what happens when you leave?

[seb]

Personally, I don't have a 30 year plan, and with my companion we often talk going to Europe in 5~10 years.

In that case, can I still keep my bank accounts, especially my investments in Japan? Or will I have to sell everything, and re-buy in my home country or new location?

In the latter case, I might need to balance my investment in both Japan and France...

[RetireJapan]

I think most banks/brokers will ask you to close your accounts if you leave Japan for good. For iDeCo, you can't do that, so they will keep administering the account for you until you reach the cash out age (currently 60) at which point they will send it to you.

You can claim nenkin from abroad.

Anyone else?

PS I changed the title of your post from live to leave. Hope that was okay

[Beaglehound]

I had a Japanese bank account from 2004 to 2016 while non resident in Japan. No issues. However, after opening another in 2018 they asked me to confirm I was still resident last year. Whether this is across the board for all banks I don’t know, but there is a thread where others across various banks mentioned having to do the same.

[RetireJapan]

I think there is a mild crackdown on this as dormant accounts can get used for crime, money-laundering, etc.

That is where those annoying 'send us another copy of your zairyu card' requests are coming from. Another way banks check this is by sending mail to your registered address.

[seb]

Thx for the answers. And yes, the title should have been "leave" lol.

I wonder how much trouble it would be to transfer a sizeable amount of money across countries.

[StockBeard]

I wonder how much trouble it would be to transfer a sizeable amount of money across countries.

I think the main issue would be the tax implications, rather than the transfer itself. If you have to sell a significant amount of stock/ETF (in this case, all of it) before transferring it, you're liable for a potentially big tax on capital gain.

If you know for sure that you will be moving to another country (e.g. France) in the next few years, I'd say that balancing your investments in the two countries is not a bad idea to spread your risk.

As for account closure, in my experience, it heavily depends if you plan to come back to Japan after that, and if you have family in Japan. In 2014, I left Japan for the US, with the intent to come back to Japan "one day" although I wasn't sure if that would be within a year or 10 years (turned out to be 3). At the time, the banks asked me if the move was permanent, and there was a lot of "wink, wink" as to what permanent really meant (as long as I had the "intent" to come back to Japan sometime, they considered it was not a permanent move abroad). At the end of the day, all they really wanted was a way to contact me in Japan. I was able to give them my in-laws address and that was enough.

But as others have mentioned, I think rules have become a bit more strict since then. I recall being in "trouble" with Shinsei when I contacted them from the US for a money transfer from JP to my US account, and them asking me "we need your My Number for that". And I was like "I have no idea what this thing is, and I certainly don't have it" (My Number became a thing after I had left Japan). "We'll let it pass this time, but we'll need it the next time you want to do an international transfer"...

[seb]

Thanks StokeBeard for sharing your experience. It's really interesting information.

[YokohamaGeezer]

Exit tax... what happens if you do have over 100m in stocks held overseas? Asking for a friend.....

Has anyone known anyone going through the process of organising and ticking all the boxes?

Thank you

[StockBeard]

Exit tax... what happens if you do have over 100m in stocks held overseas? Asking for a friend.....

My 2 cents:

So, in theory, when you have more than 100m yen in stocks overseas, the Japanese government knows about it from you because you have to report it along your income tax every year. (that's the overseas assets and liability report, or whatever its actual name is).

Now, when you leave Japan, you have to let your local city hall know about it, and typically at that point they make sure you're ok in terms of tax payment. The city hall would ask for the current years' tax payment if needed, in order to "close" that person's tax situation. I assume that it's also the point where they would compute the exit tax for people who have reported foreign assets above 100m. I believe they would tax those investments on capital gain as if the stock had all been sold on the day of departure. So, if for example there are 120m in stocks, and that those were initially bought for 100m, the tax would be somewhere around 20% of the inferred "capital gain" of 20 million. Or about 4 million yen in tax.

But I don't know anyone who's shared their experiences on that yet. It's a fairly recent thing, I think. (2015?). I mean, the way this thing is worded, I feel one would actually have to sell all their stock at that point (and re-buy it instantly maybe?), to avoid having to be taxed on the same capital gain again in the future, in another country.

I'm obviously not an expert on that topic. Would love to hear more from people who know what they are talking about (i.e. not me)

[RetireJapan]

Or sell enough to take you under 100m. As you would be selling all your Japanese investments too, that shouldn't be too much of a stretch I guess?