Of I had an option, would’ve added more key words. I wanted to ask anyone on logistics helping my parents move back to Japan. They’re both 69yrs old and the time they want to leave America (Hawaii) is tentatively September-October if we can swing it. It’s always been my mom’s plan since she had me and my sister that she wants to move back to her homeland and be close to her sisters and brother along with their families.
Here’s some back story and circumstances that can make their goals very tedious to achieve. My dad is a stroke survivor with a severe case of aphasia which lead him to become close to non verbal. All that being said, my family and I rely on his Medicaid and Medicare health insurance to help provide his medications and caregiving services. He can understand conversations, can read, and understand both English and Japanese(Japanese is his first language) and he gets taken care of by my mom and weekly caregiver. He used to have dual citizenship, but he never renewed his Japanese passport. My mom is a Korean born and raised in Osaka. Until she moved to America, she and her family were considered expats because of her Korean origin and is currently an American citizen. Both parents are collecting socially security retirement and my father receives his monthly retirement pension from his old job. Neither of my parents claim bonds or stocks, no assets, just their retirement salary and what they currently have saved.
So here are the questions – how should my parents navigate the healthcare system for medical insurance with my dad’s preexisting condition? Will there be a lot of set back with my mom moving back to Japan with her Korean ancestry even though she was born and raised in Japan?
My parents are looking at places to rent in Takarasuka and Kobe. One of the things my family and I were astounded by was Japan’s cheaper cost of living compared to Hawaii/west coast prices we’re used to paying. For those on this subreddit who experienced renting in Japan, what criteria must a tenant follow in order to qualify for an apartment or house?
Sorry for the lengthy post!!!!
by Opening-Sentence-772
6 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**I’m trying to move my senior parents back to Japan**
Of I had an option, would’ve added more key words. I wanted to ask anyone on logistics helping my parents move back to Japan. They’re both 69yrs old and the time they want to leave America (Hawaii) is tentatively September-October if we can swing it. It’s always been my mom’s plan since she had me and my sister that she wants to move back to her homeland and be close to her sisters and brother along with their families.
Here’s some back story and circumstances that can make their goals very tedious to achieve. My dad is a stroke survivor with a severe case of aphasia which lead him to become close to non verbal. All that being said, my family and I rely on his Medicaid and Medicare health insurance to help provide his medications and caregiving services. He can understand conversations, can read, and understand both English and Japanese(Japanese is his first language) and he gets taken care of by my mom and weekly caregiver. He used to have dual citizenship, but he never renewed his Japanese passport. My mom is a Korean born and raised in Osaka. Until she moved to America, she and her family were considered expats because of her Korean origin and is currently an American citizen. Both parents are collecting socially security retirement and my father receives his monthly retirement pension from his old job. Neither of my parents claim bonds or stocks, no assets, just their retirement salary and what they currently have saved.
So here are the questions – how should my parents navigate the healthcare system for medical insurance with my dad’s preexisting condition? Will there be a lot of set back with my mom moving back to Japan with her Korean ancestry even though she was born and raised in Japan?
My parents are looking at places to rent in Takarasuka and Kobe. One of the things my family and I were astounded by was Japan’s cheaper cost of living compared to Hawaii/west coast prices we’re used to paying. For those on this subreddit who experienced renting in Japan, what criteria must a tenant follow in order to qualify for an apartment or house?
Sorry for the lengthy post!!!!
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> He used to have dual citizenship, but he never renewed his Japanese passport.
Unless he’s otherwise lost his Japanese citizenship he should still be able to apply for and receive a new passport, BUT; did he naturalize to US? If he did, he lost his Japanese citizenship I believe; there was some changes over time like long ago dual-citizenship was less grey as I recall, but I believe that naturalizing elsewhere has automatically ended your Japanese citizenship for some time (need to double check on this). If he had both citizenships from birth (for example was born in the US) he might still be a Japanese citizen. Basically you need to get some specific info about his citizenship status at birth, if/when he naturalized to US, and if he might be able to get a Japanese passport again.
> Until she moved to America, she and her family were considered expats because of her Korean origin and is currently an American citizen.
“Expat” is really the wrong term here, though that’s a bit of a tangent and you can look into the vagueness/debate of that term yourself. She wasn’t an expat in a functional sense, she was almost certainly in Japan as a special form of permanent resident, which is a special status primarily for those and those descended from people who migrated to Japan (of their own will or as forced labor) during the pre-war period. These days it’s referred to as “Special Permanent Residence”, however the system and the specific rights it gives has also changed over time and what status she had probably depends on when she left. If she left and never returned I’m not sure exactly what her status might be and it’s a bit of an edge case; she *might* still have the right to return and resume that status.
For both of them though you likely need to see *specifically* what former citizenship and residence status they had, and if your father naturalized later in life or not. You may need to get this info then reach out to an immigration lawyer in Japan and see what options they have based on that info. You need to also see if they have access to their old [koseki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koseki) so they can look into getting a [Long Term Resident](https://www.juridique.jp/visa/nikkei.php) visa if they don’t have other options like citizenship, at least for your father in through him for your mother as a spouse, and you can likely get this even of both of them don’t have citizenships/special permanent residence.
Re: your other questions about insurance and apartments these are generally small issues and you should focus more on hammering out the more important questions of *how* can they legally reside there long term in the first place, since as of now based on your description it *looks like* they can’t just move there, at least without doing some applications/paperwork, but they may not be giving you all the info they have. For example maybe your mother has gone back every X years to update her special permanent residence cards and you just don’t know or haven’t presented it here. If you need to get a long term residence visa (and get a copy of koseki etc) or try to renew your dads passport and navigate how he hasn’t had it for a long time, or see if your mother still qualifies for her special permanent residence status, it could take a while and Sept/Oct might not be realistic.
>For those on this subreddit who experienced renting in Japan, what criteria must a tenant follow in order to qualify for an apartment or house?
One of the challenges for a retiree moving to Japan is to satisfy the requirements of the guarantee company, which will want to see evidence of steady Japanese income (either employment or Nenkin). My personal experience is that the guarantee company accepted a copy of my Japanese bank account balance in lieu of Japanese income. Also, I have a friend who convinced the owner to waive the requirement to use a guarantee company by paying the first 12 months of rent in advance.
> He used to have dual citizenship, but he never renewed his Japanese passport.
Was your father born with dual nationalities? Or did was he born Japanese and he later acquired American citizenship?
If he was born as a dual national, he still has Japanese nationality. However if he was born as a Japanese national, and he naturalized as American later in life, he lost is Japanese nationality when he naturalized as American.
The law did change in 1985 about this, and things got even stricter at that point, but even prior to 1985 the law was clear that people who chose to naturalize elsewhere could not maintain their Japanese citizenship.
However, your father could very likely qualify for a “Child of Japanese National” visa. The issue is your mother because she has all but certainly lost her “Special Permanent Resident” status that she probably had before leaving Japan. She might be able to get a spouse or dependent visa from your father, but if he predeceases her, she would lose that visa.
This is what you must get resolved first. Everything else is pretty easy by comparison, but they need a way to stay in Japan before anything else can happen.
The citizenship and visa issues need to be sorted out, if they can be, before this move happens.
Something you didn’t ask about, but absolutely should consider, is taxes. Moving to Japan will have significant implications on income tax and inheritance tax.
I can’t stress enough that these should be looked into BEFORE moving to Japan, as there are positive actions that can only be taken prior to moving to Japan.
r/JapanFinance would be the best subreddit to discuss tax issues, once you are ready. But don’t wait to long, as will be more complicated than you expect.