Leaving Japan: The Moving-Out Checklist Nobody Hands You
Updated: 2026-08-30
Quick answer: the order things get closed
Leaving Japan is not one errand; it's a sequence, and the order matters more than the speed. If I had to hand you a single rule, it would be this: close the things that need an in-person visit first, settle anything tied to money and paperwork next, and leave the connective pieces — your bank access and your phone line — for the very end.
The rough shape looks like this: file your move-out notice at the ward office, stop your utilities and home internet, settle your resident tax, hand back your residence card as you actually leave the country, close your bank account, and cancel your phone line last of all. Each step tends to depend on the one before it, which is why doing them out of order is where people get stuck.
Below I'll walk each one in the order I'd do it myself, with the real names of the forms and offices so you can search or ask with confidence. Where the details are legally specific — tax and pension especially — I'll point you to official guidance rather than pretend a checklist can replace it.
The ward office: your move-out notice (tenshutsu todoke)
Your first stop is the municipal office where you're registered. The form you're looking for is the move-out notification, or tenshutsu todoke. You can usually file it up to about two weeks before you leave, and you'll want your residence card and, if you have one, your My Number card with you. This single step quietly unlocks several of the others, so I treat it as the true starting line.
While you're there, ask about your national health insurance and any municipal enrollments tied to your address — these are canceled or adjusted at the same counter, and the staff will tell you what final documents you need. If you've been paying into the pension or national health system, this is also the moment to ask what paperwork you should carry out of the country, because some of it is hard to request once you're gone.
Bring more identification than you think you need, and go earlier in the day than feels necessary. Counters get busy, and a second trip because you were missing one card is the most avoidable delay in the whole process.
Utilities and home internet: stopping the meters
Electricity, gas, and water each need a separate stop request, usually a few days to a couple of weeks ahead of your final day. Have your account or customer number ready, tell them your exact move-out date, and ask how the final reading and final bill will be handled — some can close the meter without you being home, others prefer an appointment, especially for gas.
Home internet is its own small project. Fibre and fixed-line contracts often have a cancellation notice period and, in many cases, equipment you must return by post — the router or ONU that arrived when you signed up. Start this one early, because the return box and the final invoice can arrive after you've mentally 'finished' the apartment.
For every one of these, ask how the closing bill reaches you and how you'll pay it. If a final amount lands after you've left, you don't want it tied only to a mailbox you no longer check — note where each confirmation is being sent, whether that's an app, an email, or a text.
Resident tax and the money paperwork
Resident tax (juminzei) is the one that surprises people, because it's charged based on the previous year's income but billed in the current year. That timing means you can owe it after you've stopped earning, and even after you've left. If you depart mid-year with a balance outstanding, you may be asked to settle it in advance or to appoint a tax representative (nozei kanrinin) who handles it on your behalf.
This is exactly the kind of thing I won't try to compute for you in a blog post. The right move is to ask at the ward office's tax section, and to read the official municipal and National Tax Agency guidance for your situation. A lump-sum withdrawal of pension contributions also exists for people leaving Japan, but the eligibility and procedure are specific — treat the official pension service information as the source of truth, not a checklist like this one.
Whatever you settle, keep the receipts and reference numbers somewhere you can reach from abroad. Refunds, confirmations, and follow-up questions have a way of arriving weeks later, and they almost always come to a phone number or an app rather than to your old front door.
The airport: returning your residence card, and the bank
Your residence card is handed back at the airport when you actually leave — you return it to the immigration officer at departure, not at a city office beforehand. Because of that, keep it on you through the whole journey out; don't pack it deep in checked luggage. If you hold a re-entry permit and genuinely intend to come back, the rules differ, so confirm your own status before you assume you're surrendering it.
Your bank account is best closed near the end, once you're sure nothing else needs to pay out from it — that last utility bill, a deposit refund from your landlord, a tax settlement. Closing too early can strand a payment; closing too late can leave a dormant account behind you. Visit the branch with your identification and bankbook, and ask how any final balance is sent to you.
The through-line across both of these is timing. The residence card is the last physical thing the country takes back, and the bank is close behind it — which is why the one tool that keeps working through all of it deserves its own step, and it's the last one.
Cancel your phone line last — it's the hinge of the move-out
Here's the quiet truth of every departure: almost nothing confirms itself in person anymore. The final utility invoice, the internet equipment return slip, the bank's message about your closing balance, the tax office's follow-up, the two-factor code you need to log in and pay one last thing — they nearly all reach you by phone call, SMS, or an app that needs data. Your Japanese number is the thread every one of those is tied to.
So when you build your checklist, put 'cancel my line' at the very bottom, under the bank, under the card, under everything. Keep the number and the data live until the confirmations have actually landed, not just until you've submitted the requests. A line that's still active on your last morning is what lets you receive the code, answer the callback, and check the final app screen while you can still fix a problem.
That's really all I want you to carry away: leaving Japan is a chain of confirmations, and your phone is what receives them. Close it last, on purpose, and the whole move-out holds together to the end. Everything else on this list gets easier when the one line that ties it together is the last thing you let go.
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