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[adamu]

You mention in the article that Americans shouldn't use ideco or nisa - are there any resources that confirm this? What happens if an American actually set up nisa/ideco?

There are a couple of potentially helpful links on https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/United_States.

[RetireJapan]

You mention in the article that Americans shouldn't use ideco or nisa - are there any resources that confirm this? What happens if an American actually set up nisa/ideco?

The problems are all on the US/IRS side. iDeCo/NISA providers will happily open accounts for US citizens, but the problems come later when you try to do your US tax return.

It all boils down to PFICs (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pfic.asp). All Japan listed mutual funds are PFICs, and iDeCo/tsumitate NISA only offers Japan listed mutual funds.

US citizens can use regular NISA to buy individual Japanese stocks, or iDeCo to save cash only (get the tax benefit, hope that inflation doesn't bite too much).