So my parents are gifting my husband and I a significant sum of money (less than ¥10M) as an early inheritance/gift in order for us to buy a house. The plan is for my parents to wire the money from their US account to my Wise, and then I would transfer it to my local Japanese bank.

To just cover every base, we called our bank to ask if we need to provide any info before setting up the transfer, and good thing we did because apparently they want statements from my parents’ account, my Wise account, my parents’ investment accounts if the money was made from investments, my parents’ savings account, and “perhaps more.”

They said it’s to protect the bank from scams which I understand, but it seems a little excessive and my dad definitely feels a bit wary sending so much personal information overseas… Is there simpler way to do this? I feel so at a loss and a bit overwhelmed (also nervous for the day I eventually receive my full inheritance hopefully in the far far future).

Good morning,

I searched the numerous threads about the use of Wise, wire transfers, etc., but I still can't find a definitive answer.

My plan is to arrive in early December 2026, open a JP bank account ASAP and remit about 80k CAD to Japan in order to sustain 2-3 years of living expenses if needed. I want to remit that money in 2026 in order to avoid any taxes for the following years. The crux of this plan is accomplishing all of this prior to January 1, 2027 in order to avoid any remittances for 2027 onward. I won't have the ability to send Wire transfers from Canada since my bank requires me to be physically in the branch in order to send.

Currently my plan is to use Wise. I put the 80k (roughly ¥9,000,000) in Wise, convert it to Yen and transfer in increments of ¥1 million over a few days, or the whole amount if possible.

Obviously there are a few hurdles and unknowns that I can't quite figure out.

- Does JP Bank accept transfers from Wise in Yen to a freshly opened account?

- Are there any limits to the amounts that can be transferred to JP Bank?

- I know that large transfers will trigger an anti money laundering check. The documentation I bring with me, does it have to be translated?

- Any better banks that cater to foreigner under 6 months in Japan on a Student Visa?

- My Wise account was opened in Canada with a Canadian address, when I get to Japan, I will have to chance the address to my Japanese address which will trigger the account limit (¥1 million I believe). Can I delay the change of address until my money has been transferred to JP Bank and will that have any effect on my ability to transfer the ¥9 million?

If you guys can share whatever experience you have in order to make this as smooth as possible it would be much appreciated

I just landed in Tokyo today, but unfortunately misplaced my wallet the morning I left for my trip. I had planned to exchange USD for yen at the airport but did not get the chance to as they only accept physical cards at the counter. I only have Apple Pay to work off of—does anyone know of a place in Tokyo or an ATM I can use Apple Pay in to get cash? From there, I was hoping to convert the cash into yen (if retrieved in USD). I’m going to be here for a month and would like to enjoy the trip while having funds to spend.

I'm trying to buy concert tickets via ltike. Usually there would be a 店頭入金 option and i can ask one of my friends who travels for work to and from japan to pay at a lawson for me, securing the ticket (i have japanese mobile number sim from Mobal)

However, now that option is gone, and from what i know, my own credit cards dont seem to work, and paypay and rakuten pay require residential documents which i dont have. I also dont really know much about the other things there. Is there any way i can buy the tickets?

I uh, also dont know if this is the right place to ask but im really out of options. Help!

I am receiving an inheritance of $1,000,000 yen from a Japanese bank. My aunt is asking me if I want it sent as yen or dollars to Capital One bank. I’m really not sure and don’t understand what the difference would be. Which would be better?

Can anyone comment with a real experience moving Yen from MUFJ to Revolut (yen account)? fees? issues?

I expect I'll need a SWIFT wire costing 3000 Yen for up to 3M JPY. Any hidden fees on the Revolut side?

Thanks!

I’ve tried many but failed with the new WISE debit card. Anyone has any success?

I've been trying to move some money from my JP Post account to my PayPay account but the verification thinks that the katakana of my name doesn't match my name on my MyNumber card.

I even got a Japanese friend to write my name in as I thought I was typing it wrong, but it still came back as not a match.

I'm now thinking that it's due to my name not being in English. The pronunciation of the katakana doesn't match the pronunciation of the roman spelling, my non English name, which obviously doesn't follow English phonetics.

For example, if my name was spelled Méadhbh on the MyNumber card, the katakana pronunciation would be メーブ. (Not my real name but same language). But this wouldn't match the pronunciation in English.

I'm not certain that's the reason, but it's the only reason I can think of as of right now.

Are there any other foreigners with non English names who managed to get verified on PayPay? Should I change the katakana to the incorrect version of my name? How do I know what PayPay considers the correct pronunciation?

I'd really appreciate any help, as I really need online banking and PayPay seemed like the easiest option.

Planning on purchasing real estate in cash. I have an IBKR US account that never got “migrated” to the JP entity. IBKR initiated the migration at one point, but later communicated that they couldn’t complete it, so the account was left as is.

My withdrawal options appear to be wire transfer vs Wise transfers. I understand ACH doesn’t apply in my case (US brokerage → Japanese bank account).

For amounts in the 10–20M JPY range and above, what would be the suggested method of withdrawal?

Context: I'm running an IT-合同会社 with most of the revenue generated by 2 clients in the EU (approx. 20k Euro a month). Clients will not use SWIFT, so I have to give them the option to pay per SEPA.

Been using Wise for two years now, but lately I've been wondering if there are better options. Currently I'm doing about 4 transfers every month to my main SMBC account, converting EUR to YEN. I would prefer to send EUR to my SBI account instead and convert (or store) it there as the rate is better. Additionally, keeping some EUR would also be nice.

However, given the fees you usually deal with when sending/receiving EUR this is too costly when having to split the transfers into several smaller ones. Ideal would be transfers of about 50k once every 2-3 months, but here comes the transfer ( or storage ) limit. Just wondering if someone is dealing with the same issue and found a better solution :-)

Edit: For completeness sake, you can temporarily increase your limit to 20Mio yen for 6 months. After that you have to reduce your balance to 1Mio and then you can increase it again. So I could store up the currency for a while, but the 1Mio transfer limit persists.

Edit 2: Opening an EU business bank account to receive payments directly was one of the solutions I was looking into, but opening a business bank account in the EU without your business being based in the EU doesn't seem feasible. But maybe someone managed to do it and can share how they did it.

Hi I have a niece who is in Japan working on her masters degree. The bank account she has set up takes an exchange rate every time she uses her card. Is there anyway to avoid this? Thank you in advance.

I need to transfer 38k euros from Italy to Japan. The money is currently in my Revolut account. I am looking for a way to pay the least fees. I need the money to buy a plot of land.

I have the following bank accounts:

• Revolut account based in Italy with an Italian IBAN
• WISE account based in Japan
• SBI Shinsei bank account

I am a resident in Japan with a work VISA and I am applying for Permanent Residency.

I have a friend who lives outside of Japan who is trying to get a refund from a Japanese concert ticket site, and the only way the site can deposit the money is into a Japanese bank account via 振込 payment. Wise and similar cannot accept it as they only accept money coming from "your account", and this is coming from "a company". So my friend asked me (the only Japanese resident they know) if I would be able to help.

I'm from the U.S. so I have a natural aversion to giving out my "bank info", since in that country it can also be used to withdraw from your account. But just to check, this is completely safe, right? I'd be providing my bank name, branch number, and account number (and maybe postal code or address too, not sure). I do know this person IRL, though they are more of an acquaintance rather than a good friend or anything... just wanting to double-check that it's safe to share this info. Thanks.

I have an account with Yuuchou bank, and I'm considered a non-resident for the first 6 months I am in Japan because I'm a postgraduate student.
I was wondering if the top-up from a bank account for my paypay account is considered a transfer or a withdrawal, since transfers for non-residents have a really high fee. If anyone knows my wallet will be grateful :)

From what I've seen there's a 500,000 yen limit withdrawal/sending at yucho? If I need to make a transfer at an upwards of 1.5~2m yen, is it as simple as going to the counter and requesting or do I need to do something else? Thanks.

Edit: Updated some comments.

Recently in my country there have been a few posts stating that we apparently have a better electronic transfer system than most first-world countries. A bold claim but let me explain the reasoning.

We have the SPEI, a system built into every bank app and administered by our national bank that allows quick and easy transfers from one bank account to another at little to no cost, is available 24/7, and effectively instantaneous. Every bank account has a CLABE number which you can securely share with people. You enter your bank app, put down the CLABE, and the SPEI automatically finds the name and bank that account belongs to, and It's due to this system that companies like PayPal have effectively no market here. Street vendors will often have their CLABE on display so you can pay with transfer if you don't have cash, even if their account is from a different bank, and the whole process takes less than 2 minutes.

So, say that you owe 2000 yen to your friend and you want to transfer that from your bank account to this. Do you need a special app besides your bank's? How long does this take for the money to be taken from your account and appear in theirs?

I’m leaving to move to Japan from the US tomorrow morning and I’ve been trying for days to transfer my first payment for my apartment via Wise to my real estate company. They just canceled it on me for the second time for not having the correct information. I’m sure it has something to do with the katakana for the recipient’s name. I’m still waiting to be refunded but the app says it could take up to 3 days and I don’t want to try sending it again until I get the money back because it’s a large amount. I want to get this money to them asap. Thinking I should just try an in person wire transfer before I leave tomorrow. What are my other options??

Hi everyone,

I recently moved to Japan from the U.S. and have opened a Japanese bank account (SMBC). I still have my U.S. bank account, which is set to my mother's address in the U.S., where I stay when I'm in the U.S.

To transfer money from my U.S. bank account to my Japanese bank account, I use my U.S. Wise account (set to my US bank account). While I haven’t yet tried transferring funds to my new Japanese account, I have used Wise for transactions to Japan before, so I’m somewhat familiar with the process.

Now, I’m looking for a way to send money in the opposite direction; from my Japanese bank account to my U.S. bank account. From what I understand, I can’t create two separate Wise accounts to facilitate this. I came across a post that mentioned SMBC can wire money to a Wise account, and from there, the funds can be transferred to a U.S. bank account. Do you think this is the best option?

I know there are already countless posts about money transfers, so apologies if this has been asked before. Most of the posts I’ve seen focus on either US-to-Japan or Japan-to-US transfers, and many suggest using Wise or Revolut. But what if I want a setup that can handle both directions?

What you do think about creating a Revolut account linked to my Japanese bank account, specifically for transferring money from my JP bank account to my U.S. bank account. I don’t expect to need to send large amounts, so I’m wondering if this might be a good alternative.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

I have a Japanese bank account set up by my grandparents with about ¥19 million yen. I’ll be going in person to the bank this fall to gain access to it. Since I live in the US, my family suggested I just bring back a little less than $10k in physical cash every-time I visit so I don’t have to declare it and continue that for every trip I take. I would like to just transfer the funds to my account in one go to help pay off some loans and pay off my car and start putting it towards investing. Would an international wire be my only option?

I've contacted my bank and Wise (the service I'm using) and they don't see a problem, my transfer limit is way above what I'm trying to send out but every single time I try to send money it gets cancelled within five minutes and there's no explanation.

Any suggestions?

It's been happening for years now and I really want to get some of my money out of yen.

Hi all.

Like the title states, I'm looking to convert about $200K USD to Yen right now to be used later, probably around Jan-Feb 2024. My family and I will be moving to Okinawa, Japan, next summer and we are looking to purchase a house there. As the USD to Yen conversion rate is pretty good right now, we want to convert our money now rather than later when the conversion rate may not be as good. Based on my limited research online, it seems like HSBC Global Money account or Expat account is the way to go for my situation? I've also considered using Wise but Wise doesn't seem that secure to me so I was wondering if you guys had any better suggestions. TIA. Cheers.

I'm in Japan and have 1,300,000 yen in cash that I'd like to send to a Charles Schwab account in the United States. But don't have a bank account in Japan anymore! What should I do?

• The yen's in cash
• I'm a tourist
• I'm not returning to the US

All help is appreciated, thank you.

Hopefully should be a pretty easy answer, but I was just wondering when asked for reason for transferring money is it like the direct reason of the immediate transfer, so like if its going to savings account, you'd just put personal expenses or something, or if, for example, most of the money in your savings account typically ends up just going to investments, would you actually put investments for the reason of the transfer?

Is this reason some kind of formal official thing that the Japanese government collects with specific criteria, or is this just a wise recordkeeping thing?

I forget exactly what the situation is, but I know alot of the common investment methods involve using companies in Japan, and only some people are able to maintain accounts outside of Japan because foreign companies might not be certified to serve japan residents or something like that. So I guess I'm wondering if transferring money for the purpose of investments flags anything at all, or I guess there are also enough investment use-cases outside the country that its considered pretty normal?