Practical Resources

Leaving Japan produces a specific kind of paperwork fatigue. The errands are clear in your head, but the pages that answer them sit on different government sites, in different formats, and you only find the right one when you already know which ministry runs it. What follows groups the official English pages a departing resident actually needs, by the errand each one answers, and notes what each one does and does not cover.

The Japan Pension Service keeps the broadest of the Japanese government English portals for anyone ending a stay, and it is the only one here that sorts its own content the way a leaver thinks: by purpose and by scene. Its English landing page carries an "Information by purpose" block (enroll, pay contributions, apply for benefits, report to the pension office) and, separately, an "Information by scene" block that includes both Enter Japan and Leave Japan. That second block is the one that matters to you. Everything else on this list answers a single errand; that page answers several and points outward from there.

Which pension page matches your errand?

The same portal splits further once you are inside it. If you paid into the system and are leaving before you can claim, the errand is a refund, and the withdrawal has a filing window that closes; the pension section of this list sets out the lump-sum pension withdrawal and the timing limits that come with it. If you are leaving later or drawing already, the portal's "Pensioners Need to Report Us" entry covers the reporting that continues after departure. The page does not publish a per-country table of processing times, so treat any figure you see elsewhere with care. It does, however, explain two things worth reading before you leave: the two-tier structure (National Pension for residents aged 20 to 59, Employees' Pension Insurance for company and public-sector workers), and the international social security agreements that exist to avoid dual contribution and to let you totalize coverage periods across two countries. If you are moving to a country with such an agreement, that page is the one to open first.

The tax errand, and why it outlasts your flight

Tax splits into two jobs that feel like one. The first is the year of departure itself, where resident tax is assessed on the previous year's income and can follow you out of the country if you leave before it is settled. The resident tax on the way out walkthrough covers that mechanism and the city hall step that goes with it. The second job is everything the National Tax Agency handles from Tokyo: individual income tax, withholding, consumption tax, international taxation, and the collection assistance it runs with other countries. Its English home lists a section called Information for Taxpayers with exactly those headings, plus a page titled "Procedures of National Tax Payment Available to Taxpayers Overseas" and a notice about multilingual interpreter services by telephone. The Agency's page does not tell you what your own municipality will ask of you, and it does not calculate anything; it tells you which national procedure applies and which form carries it.

Where immigration fits, and where it does not

Immigration is the third errand and the one most often mismatched to the wrong page. The Immigration Services Agency is the body that has run residence procedures since April 2019, when the former Immigration Bureau was reorganised into it. Its Japanese site carries the working content: re-entry permission, the Trusted Traveler Program, residence status by category, online procedures, and the departure order system. What it does not carry is a full English mirror of all of that. The English side of the Agency's output is thinner than the pension or tax portals, and the practical consequence is simple: for a re-entry permit or a change of residence status, expect to work from the Japanese pages, or from the consultation counters, rather than from a tidy English summary. That is a limit of the page, not a gap you can fill by reading harder.

Health insurance, and the omission to expect

Health cover is the errand that catches people in the last fortnight, because the card is in daily use and its end date is not. National Health Insurance is administered by your municipality, so the official English coverage of it is local rather than national, and that is the omission to expect: no single government English page walks a leaver through the sequence. The insurance grouping in this list, National Health Insurance and the Final, covers what the municipal pages tend to leave implicit about the closing steps. Read it while you still have a ward office within walking distance, because the questions are easier to ask in person.

Getting your belongings out

Shipping is the errand with the longest shadow, because goods leave the country before you do and their paperwork is triggered by customs rather than by you. The Shipping Belongings and the Customs Side entry points to both halves: what the carrier needs from you, and the declaration forms that follow the boxes into the destination country. Neither the Japan Pension Service page nor the tax page touches this, and no single government English page assembles it, so the list entry exists precisely to hold the two ends together.

What survives the flight

The last grouping is the one people postpone and then want, because some errands only make sense after you have gone. Records you need to retrieve from abroad, addresses you need to keep live, and the networks that keep a connection from going cold are gathered under Keeping a Link with Japan from abroad. This is not an errand the government pages answer, which is why it sits at the end of the list rather than in the middle of it.

What the pension portal does not do

It is worth being precise about the anchor page, because a portal is not a guide. The English home of the Japan Pension Service publishes purposes, scenes, an overview of the public pension system, and an explanation of the Basic Pension Number and its notice. It does not publish your individual record, does not calculate your refund, and does not tell you which of its own subpages applies to your case. Its notice section, as of the Japan Pension Service page consulted, lists three dated announcements (Croatia and Bulgaria direct deposit in August 2026, a September 2025 request about pension payment procedures for people drawing from financial institutions outside Japan, and Russia direct deposit from November 2023). Those are operational notices, not guidance for leavers.

Reading order, if you want one

Start with the pension portal, because it is the only page that already sorts its own content by purpose and by scene, and let its "Leave Japan" entry tell you which of the other errands is still open to you. Then work the tax sequence, then insurance, then shipping, then immigration, and leave the post-departure records for the week after the flight, when you are no longer standing in a queue. The pension page's Top topics block defines the two halves of a social security agreement, elimination of dual coverage and totalization of coverage periods; if your destination is covered by one, that definition is the last thing you need to read before you file.

One thing no page on this list settles: whether the pension office at your destination will accept the totalization paperwork in the form Tokyo issues it. That answer lives in the other country's system.

Contents of this page

1. Which pension page matches your errand?1 min
2. The tax errand, and why it outlasts your flight1 min
3. Where immigration fits, and where it does not1 min
4. Health insurance, and the omission to expect1 min
5. Getting your belongings out1 min
6. What survives the flight1 min
7. What the pension portal does not do1 min
8. Reading order, if you want one1 min