Relocating to Japan: Key Money, Residence Cards & What Tokyo Really Costs (2026)

Tokyo is the cheapest global megacity in this series to live in and the most expensive to move into. Once you are settled, Tokyo costs less than London, Paris, Sydney, Toronto or Singapore — the food is cheap and superb, the transport is flawless, the healthcare costs almost nothing, and the safety is unmatched anywhere on earth. Getting settled, however, means handing a landlord four to six months’ rent up front, part of it as a non-refundable gift, and finding one who will rent to a foreigner at all. This 2026 guide sequences the arrival, explains the lease structure honestly (key money, guarantor companies, and the foreigner problem), prices the cities, covers the health system, schools and family life, and closes with the exit checklist — including the pension refund most leavers forget to claim.

What is the arrival sequence?

At the airport: receive your Residence Card. Within 14 days of moving into your address: register at the ward or municipal office (ku-yakusho) — this single visit registers your address on the card, enrols you in health insurance and the pension system (if not through your employer), and starts the process for your My Number (the individual identification number, which arrives by post and can be upgraded to a My Number Card — get the card; it is increasingly the key to online services and, since 2024, functions as the health insurance card).

Then: a bank account (traditionally difficult for new arrivals — Japan Post Bank and Shinsei/SBI are the standard newcomer options; some banks impose a six-month residency requirement, and increasingly Sony Bank and neobanks are friendlier), a hanko (personal seal — still required for many contracts, though its use is declining and digital signatures are being accepted more widely), and a phone contract (which requires the bank account and residence card — the familiar circular dependency).

Your employer typically handles social insurance enrolment and will issue the documents you need. And do not skip the pension: enrolment is mandatory, non-payment can now jeopardise permanent residence under the 2025 reform in our Japan visa guide, and contributions are partly refundable on departure per our Japan tax guide.

How do Japanese leases actually work?

The move-in cost structure is the shock: shikikin (deposit) of one to two months (partly refundable, with cleaning costs deducted); reikin (key money) of one to two months, non-refundable, paid to the landlord as a gift — a genuine, still-common practice with no equivalent anywhere else in this series; agency fee of one month plus tax; first month’s rent (often prorated); guarantor company fee (typically 50–100% of one month’s rent, plus annual renewals) — because Japanese leases require a guarantor and most foreigners have none, so a guarantor company (hoshō-gaisha) is engaged instead; and fire insurance (¥15,000–20,000 for two years). Total: commonly four to six months’ rent before you have slept there.

Then there is the foreigner problem, which honest guides should not soften: a meaningful share of Japanese landlords simply refuse foreign tenants, and doing so is not unlawful in the way it would be in the UK, France or the US. Agents will tell you which properties are gaikokujin-ka (foreigner-OK). This is discriminatory, it is well documented, and it is the reality of the market — and it is why company-provided housing, and agencies specialising in foreign residents, are so widely used.

Leases run two years and renewal fees (kōshinryō) of one month’s rent are common at renewal — another cost with no equivalent elsewhere. UR (public housing corporation) properties are the great workaround: no key money, no agency fee, no guarantor, and no renewal fee, open to foreign residents meeting income criteria. They are less central and less glamorous, and they save an enormous amount of money.

What do the cities really cost?

Single professional, all-in monthly: Tokyo ¥250,000–400,000; Osaka ¥200,000–300,000; Nagoya ¥190,000–280,000; Fukuoka ¥170,000–250,000. One-bedroom rents: central Tokyo ¥120,000–200,000; Tokyo’s outer wards ¥80,000–120,000; Osaka ¥70,000–110,000; Fukuoka ¥55,000–90,000.

What is genuinely cheap: food (a superb lunch set for ¥800–1,200; convenience-store food that is actually good; groceries reasonable), healthcare (30% co-pay with monthly caps), transport (excellent, and employers reimburse commuting costs as a matter of course), and services. What is expensive: fruit, Western imports, international schools, and the move-in cost above.

The comparison that matters: Tokyo is cheaper than London, Paris, Sydney, Toronto, Dublin, Singapore or New York for a comparable professional life — with better infrastructure, better food, and dramatically better safety than any of them. The weak yen has made this even more pronounced for anyone earning abroad. Japanese salaries, however, have not kept pace internationally, which is the other side of the same coin: living in Japan is cheap; being paid in Japan is increasingly modest.

How does Japanese healthcare work?

Enrolment is mandatory: employees join Employees’ Health Insurance through their company (premiums shared with the employer); everyone else joins National Health Insurance through their municipality. Either way you receive an insurance card (increasingly integrated into the My Number Card), and you pay 30% of the cost at any clinic or hospital — with the High-Cost Medical Expense Benefit capping your monthly out-of-pocket costs at a modest, income-scaled amount even for major surgery or long hospitalisation.

Access is excellent: you can walk into most clinics without a referral, waiting lists in the British or Canadian sense do not exist, and Japan has more hospital beds and MRI scanners per capita than almost anywhere on earth. The system’s genuine weaknesses are language (English-speaking doctors exist but require seeking out — ward offices and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government maintain lists), a somewhat paternalistic clinical culture, and mental-health provision that lags the rest of the system.

Practical notes: dental is covered by insurance (unusually, and well); prescriptions are dispensed at pharmacies at the same 30% rate; and the medical expense deduction lets you deduct out-of-pocket costs above a threshold from your income tax. Bring translated records of any ongoing conditions, and note that some common Western medications (including certain ADHD and cold medications containing pseudoephedrine) are illegal to import into Japan — check before you fly, because the customs consequences are serious.

Schools, family life, and the language question

Public schools are free, excellent academically, and conducted entirely in Japanese — which works well for younger children (who acquire the language fast) and poorly for teenagers arriving mid-education. International schools in Tokyo cost ¥2–3 million per child per year and are the single largest expense in an expat family’s Japanese budget — negotiate an education allowance, because it can exceed your rent.

Childcare: licensed hoikuen (daycare) is heavily subsidised and income-scaled, and preschool from age three is effectively free following the 2019 reforms — making Japan surprisingly affordable for families. The catch is the famous hoikatsu — the competitive process of securing a place, which is scored on need and can be genuinely difficult in central Tokyo. Apply the moment you know you need it.

Language: you can live in Tokyo without Japanese, and many do. But you will be outside things — the ward office, the school, the neighbourhood, the promotion. And the HSP points table pays you 10–15 points for it, per the visa guide. Learn it. It is the difference between living in Japan and living in a foreign compound inside Japan, and every long-term expat says the same thing about the year they finally started.

Transport, daily life, and the exit checklist

Japanese public transport is the best in the world — punctual to the minute, comprehensive, and reasonably priced, with employers reimbursing commuting costs as standard. Owning a car in Tokyo is unnecessary and requires proof of a parking space. Cycling is widespread. Trains stop around midnight, which shapes social life more than anything else.

Exit checklist — and Japan’s has real money in it: file the final tax return or ensure the year-end adjustment is done; appoint a tax agent (nōzei kanrinin) before you leave if you intend to claim the pension refund, because doing so lets you reclaim part of the 20.42% withholding on the lump-sum payment; settle the inhabitant tax for the prior year, which will otherwise chase you; claim the pension lump-sum withdrawal within two years of departure (or rely on totalisation if you have an agreement); close the lease and negotiate the cleaning deductions from your deposit; and return your Residence Card at the airport.

And a note for anyone approaching a milestone: if you are near the HSP three-year or one-year permanent residence threshold, or the five-year non-permanent-resident tax cliff, count carefully before leaving. Japanese permanent residence is one of the more valuable statuses in this series — and unlike a citizenship, it costs you nothing you already hold.

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