Leaving Japan Checklist 2026: The Money You Lose If You Do It in the Wrong Order

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Leaving Japan is not one task. It is roughly fifteen small tasks spread across a ward office, a pension office, a tax office, a bank, a phone carrier, a landlord and a utility company — and several of them cannot be done once you have left. Miss the order and you will be trying to reclaim your own money from 8,000 km away, in Japanese, through a representative you no longer have.

This guide is built as a timeline, not a list. Start it about two months before your flight and work forward. Everything here applies whether you are leaving after two years on a work visa or after fifteen years with permanent residency, though the money at stake grows with the latter.

One number to anchor on before we start: the pension lump-sum withdrawal payment (dattai ichijikin) is currently capped at 60 months of contributions, and you must claim it within 2 years of losing your address in Japan. For someone on an average salary, that is a six-figure yen amount. It is the single most commonly forfeited item on this list.

The timeline at a glance

The two items people get wrong are the tax representative and the bank account. Both are decisions you make before you leave, and both determine whether you actually receive money later. We will come back to each in detail.

1. The pension lump-sum refund (脱退一時金) — the biggest number on this list

If you paid into the Japanese pension system for six months or more and you are not a Japanese national, you can claim a lump-sum withdrawal payment after you leave. You must not have met the 10-year qualifying period for an old-age pension, and you must no longer be covered by the system.

Two hard rules govern this:

• The cap is 60 months (5 years) of contributions. If you paid in for eight years, you are still refunded on the basis of five. A legal change to raise this cap to 8 years has been passed, but as of now the enforcement date has not been fixed — it is set by government ordinance within four years of the June 2025 promulgation. Until that date arrives, plan on 60 months.
• You have 2 years from the day you lose your address in Japan. Not two years from your flight — two years from the date your moving-out notification takes effect. Miss it and the money is gone permanently.

You cannot file while you are still a registered resident. The sequence is: submit the moving-out notification → leave the country → then send the claim form to the Japan Pension Service by post from abroad. Do not file early; it will be rejected.

What you need to send

The bank account must be in your own name and must accept yen transfers from Japan. This trips people up constantly. Confirm with your home bank before you leave, and get the SWIFT/BIC code plus the branch address in Roman letters while you still have time to fix problems.

2. The 20.42% you get back — but only with a tax representative

Here is the part almost nobody is told. When your pension lump-sum is paid, 20.42% is withheld as income tax on the employees’ pension (kosei nenkin) portion. That withheld amount is refundable — but only if you filed a tax representative notification (納税管理人の届出) before you left Japan.

The mechanics: you nominate someone resident in Japan — a friend, a colleague, a former employer, or a paid service — as your tax representative. After your lump-sum is paid, you send them the payment notice, and they file a tax return on your behalf to reclaim the 20.42%. The refund goes to them, and they forward it to you.

The form is submitted to the tax office covering your last address in Japan, and it takes about ten minutes. If you take one action from this article, make it this one — it is the highest return per minute of effort available to a departing resident.

Your tax representative also handles your residual resident tax if you have any outstanding, which is the next item.

3. Resident tax — the bill that follows you

Japanese resident tax (住民税) works on a one-year lag. The tax you pay this June through next May is calculated on last calendar year’s income. This means that when you leave, you almost certainly still owe tax on income you have already earned.

Crucially, liability is determined by whether you were a registered resident on 1 January. If you were resident in Japan on 1 January and leave in March, you owe the full year’s resident tax for that fiscal year — all of it — even though you will not be in the country to enjoy any of it.

Talk to your HR department early. Most companies will simply deduct the outstanding balance from your final paycheck, which is by far the cleanest option. If you are self-employed or leaving between jobs, either pay the balance in full at the ward office before departing, or have your tax representative handle it.

4. The ward office visit — do all of it in one trip

You can submit the moving-out notification (転出届) from 14 days before your departure date. Go once, and clear everything at the same counter run:

That last one is worth the extra ¥300. A copy of your removed residence record (住民票の除票) proves you no longer have an address in Japan, which is exactly what the pension claim needs. Getting it later, from overseas, is a genuine hassle.

5. Your bank account — think twice before closing it

The instinctive move is to close everything. Resist it, at least for one account.

Money can still arrive after you leave: your final salary, a deposit refund from your landlord, a utility overpayment, an insurance settlement. If your account is closed, each of those becomes a separate international problem. Meanwhile, your pension lump-sum is paid to your home country account, so it is not a reason to keep a Japanese one.

Whatever you choose, tell your bank you are leaving. Some accounts are legally tied to residency, and quietly keeping one open while non-resident can cause it to be frozen. Ask directly what their non-resident policy is; the answer varies considerably between banks.

6. Apartment, utilities and the deposit

Check your lease for the required notice period — one month is typical, two is not unusual. Give notice in writing, and keep a copy. Notice given late means paying rent for a month you are not there.

For utilities, call each provider and give them your final date. Electricity and gas usually require someone present for the gas disconnection; water and electricity are often handled remotely. Do this two weeks out, not two days.

On the deposit (敷金): Japanese practice deducts restoration costs, but there are limits. Normal wear and tear — sun-faded flooring, furniture indentations, wallpaper yellowing with age — is the landlord’s responsibility, not yours, under the national guidelines. Damage you caused is yours. If the deduction looks excessive, ask for an itemised breakdown before signing anything at the final inspection.

Take photographs of every room at handover, timestamped. It costs five minutes and is the only evidence you will have if a dispute arises after you have left the country.

7. Shipping your things home

Three routes, in rough order of cost:

The honest advice on furniture and appliances: sell them. Shipping a washing machine from Japan almost never makes financial sense, and Japanese appliances often will not match voltage or plug standards elsewhere anyway. Second-hand shops, local sale groups and community boards clear things quickly if you start a month out.

One thing to keep with you rather than ship: your pension book, tax documents, and your final payslips. You will need them for the lump-sum claim and you do not want them in a container for two months.

8. At the airport

Two things happen at immigration on your way out.

Surrender your residence card. If you are leaving permanently, you hand it in at the immigration counter. Keep a photocopy or a photo of both sides first — you will want the details for the pension claim.

Do not use the re-entry permit lane if you are not returning. Checking the special re-entry permit box on the departure card keeps your residence status alive, which sounds harmless but means you technically still hold status — and that can interfere with the pension claim, which requires that you no longer be covered by the system.

If you might return within a year on the same status, that is a different calculation and worth discussing with immigration or your employer before you fly.

The five mistakes that cost real money

1. Not filing the tax representative notification. Ten minutes of work; typically over ¥100,000 forfeited if skipped.
2. Closing every bank account. Late refunds then have nowhere to land.
3. Filing the pension claim before deregistering. It will be rejected, and by the time you find out you are abroad.
4. Forgetting the removed residence record (住民票の除票). ¥300 at the counter versus a bureaucratic ordeal from overseas.
5. Assuming the two-year pension deadline is generous. It passes faster than you think when you are rebuilding a life in another country.

Final word

Everything on this list is doable. What makes leaving Japan expensive is not difficulty — it is sequence. Several items can only be done while you are still a resident, and a few can only be done once you are not. Get the order right and the whole process is about three appointments and a stack of paperwork.

Start two months out. File the tax representative notification first, because it is the cheapest action with the largest payoff. Then work down the timeline. And whatever else you do, put a reminder in your phone for 18 months after your departure date — if the pension claim has somehow not been resolved by then, you will still have six months to fix it.