RetireJapan

Firstrade accepts investors who reside in Japan.
I opened a joint account with my wife (Japanese). We just had to send copies of passports, W-8BEN forms and applications. All the forms were available to download and upload on their website (although you can only upload a maximum of five at a time).
Customer service has been good so far (usually a day or two to answer an email). Their chatbot is quite limited.
They have $0 commissions on buying/selling US stocks, ETFs and mutual funds and no inactivity fees, which swung me their way as opposed to Interactive Brokers, who only offer Pro to investors based in Japan (no IBKR Lite). This would have meant monthly fees as I don't intend buying/selling that often.

The Firstrade account is all set up and waiting for funding. They only accept wire transfers from banks in Japan and anything over $10,000 gets you a $25 dollar rebate on whatever it cost you to send, no third parties such as Transferwise can be used however. So, I'm currently trying to find the cheapest way to wire money to them, as Prestia seems quite expensive.
I was going to set up a Shinsei account to use Go Remit, but it gets terrible reviews for technical problems.

tokyoal wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 7:05 am Firstrade accepts investors who reside in Japan.
...

https://www.firstrade.com/content/en-us/international

I'm not in the market, but I had a look at that and if I was, it seems very much worth checking out, doing a point by point comparison with IB.

AinT wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 11:44 pm I use Monex to buy US stocks exclusively.
The website is in Japanese, nothing chrome inline translation can't handle.
The main perk is that the iOS app which is used for the actual purchasing and selling of the US stock is available in English, so once you work out how to transfer money from your bank to the account on the website, not too difficult, the process of buying the stocks can all be done in English.

Hey AinT, just a quick question: which app is it that you're using ? I'm using an iPhone and there are a few applications of Monex (Monex Boom, etc.). They all display a similar logo but the color is not always black and yellow, like the Japanese Monex website I use to transfer money in the Monex account. For instance, there's MonexFX Speed, MonexTrader FX, Monex Appuri (in Japanese), and so on. Thanks for your help !!

Charles Schwab allows folks in Japan to set up accounts and trade.

Charles Schwab needs $25,000 to open an account unfortunately.

I'm finding Firstrade to be very good. Used them for a month now and no serious complaints.

The min to open a Charles Schwab account is not $25,000:

Charles Schwab Minimum Investment Amounts:

Charles Schwab minimum investment to open brokerage account: $0
Charles Schwab minimum initial deposit to open ROTH IRA, Traditional IRA, Simple IRA, or SEP IRA: $0

That being said there are a lot of good, free services out there now:
TradeStation
SoFi Active Investing
Ally Invest
Robinhood
E*TRADE
Firstrade
eOption
Vanguard
Charles Schwab/TD Ameritrade
Fidelity.

bushidobryan wrote: ↑Mon Jul 06, 2020 1:30 pm The min to open a Charles Schwab account is not $25,000:

Charles Schwab Minimum Investment Amounts:

Charles Schwab minimum investment to open brokerage account: $0

https://international.schwab.com/brokerage-account

A minimum deposit of US$25,000 is needed to open a Schwab One International account.

In accordance with our new forum rules, bushidobryan's account has been deactivated and they will not be able to reply here on the forum (see the stickied post in general for more information on the rules: basically that we are not going to allow commercial use of the forum).

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:59 pm In accordance with our new forum rules, bushidobryan's account has been deactivated and they will not be able to reply here on the forum (see the stickied post in general for more information on the rules: basically that we are not going to allow commercial use of the forum).

I checked earlier today what that poster was saying about schwab. Called and talked to their international section, and their answer--as it has been in the past--is that they do not open new accounts for US expats residing in japan. The person I talked to was very clear and direct about this.

They also said to keep watching, that while they did not know of any coming change, it could conceivably happen. Also, if the change did happen, the minimum to open an account would be US$25k.

**

Not specifically for schwab, but I've read that some expats use a family address in the US for account setup and/or ongoing use. They basically misrepresent their residency (to put it politely). Tho possibly not fraud, this certainly violates the terms and conditions that you agree to for a given account/bank/broker. I would not recommend this strategy to anyone. (Secondarily, I'd guess that schwab's "know-your-customer" requirements are robust enough that this "trick" would not work.)

I apologize if it is a stupid question, but is it true that if you want to open an account with Interactive Broker here in Japan the minimum amount is 10,000 US? I am not a US citizen or Japanese.