The Last Ninety Days

Ninety days is long enough to leave well and short enough to lose. The countdown below puts workplace notice, the ward office, utilities, accounts, the shipping window and the tax that follows the flight into a single dated sequence, so the last week holds only the things that genuinely cannot be done earlier.

The order matters more than the calendar. Notices have waiting periods that no amount of money shortens, shipping has a cut-off that moves with the season, and tax is the one item that can outlast your departure by a year. Run the sequence in the wrong order and the final seven days fill with tasks that should have been finished in the first thirty.

Why the ninety-day mark is the real start line

Most checklists treat leaving as a paperwork sprint in the last fortnight. That works only if nothing on the list has a queue. Several things do. A notice period runs whether or not you have booked a mover, an account closure needs a forwarding address and a zeroed balance, and a shipping slot in a peak month can be booked out weeks ahead.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government publishes official departure checklists and a wider set of living guides covering the Tokyo side of a long stay. Its pages are written for residents rather than for people mid-flight, which is exactly why they belong in the first month and not the last: read them while you still have time to act on what they say.

Days 90 to 60: notices you cannot compress

Start with the two notices that set the whole clock running. Give notice at work, in writing, on whatever term your contract states, and tell the ward office you are leaving. These two are the spine of the sequence because almost everything downstream (final pay, the date you can hand back keys, the address the ward office records) depends on them.

The Ward Office notification is not a formality. It is how a municipality learns that a resident is going, and it starts the administrative side of the move. Do it early and the rest of the list has room to breathe.

While the notices are running, take the inventory: every utility, every subscription, every contract with your name on it. Write the cancellation period and the last billing date next to each one. That single list becomes the calendar for the following sixty days.

Which contracts need closing before the flight, and which can wait?

Utilities, phone, internet and the bank account all need to be dealt with inside the countdown, but they do not close on the same day. Electricity and gas can usually be stopped on a chosen date near the end. A phone number is different: it is often the number a bank or a shipping company will call, so close it after the accounts that depend on it.

The bank account is the hinge. Money still arriving (a final salary, a tax refund, a deposit return) needs somewhere to land. Keep the account open until the last expected payment has cleared, then close it. Accounts and contracts belong in the middle of the countdown for that reason: too early and you strand incoming money, too late and you are closing an account from another country.

The page above does not publish a universal closing timeline, because banks set their own. Ask your branch what it needs and how long it takes, and treat the answer as a hard date in the calendar.

Days 60 to 30: the shipping window opens

Shipping is the item most often left too late, and the one where late is expensive. Sea freight moves on a fixed schedule, air freight has a cut-off, and both tighten in the months when everyone else is also moving. Book the slot before the packing, not after.

Two questions decide the plan: what goes, and what the destination country will let in. The customs paperwork follows the shipment rather than the other way around, so the inventory you build now is also the document the receiver will be asked about. Belongings and the Customs paperwork are one job, not two, and they eat most of this thirty-day block.

Household goods, bikes, instruments and anything bulky should be measured and listed here. Things you intend to sell, give away or bin need their own deadline, earlier than the shipping date, because a room full of unsold furniture is not a room you can hand back.

Days 30 to 14: address, post and the last utility readings

This is the block where the loose ends are tied rather than created. Set up mail forwarding, or tell the people who matter your new address directly. Arrange the final meter readings for the day you leave. Confirm the moving date in writing with the shipper, and confirm the key handover with the landlord or the agent.

Anything requiring a signature, a stamp or a counter visit should sit in this fortnight, not in the last three days. Japanese offices keep office hours, and the final week is short enough that a single closed counter can push a task past your flight.

What still follows you after you board?

Tax. Resident tax is assessed on the previous year's income, which means a bill can arrive after you have gone, for a year you spent in Japan. Leaving does not cancel it. Arranging how it will be paid (a representative in Japan, a forwarding address, a payment plan agreed with the municipality before you leave) is a task that belongs in the countdown even though the debt does not.

owed on the way is the phrase to keep in mind here. This is the part of the sequence that ends last, sometimes long after the flight, and it is the reason a clean departure is not the same as a closed file.

The pension refund sits in the same category: an application made after departure, with its own waiting time. The timing and the forms are for the relevant office to state, and the municipality or the tax office that assesses your bill is the place to ask what your own figure is.

Days 14 to 0: what genuinely belongs in the last week

The last week should hold only things that cannot be done sooner: the final meter readings, the key return, the last bag, the goodbye. If the list still contains a cancellation, a booking or a form, something upstream was skipped.

A short, honest test on day fourteen: can every remaining item be completed in a single working day, in office hours, without a signature from anyone else? If the answer is no, move it earlier.

Building the calendar that fits your own case

Ninety days is a shape, not a rule. A short contract, a family, a pet or a container full of furniture each stretch the sequence in a different direction. What does not change is the order: notices first, contracts and accounts in the middle, shipping on its own clock, tax at the end.

Keep the official pages behind each item to hand as you build the calendar. The pages a departing resident actually needs, gathered in one place, save the search when a counter asks for a document you have not seen before.

Start the list today, put one hard date against every line, and let the last week be the quiet part.

Contents of this page

1. Why the ninety-day mark is the real start line1 min
2. Days 90 to 60: notices you cannot compress1 min
3. Which contracts need closing before the flight, and which can wait?1 min
4. Days 60 to 30: the shipping window opens1 min
5. Days 30 to 14: address, post and the last utility readings1 min
6. What still follows you after you board?1 min
7. Days 14 to 0: what genuinely belongs in the last week1 min
8. Building the calendar that fits your own case1 min