RetireJapan

With the realisation that holding US Stocks and ETFs is tax-inefficient, I've decided to convert my holdings to JPY.

On SBI, there are three ways to do this, getting increasingly cheaper depending on how many hoops you're willing to jump through.

• 0.25 yen / dollar: Automatically convert to yen when selling. 1000 USD costs 250 JPY. Actually I'm not sure about this one, but the FAQ just says that their standard spread applies, which I assume is the same as the below method. (source).
• 0.25 yen / dollar: Use SBI Security's built-in currency converter to place a currency conversion order after selling. 1000 USD costs 250 JPY. Out of ignorance, this is what I used to convert to USD in the first place. (source).
• 0.04 yen / dollar: Transfer to SBI Net Bank and convert there. 1000 USD costs 40 JPY. (source)

If anybody knows a better way, please tell. I probably won't do this for another month or so while I make sure I understand the process properly, but once I've done it I may post a walk-through of the process for anybody insterested in doing something similar.

SBI also have three other currency exchange platforms, but they only support yen transfers in and out for margin trading, so are a waste of time for converting proceeds of US stocks. I got a bit lost and wasted some time opening an FX account to discover this. I found this (Japanese) article which helped me gather the above information:
【外貨の米ドルから円への両替の方法】 SBI証券から住信SBIネット銀行へ外貨出金

adamu wrote: ↑Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:56 am With the realisation that holding US Stocks and ETFs is tax-inefficient, I've decided to convert my holdings to JPY.
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I guess I could be wrong, but anything that you've held in US$ since about March should be up, quite a bit, in yen terms.


What is the tax-ineffeciency that you're referring to?

Dividends are taxed by both the US and Japan unless you do paperwork to get the overpayment back. And they're taxed by the US at 10% in a NISA regardless.

Plus there's the exchange fees both ways, and higher trading costs than domestic investments.

More details here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=184&start=20#p1444

I am also switching from ETFs to domestically-listed mutual funds to take advantage of automatic dividend reinvestment, which both removes the need to manually reinvest the dividends, and delays the payment of capital gains, allowing more money to compound faster.