First Month in Japan Checklist for Foreign Residents

Last updated: 2026-08-01

Your first month in Japan is less about doing everything at once and more about getting the order right: residence card, address, municipal procedures, insurance and pension, phone, bank, healthcare, school or employer onboarding, and emergency setup.

This guide is for new mid-to-long-term foreign residents. It is not for ordinary short-term visitors or tourists. If you are still choosing a visa route, start with moving to Japan, Japan visa resources, or the country guide that fits you.

Use this as general planning information, not legal, immigration, tax, employment, healthcare, pension, insurance, banking, housing, financial, or medical advice. Requirements can change, municipal procedures vary, and your status of residence, municipality, employer, school, age, household, documents, and personal facts matter.

Official sources for this guide were checked on August 1, 2026.

First-Month Setup Map

Use this as a working order, not as a universal checklist. If your school, employer, sponsor, municipality, bank, or official source gives you different instructions for your facts, follow that source.

Timing	Main task	Who to ask first	Source to check
Before departure	Prepare documents, account access, medicine checks, first address plan, emergency contacts, and backup payment methods	School, employer, sponsor, doctor, airline, Japanese mission if needed	MHLW medicine import guidance and your route source
First few days	Confirm residence-card handling, secure your passport and original documents, set up temporary phone access, and attend orientation	Immigration, school, employer, sponsor, housing provider	Immigration Services Agency Guidebook on Living and Working
After deciding where you live	Complete address registration or moving-in procedures where required, then ask what municipal steps apply	Municipal office for your address	ISA daily life support portal, plus your city, ward, town, or village
First month	Sort health insurance, pension, My Number, banking, phone, utilities, healthcare access, and local rules	Employer or school first, then municipality, Japan Pension Service, bank, clinic, landlord	JPS social insurance guide, JPS pension enrollment, FSA banking hub
Ongoing	Track renewals, address changes, school or employer changes, insurance and pension notices, bank updates, emergency contacts, and official mail	Municipality, immigration, employer, school, bank, insurer, embassy or consulate	ISA, JPS, FSA, your municipality, and your nationality's embassy or consulate

What Depends On Nationality?

Most first-month setup in Japan is not nationality-specific. Nationality matters for visa eligibility, embassy support, home-country tax, medication rules before travel, and consular help. Once you arrive as a resident, many practical steps depend more on your Japanese status and local situation.

Topic	Usually controlled by	Practical meaning
Residence card	Immigration status and landing permission	Temporary Visitors generally do not receive residence cards. Mid-to-long-term residents usually need to follow residence-card and address procedures.
Address registration	Municipality and residence-card situation	The counter, documents, language support, and household documents vary by city, ward, town, or village.
My Number	Resident record and municipality	Digital Agency guidance says My Number is designated for people with a residence certificate, including foreign nationals newly registered after moving in from abroad.
Health insurance	Employer coverage, municipality, age, and residence facts	Ask your employer or school first if they handle coverage. If not, ask the municipal office what applies.
Pension	Age, insured-person category, work situation, spouse situation, and residence facts	Japan Pension Service separates Category I, II, and III handling. Do not assume students or working holiday residents can ignore pension.
Banking	Financial institution identity checks	Banks check identity, address, period of stay, status of residence, employment or school facts, and required items can differ.
Embassy or consulate help	Nationality	Save your own country's embassy or consulate contacts separately from Japan-side city hall tasks.

Canadian readers can also use the country-specific living in Japan as a Canadian checklist. U.S., UK, student, working holiday, and other readers should treat this page as the shared first-month hub, then use their route or country pages for route-specific details.

Before Departure: Prepare For The First Month

Do not turn pre-departure prep into a giant moving spreadsheet. For this page, prepare only the things that reduce first-month friction.

Create a folder, both paper and digital, with:

• passport photo page and visa page, if applicable
• Certificate of Eligibility copy, if your route used one
• school admission documents, employment documents, family-route documents, working holiday documents, or sponsor instructions
• temporary housing address in Japanese, plus host, landlord, dormitory, school, or employer contact details
• emergency contacts in Japan and at home
• proof of funds, backup cards, and a way to receive one-time passwords without relying only on a home-country phone number
• prescription names, doctor notes where relevant, and medicine import checks
• family-relationship documents and translations if you expect household registration, dependent, spouse, school, or child-related procedures
• copies of insurance, school, employment, lease, and arrival instructions

Medicine needs its own official check. MHLW says personal import procedures depend on the medicine, quantity, and category. Some narcotics, stimulant raw materials, and other controlled items require permission before entering Japan, and a foreign prescription by itself does not make a medicine legal to bring. If you need an Import Confirmation for personal-use pharmaceuticals or similar items, MHLW's online Application for Import Confirmation may be available for that category.

Also decide how you will pay for the first few weeks if a Japanese bank account is not ready. For budget categories, use the cost to move to Japan guide. For banking details, use how to open a bank account in Japan as a foreigner rather than relying on an old forum list.

First Few Days After Arrival

Your first job is to keep documents secure and avoid blocking later procedures.

The Immigration Services Agency guidebook is the main official resident-life source to keep nearby. It covers residence cards, municipal procedures, employment, medical care, pension, housing, emergencies, and daily life in multiple languages through the daily life support portal.

In the first few days:

• confirm whether your residence card was issued at the airport or will be issued later
• keep your passport, residence card if issued, COE copy, visa, school or employer documents, and housing documents together
• check whether you are required to carry a residence card or passport identification for your situation
• save your local address in Japanese if you already have one
• ask your school, employer, or sponsor what they handle and what you must do yourself
• set up temporary phone, SIM, or eSIM access if you need calls, SMS, maps, delivery, housing, school, work, or bank verification
• keep enough cash and backup payment access while phone, bank, and address procedures are still unsettled

Do not assume a phone contract has to be permanent. Some newcomers use a short-term SIM or eSIM first, then switch once address registration, payment method, and bank details are clearer. Check the provider's documents, cancellation terms, language support, and payment method before signing.

After Deciding Where You Live

Address registration is often the step that makes the rest of the first month easier. It can affect municipal procedures, My Number notification, health insurance, pension, banking, mail, employer records, school records, phone contracts, utilities, and delivery.

ISA guidance for new mid-to-long-term residents says the residence-place notification is due within 14 days after deciding the place of residence. Municipal pages show how this works locally:

• Yokohama City's English moving page says medium- and long-term non-Japanese residents with a residence card register at the ward office and lists moving-in notification within 14 days from overseas.
• Shinjuku City's English address-change page tells residents to notify the city within 14 days of an address or household change and lists family-relationship document caveats for some household procedures.

Use those as examples, not as instructions for your city. Your own municipality controls the counter, office hours, language support, accepted documents, proxy rules, family-document handling, and follow-up steps.

When you go to city hall, consider bringing:

Item	Why it may matter
Residence card, if issued	Central document for many foreign-resident procedures where applicable
Passport	Needed if the residence card will be issued later, or if the municipality asks for it
Address in Japanese	Reduces mistakes in resident record, mail, banking, delivery, school, employer, and phone records
Housing document	Helpful if the counter asks about dormitory, employer housing, lease, share house, or host details
School, employer, or sponsor contact	Useful if the office needs clarification or if your institution helps with procedures
Family-relationship documents and translations	May matter when registering household members together or proving a relationship
Existing health insurance, pension, My Number, or moving-out documents	Relevant if you moved from another municipality or previously lived in Japan
Interpreter or support person	JPS and municipal offices may serve you in Japanese, and local counters vary

Before leaving the municipal office, ask which of these apply to you: My Number notification, My Number Card application, National Health Insurance, National Pension, older-person medical care, child or school procedures, garbage rules, local disaster information, tax notices, language support, and consultation windows.

My Number And My Number Card

Separate the number from the card.

Digital Agency guidance says My Number is part of Japan's system for identifying people in administrative procedures. Its FAQ says My Number is designated for people with a residence certificate, including foreign nationals who newly register as residents after moving in from abroad, and the municipality notifies them by mail.

The My Number Card is a physical card and digital identity tool, but getting the number and applying for the card are not the same task. In the first month:

• make sure official mail can reach your registered address
• ask the municipality what to expect after resident registration
• keep My Number information private and store it carefully
• ask whether a residence certificate showing My Number is needed for a specific procedure before requesting one
• do not use the old notification-card system as your plan; Digital Agency FAQ says notification cards were abolished in 2020 and cannot be reissued

You do not need to understand every My Number service on day one. You do need to avoid losing official mail and avoid sharing the number casually.

Health Insurance And Pension

For health insurance and pension, the safest first question is: does my employer or school handle this, or do I need to go through the municipality and Japan Pension Service?

Japan Pension Service's social insurance guide gives the practical split:

Situation	Ask first	Likely direction to check
Regular employee at a covered workplace	Employer	Employer procedures for Employees' Health Insurance and Employees' Pension Insurance where coverage applies
Part-time or temporary worker	Employer, then JPS or municipality if unclear	Some part-time or temporary workers may be treated like regular company workers under social insurance systems
Student, working holiday resident without employer coverage, self-employed person, unemployed resident, or other person outside company coverage	Municipality and Japan Pension Service	National Health Insurance and National Pension handling, depending on your facts
Dependent spouse	Spouse's employer, then JPS if unclear	Category III pension handling may go through the spouse's employer if requirements are met
Age 75 or older	Municipality	Medical Care system for people aged 75 or older

For health insurance, the JPS social insurance guide says non-Japanese people whose resident period is longer than three months, including people expected to stay over three months depending on status, need to enroll in an appropriate public health insurance system. Yokohama City's National Health Insurance page is a municipal example: it separates employee health insurance, the medical care system for people aged 75 and older, and National Health Insurance for people not signed up for another scheme.

For pension, Japan Pension Service says residents of Japan from age 20 to 59, regardless of nationality, must be covered by National Pension by law. It separates Category I, II, and III insured persons. Category I examples include self-employed people, students, agricultural, forestry and fishery workers, and unemployed people. Category II generally covers company and public-sector workers under Employees' Pension Insurance. Category III covers certain economically dependent spouses of Category II insured persons.

That means you should not write "pension: done" until you know which category applies and who submitted the procedure. Keep pension notices, employer explanations, municipal instructions, and JPS office notes in one folder.

Banking, Phone, And Money Access

Banking is often easier after address registration and phone access, but the exact order depends on the bank, employer, school, and application method.

The Financial Services Agency's English banking pamphlet says financial institutions verify identity information when opening an account, including name, address, period of stay, status of residence, and employment status. It also says required items can differ by institution.

Use this sequence:

1. Make your passport, residence card, address, school or employer record, and application name as consistent as possible.
2. Check whether the bank path needs a Japanese phone number, SMS, app, branch visit, mail delivery, hanko, signature, employee ID, student card, or school or employer support.
3. Keep backup cash, cards, and remittance options until salary deposits, rent transfers, debit card, cash card, app, and online banking are actually usable.
4. Tell the bank when your address, period of stay, status of residence, school, employer, phone, or other registered information changes.
5. Do not give, sell, lend, rent, or transfer your bank account, cash card, passbook, debit card, phone number, or online banking access to another person.

For bank-specific detail, continue with how to open a bank account in Japan as a foreigner. This page is only the first-month setup order.

Healthcare, Medicine, And Prescriptions

Handle healthcare before you need it.

In the first month:

• identify the nearest clinic, hospital, pharmacy, and after-hours medical option near your home, school, or workplace
• ask your employer, school, municipality, or insurer how to use your health insurance card, certificate of eligibility, eligibility notice, or My Number Card health-insurance setup if it applies
• keep prescriptions, medicine names, dosage information, and doctor notes accessible
• check whether your medicine, device, injectable, controlled medication, or larger supply needed permission before arrival
• do not assume a foreign prescription, foreign over-the-counter label, or home-country legality controls Japan import rules
• save a translation app, medical vocabulary, allergy notes, and emergency contact information somewhere accessible offline

The ISA portal and guidebook are useful official hubs for medical-care categories and consultation links. For medicine imports, use MHLW and the relevant regional bureau or official system. For personal medical decisions, ask a qualified clinician.

Housing, Utilities, Mail, And Local Rules

Once your address is usable, small daily-life details start to matter.

Check:

• whether your name needs to be on the mailbox for registered mail, bank cards, My Number notices, school mail, employer mail, or municipal notices
• electricity, gas, water, internet, and utility start dates
• whether your lease, dormitory, share house, employer housing, or building has rules about registration address, guests, noise, trash, bicycles, smoking, pets, or move-out notice
• garbage separation, collection days, oversized trash rules, and neighborhood pickup location
• whether your municipality provides multilingual garbage calendars, disaster materials, consultation counters, or newcomer pages
• whether bicycle registration, bicycle insurance, parking permits, or commuter-pass rules apply in your city or prefecture

Shinjuku City's first-time resident page is a useful municipal example because it groups city office procedures, consultation, daily-life rules, garbage, Japanese-language study, disaster preparation, and emergency topics for foreign residents. Your own municipality may organize the same topics differently.

School, Employer, Or Sponsor Onboarding

If a school, employer, spouse, family sponsor, program office, or relocation provider says "we handle it," ask what that sentence means.

Confirm in writing:

• whether they help with city hall or only provide documents
• whether they enroll you in employer health insurance and pension, or only tell you where to ask
• whether they support bank account opening, phone setup, housing, utility contracts, or Japanese translation
• whether salary, tuition, rent, benefits, or reimbursements require a Japanese bank account by a specific date
• whether your attendance, start date, employment status, school enrollment, or sponsor details create immigration notifications later
• who to contact if municipal mail, pension mail, bank mail, or immigration mail arrives and you do not understand it

Students should also read the Japanese language school student visa guide. Canadians on working holiday can use the Japan working holiday visa Canada guide. If you are still deciding whether a route fits, go back to moving to Japan rather than using this page as a visa guide.

Emergency And Disaster Setup

Do not wait for an earthquake, typhoon, injury, lost wallet, or phone failure to build your emergency plan.

Set up:

• police and fire or ambulance emergency numbers in your phone
• your address in Japanese and English
• nearest hospital, after-hours clinic, police box, train station, and evacuation site
• municipal disaster page, hazard map, garbage and neighborhood notices, and multilingual consultation page
• JNTO Safety tips or another official disaster-alert source you can actually use
• your nationality's embassy or consulate contact details in Japan
• passport copy, residence-card photo, insurance information, prescriptions, allergies, emergency contacts, and backup payment method
• a plan for what to do if your phone, wallet, residence card, passport, bank card, or keys are lost

JNTO lists 119 for fire or ambulance and 110 for police. The ISA disaster information page and Cabinet Office multilingual disaster-app page collect official links for disasters and emergencies. Your municipality controls local evacuation sites and local instructions, so save your city page too.

Ongoing Tracking After The First Month

The first month is only the first wave. Keep a simple tracking note with:

• residence period expiration date, renewal window, and status-change notes
• address changes, moving-out or moving-in procedures, and mail forwarding
• school changes, employer changes, contract end dates, spouse or household changes, and sponsor contacts
• health insurance card, eligibility notice, premium notices, pension category, pension notices, exemption or postponement decisions if relevant, and payment deadlines
• bank address, phone, period-of-stay, status, school, employer, and tax-residence updates
• My Number notice, My Number Card status if applied, and documents that show My Number only when needed
• medical records, prescriptions, clinic contacts, and medicine import records
• utility contracts, phone contract, internet, lease, guarantor, bicycle registration, and move-out rules
• official links for immigration, municipality, JPS, FSA, MHLW, employer, school, bank, embassy, and insurer

This is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It keeps small notices from becoming expensive problems.

First-Month Mistakes To Avoid

• Do not use tourist assumptions for resident procedures.
• Do not wait on address registration because the apartment feels temporary.
• Do not assume every newcomer completes health insurance and pension in the same way.
• Do not assume your employer, school, spouse, or sponsor handles everything unless they identify the exact step.
• Do not ignore mail from city hall, immigration, Japan Pension Service, your bank, employer, school, landlord, insurer, or utility provider.
• Do not make bank plans from an old "easiest bank" recommendation.
• Do not bring medicine to Japan only because it is normal in your home country.
• Do not give your bank account, bank card, passbook, online banking access, phone number, residence card, or My Number information to another person.
• Do not treat My Number Card, health insurance, pension, bank, phone, and address changes as one-time tasks that never need updates.

FAQ

Is this checklist for tourists?

No. It is for mid-to-long-term foreign residents after arrival. If you are visiting short term, use how long you can stay in Japan without a visa and the relevant tourism visa resource, such as Japan tourist visa for Canadian citizens or Japan tourist visa for U.S. citizens.

What should I do first after arriving in Japan?

Confirm your residence-card situation, keep your passport and original documents secure, set up practical phone and payment access, and follow your school, employer, or sponsor orientation. Then handle address registration when you have decided where you live and your status requires it.

Do I need to register my address?

If you are a new mid-to-long-term resident, check the ISA guidebook, your residence-card instructions, and your municipality. ISA guidance says new mid-to-long-term residents need to notify their residence place within 14 days after deciding where they live. Municipal counters control the local process.

What documents should I bring to city hall?

Bring your residence card if issued, passport, address in Japanese, and any school, employer, sponsor, lease, dormitory, family-relationship, translation, or proxy documents that might apply. This is a preparation list, not a guarantee. Your municipality decides what it accepts.

Do foreign residents need Japanese health insurance?

Do not answer from nationality alone. JPS guidance says non-Japanese people whose resident period is longer than three months, including some people expected to stay over three months depending on status, need appropriate public health insurance. Ask your employer, school, municipality, or Japan Pension Service which route applies.

Do students or working holiday residents need to think about pension?

Yes. Japan Pension Service says residents of Japan from age 20 to 59, regardless of nationality, must be covered by National Pension by law. The category and procedure depend on your work, student, spouse, employer, age, and residence facts.

Do I need a My Number Card immediately?

Not usually as the first task. First, complete the resident-registration steps that apply and make sure official mail can reach you. Digital Agency FAQ says foreign nationals newly registered as residents after moving in from abroad receive a My Number notification from the municipality by mail. Ask the municipality whether and when to apply for the card.

Can I open a bank account before address registration?

Maybe with some routes or institutions, but do not plan around it without checking the bank. FSA guidance says banks verify identity information such as name, address, period of stay, status of residence, and employment status, and required items differ by financial institution.

What if my employer or school says they will handle everything?

Ask what they handle exactly. They may help with documents, translation, city hall visits, employer social insurance, bank introductions, housing, or phone setup, but those are different tasks. Keep a written list of what is handled by them and what remains your responsibility.

What should I track after the first month?

Track residence period, address, school or employer changes, insurance and pension notices, bank and phone updates, My Number documents, medicine records, lease and utility dates, emergency contacts, and mail from official offices. Set reminders before renewal or payment deadlines.

Official Sources Checked

• Immigration Services Agency daily life support portal for foreign nationals
• Immigration Services Agency Guidebook on Living and Working
• Japan Pension Service social insurance enrollment guide
• Japan Pension Service Enroll in Pension System
• Financial Services Agency Living in Japan: How to Open a Bank Account and Send Money
• Financial Services Agency English banking pamphlet
• Digital Agency My Number System and My Number Card
• Digital Agency My Number FAQ
• MHLW medicine import guidance
• MHLW Application for Import Confirmation
• Yokohama City moving-house procedures for non-Japanese residents
• Yokohama City National Health Insurance guidance
• Shinjuku City notification procedures for a change of address
• Shinjuku City first-time resident information
• Immigration Services Agency disaster information
• JNTO emergency guide and Safety tips app
• Cabinet Office helpful apps and websites in the event of disaster

For Omnishoku next steps, start with moving to Japan for route planning, cost to move to Japan for budget categories, opening a bank account in Japan as a foreigner for banking, living in Japan as a Canadian for Canada-specific first-month admin, moving to Japan from Canada, moving to Japan from the United States, moving to Japan from the UK, Japanese language school student visa, Japan working holiday visa Canada, and Japan digital nomad visa where relevant.