Transferring Larger Amounts of Money from Abroad to Japan

[travelingwomoving]

Hi everyone,

Hope all is well. I need some advice with regards to transferring larger amounts of money to Japan from abroad. In my specific case, I will soon sell a house in Italy, and I plan to transfer the money from the sale to my bank account in Japan in order to buy a house here (I currently have accounts at Bank of Yokohama and MUFJ, but am open to start a new account at another bank if necessary). While I'm sure that a regular remittance would work fine, I can also imagine this would be subject to taxes and bank fees of different sorts. Also, given that we are talking a considerable sum of Euro, I don't know if I want to use Wise or OFX (although I've never used these services before).

Does anyone have any experience with something similar, if not even the same situation? Is there a best/better way to do this? Thanks in advance for any insight.

[Tkydon]

How long have you been in Japan?

[sutebayashi]

My spouse once transferred a big chunk of euros to Japan.

Spouse was in Europe at the time, but was able to open an account with Central Tanshi FX, despite being non-resident. I was into forex trading, so set to investigating how to do it cheap.

With Central Tanshi FX, and certain other forex brokers, you can exchange money at the real-time exchange rate, with narrow fx rate spreads.

I think we wired the money via SWIFT MT message from the Europe bank directly in EUR to CentralTanshiFX (or perhaps via then-Citibank, now-Prestia, but I forget if we had that hop or not)

At the time, the yen was strong and we waited quite some time for a more favourable exchange rate before actually exchanging the euros to yen. But the euros were sitting in the CentralTanshi FX account here in Japan.
Then once the rate was satisfactory, we did the conversion to yen, and thereafter cashing out to a yen bank account was straightforward. (My spouse earned these euros as income when in Europe, and I don’t recall ever getting asked about the money by tax types at that time, but as it was a one way conversion I don’t believe any tax was due on the conversion itself)

Things may have changed somewhat, as this was more than a decade ago, and it was a little complicated, so don’t bother if you do the sums and don’t think it worth the hassle.

There are different fees to consider:
- cost of wiring the Euros
- cost of receiving the Euros in Japan
- cost of converting the Euros to Yen (consider the spread on the fx rate)

It can be done pretty cheaply if that is an objective (more than ease), even for large amounts. Getting a tight forex spread takes on importance the larger the amount, but otherwise flat fees for the other lifting charges is also important.

These are some links to the players I am aware offer such services, but I haven’t read these links in detail yet to discover how out of date my info may be:

https://www.central-tanshifx.com/fxdirectplus/exchange/
https://www.gaikaex.com/gaikaex/information/delivery/
https://www.moneypartners.co.jp/fx/service/con.html

[travelingwomoving]

Thank you for the replies!

I'm currently working on my permanent resident status. I'll definitely look into SWIFT MT messages and those links as well.

Cheers.

[misoandpickles]

How long have you been in Japan?

Tkydon, could you explain why this is relevant? Does tax exposure in Japan affect transfers?

[Tkydon]

How long have you been in Japan?

Tkydon, could you explain why this is relevant? Does tax exposure in Japan affect transfers?

If you have been in Japan for more than 5 years in the last 10 years, you are liable for Japanese Capital Gains Tax on the sale of the Italian Property, whether you remit the funds to Japan in the same year or not.

If you have been in Japan for less than 5 years in the last 10 years, you are only liable for Capital Gains Tax on the sale of the property only if you remit the funds to Japan in the same year. If you leave the funds in Italy until the next tax year, you can transfer the money free of Capital Gains Tax.

Transferring funds is not in itself a taxable event.

[TokyoWart]

How long have you been in Japan?

Tkydon, could you explain why this is relevant? Does tax exposure in Japan affect transfers?

By doing the transfer you create a Japanese tax liability you would not otherwise have if you have lived in Japan less than 5 years. It's a self-inflicted tax wound.

[solo7100]

How long have you been in Japan?

Tkydon, could you explain why this is relevant? Does tax exposure in Japan affect transfers?

If you have been in Japan for more than 5 years in the last 10 years, you are liable for Japanese Capital Gains Tax on the sale of the Italian Property, whether you remit the funds to Japan in the same year or not.

If you have been in Japan for less than 5 years in the last 10 years, you are only liable for Capital Gains Tax on the sale of the property only if you remit the funds to Japan in the same year. If you leave the funds in Italy until the next tax year, you can transfer the money free of Capital Gains Tax.

Transferring funds is not in itself a taxable event.

What if you have a Japanese bank account, like Shinsei or some other English based bank, whereby you can transfer funds into the account, but in dollars (NOT Yen). I think I read somewhere that if you bring in money into a multi currency account here that it's not considered a transfer for Japan law purposes?

I feel like that doesn't seem right (a transfer is a transfer), but yea...I am in the same question boat.

[captainspoke]

... (a transfer is a transfer) ...

Correct. The currency it is denominated in does not matter.

[solo7100]

... (a transfer is a transfer) ...

Correct. The currency it is denominated in does not matter.

Fair enough, got it. Thank ya much..