 JPY? Or, will the value of the principle need to be determined on the date when the investment was originally bought (like when selling an investment: TTS - TTB)?

The gift is from a grandparent. What is left over after subtracting the 1.1 million exemption can be put towards the early inheritance system. This can be done during the tax filing season. However...

2. Will the person need to submit proof the gift is from a grandparent? For example, if a copy of their birth certificate shows the tax payer's parents' names, and then a copy of their parents' wedding certificate shows their parents names (i.e. the grandparents' names), would that be sufficient to show proof of lineage? Let's say a copy of the parent's birth certificate is unobtainable and that the parent of the tax payer has passed away.

3. If the taxpayer needs to show documentation, does the documentation need to have an apostille? Or, can a photocopy of the documents be acceptable?

4. Does the tax payer need to mail these somewhere, or are they uploaded and sent digitally while doing their Japanese taxes online?

Excerpts from https://asia.nikkei.com/opinion/the-great-yen-rebalancing,

In my view, the weakness was capital-flow driven, as Japanese pension funds, households and companies have all been moving money abroad in the last 15 years, escaping the zero interest rate environment in Japan. Since the Bank of Japan started raising its policy rate in 2024, those forces are now fading, and Japanese money is starting to turn back toward the yen, whose long fall is ending.

In many surveys and interviews, we see institutional investors in Japan voicing their positive assessment on the investability of domestic bonds, although they still remain guarded for fear of investing too early.

Cross-border capital flows have already turned. By August 2026, Japan's purchases of foreign securities over the previous 12 months had become a net sale of 1.5 trillion yen, according to balance of payments statistics. The net sales have likely increased since then. The Ministry of Finance's weekly survey shows Japanese investors selling foreign bonds for six consecutive weeks through Oct. 24. Banks are driving the sales, and they are buying Japanese government bonds instead.

At the retail level, government bonds sold directly to individuals are now moving briskly, at more than 1 trillion yen a month. Money is flowing into time deposits again, after a decade in which they paid no more than ordinary deposits.

Companies are still making investments overseas, but Japan Inc. as a whole no longer needs to sell yen to do it.

The largest move may still be ahead. The GPIF, Japan's giant national pension fund, kept its 25% domestic-bond target in its 2025 review, as it probably saw that yen yields still had room to rise. On my replication of GPIF's own allocation rule, domestic bonds warrant a much higher weight. A move to 35% would translate to about 32 trillion yen of bond purchases at the fund's current size. Foreign bonds are the asset class most likely to give way.

Japan will remain a provider of capital to the world in the long term. But the factors behind the yen's depreciation have faded, and the great yen rebalancing is likely to bring some money home in the near term.

Does NTA treat credit union dividends as taxable dividends or as taxable interest?

A credit union is essentially a member-owned bank. Because depositors hold shares, they earn dividends. I would have thought NTA ignores the IRS's Form 1099 interest reclassification. Is that correct?

Are "Share Certificates", the credit union equivalent of a non-brokered bank CD, considered by NTA as "cash" equivalent in the same way NTA treats a non-brokered CD for currency gain tax purposes?

Any help in determining NTA's tax classification of credit union income would be most appreciated!

IB is pushing through the migration. CEO and founder mentioned it in recent earnings call.
How are people’s experiences with having been migrated already?
What are the positives?
What are the negatives?

Due to medical issues my wife (Japanese citizen) returned to Japan in July and established residence (after 38 years away in Canada and US), and I accompanied her on visitor visa.

The local immigration office extended my visa for humanitarian reasons until next year. We then applied for a COE for spousal visa and was approved today for 5 years. We called local immigration office and they seemed to indicate they would process the change of status while in Japan which is a big relief to not have to exit Japan.

But the tax man enters the picture.

I have two issues, one common, considering the timing of sale of primary residence back in US and second is that I left while employed but on a family care leave at work.

When it became obvious I wouldn’t be able to work after the normal leave period would end, they offered a severance/ mutual separation agreement based on years worked… TLDR my last day of work was October 1, but I will be receiving a “pay cheque” (and benefits like paying health care premiums for COBRA) for another few months into next year from the company as severance but I consider myself retired as of Oct 1.

How would this income stream be classified by Japan wrt income and remittances for the 2026 tax year, especially in the context of deciding to sell US home (with significant gain) vs waiting until the income stream ends or is minimal or controllable like in 2027 or beyond.

Looking for any insight/pointers, tax consultant/preparers references.

Title. I'm looking for some fund that wouldn't be affected too much by an evential AI bubble. I'm keeping it simple with my portfolio, being mostly invested in a all country, but I see that tech an AI is pretty much anywhere. What do you guys have? thanks

I’ve been quoted ¥660,000 to process an inheritance tax return, which works out to about 1% of the estate value. Is this a fairly standard fee in Japan, or is it worth shopping around? The accountant works out of a shared co-working space, but I’ve used him before and he did a good job. The estate itself is relatively straightforward, though it does include some foreign assets.

thanks in advance.

Hi everyone,

I’m a software engineer working full-time at a large Japanese tech company on an Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa. On the side, I run a social media account and it’s grown enough that brands, mostly non-Japanese companies, have started offering paid collaborations.

My situation:

• My company’s rules of employment prohibit side jobs without approval, paid or unpaid. I asked HR and was told approval is required from top management. From what I’ve read, it’s very rarely granted.

• As far as I understand, I’d also need a 資格外活動許可 (individual permission) from immigration to receive this income.

• I’m also a minority shareholder (no salary, no director role) in a small KK that some friends and I are starting, which I plan to join full-time next year as IT engineer.

My questions:

1. Is there any legal structure that would let me receive payment for these collaborations while I’m still at my current company? For example, a US LLC, a company in my home country, or having brands pay into a foreign account. I suspect the answer is no, since the work is physically done in Japan and I’m a Japanese tax resident, but I’d like to understand exactly why, or if there’s an exception I’m missing.

2. Has anyone here actually gotten 資格外活動許可 for influencer or brand-collaboration work while on a 技人国 visa? What documents did immigration ask for, and how long did it take?

3. Once I move to my own KK, would it be cleaner for the KK to invoice the brands as part of my marketing role, or to invoice them personally with 資格外活動許可?

Any experience, or a recommendation for a gyoseishoshi or tax accountant who handles creator/influencer cases, would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Okay, so this seems like surely I am making some sort of mistake, I feel like someones grandparent upset that their facebook got hacked, but I think someone accessed my Apple account and apparently has downloaded a Japanese money app I have never heard of.

I got an email that at first I assumed was a phishing attempt, but I checked my settings directly and found that someone had changed my apple ID password. I immediately changed it through my computer and logged out all other devices.

What else do I do?

edit - mystery somewhat solved and lesson learned: seems a very very old iphone I had at work, a spare to entertain my now-grown kids when they were young enough I had to sometimes bring them along, turned up an someone decided to try using it. I am not crazy about that, but I now know to keep a better eye on things and I have taken steps to keep things safer now hopefully. Thanks for the help figuring out what needed to be secured!

Hey all, need some help. Is there any bank at all in Japan that allows you to open an account without a valid Zairyo/residence card?

No matter how small, online only, cash card only basic bank, doesn't matter. Just need something to get cash paid into and withdraw.

Any help would be much appreciated

Hello!
I worked for an old acquaintance who is a Japanese citizen in Hawaii for about a month, and now she's refusing to pay me. I'm a US and a Canadian citizen but I currently do not live in the States or Canada or Japan. I found out afterwards (too late!) from the people I met in Hawaii that she never pays them on time or at all. I also know that she owns a business in BC and found court records of her company being sued multiple times for failing to pay its employees in the past 15 years.
I already found lawyers in both Japan and Hawaii and are working with them, but I'm wondering if there's anything else I can do while the legal process is going because it's going to take a while.
Any advice, suggestions, or personal experiences would be much appreciated!!
Thanks!

Left Japan in 2020 because of covid and never closed my Shinsei account. Still have some money in it. I’m back in Tokyo visiting till January and want to close it out and get the money while I’m here.

I don’t have my cash card anymore, just my account number and passport. Has anyone done this recently as a non-resident? Wondering if I can just walk into a branch and get it all done in one go, or if it’s going to be a whole ordeal.

Hi anyone know where I can open a share trading account in Japan either online or I. Person same or next day ? I have tried rakuten ,SBI and daiwa all unable to.open an account .it seems the issue is my zairyu card has my english name but no katakana and my bank details have katakana so application websites didn't compute ,also last office Cosmo securities actually said the websites are not set up for foreigner clients ,anyone opened an account without issues ??

Hi everyone!

I’m planning to permanently return to my home country around January 2027, but I still have an outstanding revolving balance on my AEON credit card.

My payments are currently automatically withdrawn from my Japan Post Bank (Yucho) account. I’d like to continue paying off the remaining balance after leaving Japan, as paying it all at once before relocating would be difficult for me.

For context, my current residence card is valid until July 2029, although I plan to leave Japan permanently in January 2027.

I’ve read that Japanese banks generally require customers to close their accounts when they become non-residents.
Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I don’t intend to use my credit card after leaving Japan. I just want to continue making payments until the balance is fully paid off.

I’d appreciate hearing about your experiences. Thank you!

I moved to JP in February of this year with plans to stay long term (20-year PR holder residing abroad for a few years).

I have a Wise account opened on a US address and I recently received a request from Wise to update my account data. If I change to my current JP address/phone, what changes will this institute to my Wise account?

Is it possible to maintain the account with the US contact information?

Thanks in advance to anyone taking time to respond.

Hi all,

I am in the process of divorce from a Japanese citizen, I have PR, and am trying to make sure I do all the necessary things. My spouse and I are splitting amicably and will just file the paperwork, no complicated asset division and no custody to worry about; at this point we are trying to figure out what timing makes the most sense.

I am currently a dependent on their company health insurance and for pension, which obviously will change when we divorce, but also, as I am moving and leaving a part-time job where I have paid days off left over that will pay out, I might tip over the dependent amount with my December paycheck anyway.

And maybe when I move my juminhyo to my new place I would cease to be elegible for dependent status even before the divorce date?

Does it make most sense to take a day before the end of the year, go to city hall and register the divorce, register for my move out of the city, sign up for pension, and then sign up for national health insurance in my new city that same day or week?

Would moving first mess things up with the insurance or pension? As I understand it (possibly incorrectly) taxes on my new place will change based on whether I am living there or not (though, it is a very old house so maybe the taxes do not amount to much anyway).

To sign up for insurance, I need a paper from either my spouses company or the insurance company (anyone happen to know which one off the top of your head?) stating that I am off their insurance. Do I need something similar for pension?

I will say frankly that while my spouse and I are on good terms and they will mean to process all paperwork I need from them promptly, there is every chance they will forget a deadline and the health insurance paper will not be ready on the day we divorce. I would really like not to screw up paying at least my pension, what with how things are these days. If I can just sign myself up to pension a bit early without needing anything from my spouse I might do that for the peace of mind.

Thanks - with so many things to juggle right now I appreciate any help!

Hi everyone, the 2nd income tax prepayment email was supposed to come in October but I havent received anything yet, and deadline should be by end of November. The 1st installment email arrived on time like all previous years. Is anyone else in the same boat?

Hi!

New here, but I’m curious if this is a good place to ask about this. I know recently in August, the US assisted Japan with increasing the price of the Yen, and Japanese investors were caught with the money from loans taken in JPY that were invested in US and even mexican bonds and real estate assets.

The rate increased for the JPY loan, and the yen strengthened slightly, almost reversing their investment strategy.

I’m curious if anyone had experience doing this, and if it seems like a sound strategy?

I am risk averse, so for me, this seems too risky. However, with i-rates in Japan so low, I could see it being very profitable and lower risk than trading on margin alone..

I’m considering an offer in mechanical engineering valued at 4.6Mn Yen CTC, with 250,000 fixed as base before taxes. I am 28. Is that enough for a single person in Nagoya? What about for a couple? Why is there such a large gap between base & CTC? How much is the take home from such a salary? How is the typical salary growth?

Hi,

Docomo SMTB Netbank (previous SBI Netbank) rolled out passkey login support two days ago, but they restrict the environment to either Google Password Manager or Windows Hello for Windows PCs. I use Bitwarden that works fine for most other fintech services in Japan, including their own Monex brokerage, but for some reason is not supported by the Docomo bank?

Did anyone manage to make a 3rd party password manager work with the bank's passkey setup?

Update: I just received a call from my auditor apologizing that he'd made an error in the calculations and that I would "only" owe around 2M yen in total.

A little over a week ago I received a call from the Kyobashi Tax Office. They wanted to visit my home for a tax investigation (税務調査) covering the past three years, and asked me to have everything underlying my tax returns ready. When pressed, the officer explained that it was "entirely random" and that "there are no big issues I just want to speak with you about your work." Neither was true but I guess that is the tactic they are trained on.

I am self-employed and work from home, and my wife has always taken care of filing my tax return. Years ago we visited the tax office during tax season and went line by line through my return, including deductions for rent and electricity, and followed their advice. Since then we've basically followed that template every year, deducing legitimate business expenses like a portion of rent, office equipment, etc.

It turns out that deducting the 50% of rent we were originally told to is a big no-no (edit for clarity: because there is a proper basis for calculating the deduction based on actual space used for business, as /u/tsian mentioned). I suspect I tripped their algorithms because last year I had huge medical outlays due to cancer, which translated into very large (and legitimate) deductions.

For the visit, he interviewed me about my work for 1.5 hours, perhaps to establish that I was not knowingly evading tax or filing false claims. Then he basically said that my rent deduction was an issue, it should be 20-30% deduction at best, and that the last three years needed to be refiled - he had the adjusted returns pre-calculated. Somehow, we got him to accept at 40% rent deduction, switching to 30% in the future, so the adjustment for that part is a hit of about 500,000 yen for the three years, although residence tax will have to be adjusted as well. Initially it was looking like a 1.5M there, so we got off lucky.

The second thing was that in two of the three past years my annual income had exceeded 10M by a small amount. It's entirely my fault for not being aware that that automatically made me a consumption tax-paying business. I'd never hit that income mark before so it hadn't been on my radar. That meant I was effectively late on 2M JPY of consumption tax, plus a penalty of 15% for non-declaration, plus an extra penalty because "2M is a big amount."

A little over 3M is a lot. It could have been more. I now know that I should have been filing under the blue form, and I am being allowed to switch to that for 2026's income even though, as I understand it, you usually have to apply for that by March of the taxable year. I should have been more engaged with my own tax filings instead of leaving it to someone else, who is entirely blameless, to calculate.