This is my experience closing a bank in the US and remitting the money into Japan.
I have yet to do the taxes so will probably talk about that later.
Coming into Japan. I had a cashier check from a US bank (Wells Fargo). I had to physically close that account on a visit to the US.The amount was north of the 1M yen amount so I claimed it at customs in Narita and did the forms. The customs folks were very helpful.
The bank I used in Japan was SMBC bank Prestia. The branch was in Kyoto. If you ever go there you must specify to the front desk you need the trust bank on the 2nd floor. The first floor is not the same bank.
Upstairs they have staff who will help you in English. Setting up the account takes a few hours. Please bring all your documents (such as my number card and Residance card). If you forget anything it will greatly impair your ability to set up an account.
I tried to pre set up online. That was a waste of time. I would just set it up in person if you can.
The check costs 8000 yen to cash. So you probably only want to do it if you have a substantial amount to move. In total they require 13000 yen at the time of this post. The other 5000 is if the check gets cancelled.
They did the processing of the check and in total it took 5 weeks to post to the account. So I had quite a bit of anxiety waiting as a good chunk of my life savings was in the abiss.
After posting in there multi Money account. It is in dollars. You will actually have 3 accounts. 1 savings that is regular. 1 multi money yen and multi money your overseas currency. You will get two account numbers one for your regular yen and one for the multi money accounts.
Once the money cleared. I moved some of my dollars to yen and did notice a slightly better rate than with seven bank just withdrawing from my other US bank account.
I hope this helps anyone who is ever thinking of doing what I did.
by usainjp16
