Your First 14 Days in Japan: An Arrival Checklist in the Right Order

You have your residence card (or you're about to). Now a stack of errands stands between you and a working life in Japan, and they all seem to depend on each other. The trick is the order. This is the arrival checklist in the sequence that actually works, so the phone-needs-a-bank-needs-an-address loop never traps you. For the why behind each step, we send you to our full relocation pillar rather than repeat it here.

The errands themselves are not hard. What makes the first two weeks stressful is that nobody hands you the order, so people try to open a bank account on day two, get turned away for having no registered address, and lose a week. Do them in the sequence below and each step unlocks the next. We re-ran this list against our own move and the relocation timeline tool to make sure nothing here sends you in a circle.

Before you land: what to sort first

A few minutes of prep on the plane side of the trip removes most of the friction on the Japan side. None of this is paperwork you file in advance; it is the documents and data you'll want in hand the moment you walk out of the airport.

If you don't yet have a lease or you're still choosing where to live, read how foreigners actually rent an apartment in Japan before you sign anything, and put your move-in date into the free Relocation Timeline Planner so the 14-day clock is visible. For the data-on-arrival gap, an eSIM is the simplest bridge.

The 14-day sequence at a glance

Each number below needs the document the previous number produced. The full reasoning, premiums, and edge cases live in our pillar, the practical moving-to-Japan timeline. This page is just the running order.

STEP 1Day 1 — Collect your residence card

If you land at a major airport such as Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Chubu and a growing list of others, immigration issues your residence card (在留カード / zairyū kādo) at the counter on arrival; at smaller ports the card is mailed to your registered address. The address field is blank for now; city hall fills it in at Step 2. This card is your main ID in Japan, so keep it on you. Full detail on categories and the card itself is in our pillar guide. Official source: Immigration Services Agency.

STEP 2Days 1–14 — Register your address, and get My Number

This is the only step with a legal deadline. Within 14 days of moving into your home, file your move-in registration (転入届 / tennyū-todoke) at your local city, ward, or town hall. Bring your residence card, your passport, and your lease. The clerk prints your registered address onto the back of your residence card, which is the document everything else in this list asks for. You're also enrolled in My Number, Japan's 12-digit national ID; the notification arrives by post a few weeks later. Sources: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications · My Number portal.

STEP 3Same visit — Health insurance and pension

Do this at the same counter while you're already at city hall. If your employer covers you through company insurance (社会保険 / shakai hoken), it's automatic and you can skip ahead. If you're self-employed, freelancing, a student, or between jobs, enroll in National Health Insurance (国民健康保険) and the National Pension (国民年金) here. Premiums, coverage percentages, and the lump-sum pension withdrawal for when you leave are all covered in the pillar. The point for sequencing is simply that it happens on the same trip as Step 2, so you don't make a second visit.

STEP 4Then — Open a bank account

Now that your residence card shows a registered address, a bank will deal with you. Japan Post Bank (ゆうちょ銀行 / Yūcho Ginkō) is the most reliably newcomer-friendly choice, because every post office branch has a counter and the residency bar is low. Bring your residence card with the printed address and your passport. Many of the big commercial banks ask for six months of residency first, so Japan Post or a newcomer-friendly online bank is the safer opening move. Which banks accept newcomers, and the SIM that pairs well with them, is laid out in our moving-to-Japan guide.

STEP 5Then — Get a local SIM

A local Japanese number is the last lock to open, and by now you have what it needs: a residence card with an address and a bank or card to pay with. Budget MVNOs like IIJmio, Mineo, and Rakuten Mobile are cheap with some English support; the big carriers cost more for wider coverage. Your arrival eSIM keeps you online in the meantime, so you're never stranded without data while the local SIM is set up. The bank-and-SIM specifics are in our moving-to-Japan guide.

Why this order breaks the loop

The famous chicken-and-egg problem is real, but it only bites if you start in the wrong place. The two things that quietly break the circle are a signed lease and an eSIM. The lease usually counts as proof of address for the city hall step, which means you don't need a registered address to register your address. The eSIM gives you data and a way to reach landlords and banks before you hold a Japanese number, which removes the no-phone gap from the very start. With those two in hand, the rest is a straight line: card, address, insurance, bank, SIM. For the full timeline, premiums, garbage rules, and the year-two tax surprise, read our pillar, Moving to Japan: the practical timeline, and map your own dates in the Relocation Timeline Planner.