Living in EU, married to Japanese spouse, stocks in IB, steps to take while still abroad in order to retire in Japan?

[gouro]

Hello, firstly a big thanks, I discovered the website and forum a few days ago and it’s a wealth of information!

I am an EU citizen, married to a Japanese for 7 years and we are living in Germany. We are in our late 30s and have two kids.
We have an emergency fund and stocks in IB Europe.
Our plan is to eventually retire in Japan in our 40s sometime and live partly or mostly from stocks (my wife is a freelancer she could eventually find sth).

Apart from trying to increase the retirement funds, is there anything we could do while we still live abroad to help the transition? We visit Japan once a year and my wife has family there.

All paperwork, transfer funds, open a Japanese broker account/NISA for us and kids must be done when we relocate to Japan right? Anything I am missing and could be done from distance that could help us?

[RetireJapan]

Yes, you will need to be a resident to open accounts here, etc.

The one thing you can do is get your Japanese language ability (written and spoken) as good as possible. That will make a huge difference to your transition and quality of life here. Good luck!

[adamu]

I'm not sure of the practicalities but maybe keeping a base in Germany too and ease the transition over a few years would be a good idea. You don't want to pack up and ship out then regret it 2 years down the line. Visiting is one thing, but living is another.

[gouro]

Thank you, yes we ll do it as gradual as possible. My wife has still a Japanese bank account (she just didn’t tell them she moved abroad) but I do not want to connect a jp broker since we are currently in a gray zone I guess.

[banders]

Visiting is one thing, but living is another.

Never a truer word spoken...