Logistics questions: Working remotely in Japan for a Japanese company

6 comments

1. >When switching towns/cities, how long/complex is the process of changing my address? Is this an entire day affair?

   Depends on your city (i.e. if Tokyo, your actual ward, not “Tokyo”) and when you go. Some cities are busier than others, and when you go will affect the time it takes. If I go right when the office opens at 8:30 am, it will take me about 30 minutes to do a move-in notice. It may take longer to do a move-in from overseas; I don’t remember how long that took. Many cities will have special extended hours or weekend hours to handle essential services like moving notifications.

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   >Would living in a sharehouse (such as Oakwood) be suitable for WFH work? I’m a product manager in the tech industry, so I’d be in meetings and doing a lot of writing.

   Never lived in a sharehouse myself, but when I was in school and doing virtual lessons, many classmates were in sharehouses. Sometimes people would be talking or doing things in the background, sometimes the cleaning person would come in, etc. If things like this would disrupt your work, you may want to reconsider.

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   >What are the typical policies around breaking contracts? For example, if I need to find a more permanent home, are there things I can do to negotiate shorter leases?

   Depending on where you’re coming from, the “permanency” of leases may differ from what you are used to. You may have a 2-year lease, but generally you can break it any time (if you give ~1 month notice) without any penalties. Frankly, I’m not sure what the purpose of the lease duration is other than fabricating a reason to pay lease renewal fees.

2. 1. A few hours to a full day. The process is not just updating your address but all of your Japanese identification cards, pension, insurance, tax information, etc… Some cities are really quick and good about it, but you are still talking about at least the majority of a morning to take care of it. Plus then you need to update the address with your bank, your employer, the post office, etc.. Also at some point you will run out of space on the back of your ID cards to update your address then have to deal with whatever the solution for that is.

3. >When switching towns/cities, how long/complex is the process of changing my address? Is this an entire day affair?

   The cityhall stuff is pretty straight forward. I’d expect in & out in under an hour. But how much other stuff is tied to your address? You’d need inform at the very least your bank. I know with my bank, when I move they’ll send me a letter at the listed address to verify that it gets delivered. If it doesn’t get delivered, they warn that they may suspend the account pending further investigation into my residence status.

   Don’t forget if you have a Japanese drivers license you’ll need to go to a proper police station and have them officially write the new address on the back of your card (and update their records).

   I’m sure there are other things that will require updating as well. If you’re going to be moving frequently you’ll want to keep a list of every where that you’ve given an address to.

4. 1. It generally takes me 1~2 hours to change my address. I usually go to the ward office early in the morning when there are less people. Other paperworks can be done online or are handled by the employer.

   2. Depends on the share house. I lived and WFH for around 1 year in Oakhouse, but that was a “social residence”, a big big building with around 100 rooms. I also work in tech and didn’t have any issue back then. But I’m a developer, so I guess I have less meeting than you. This was also before the pandemic, so less people at home during the day. My rent was around 60,000 yen.

   3. If you rent your own house then it’s hard to negotiate leases shorter than 1 year. And remember you have to pay the intial fee everytime you move, which adds up. However, most places allow breaking contract with a 1 month notice.

5. For the first one to add what others have written – it’s a two-day thing actually, though it might not actually take the full days. You need to go to one to get a move out certificate, and then the new one when you move to do the move in procedures to update everything. Also will need to go to the bank which is a few hours. Every month would likely get tedious – it might be better to have a longer stay at a base and do weekend trips around, etc. If you have never lived abroad/in Japan before either, it might disrupt your process of gaining familiarity/settling in, as well.

   Some places, especially where foreigners are target market, offer shorter leases like a few months to a year. (Did global in osaka is an example).
   I wouldn’t wfh from a sharehouse tbh especially if you’re in meetings all day. You could rent a small private office space, though.

   The legality around air bnbs is up in the air and they can be taken down with no notice, so I would be careful with those.

6. 1. No it’s easy peasy, but avoid Mondays and maybe Friday’s + lunch hours. However, managing your Pension payments, Juminzei etc. would be an absolute nightmare. You have 14 days to register after moving to a new place and it may take a couple of weeks until your paperwork will arrive. So your plan would not work in practice. But you will not be able to find and rent anything cost effectively for one month anyway.

   If you have the budget I would suggest to get a home base in or near the Tokyo area where you can find a cheap sharehouse. Use this for registration and to receive mail. You would technically not be moving around but just traveling every where for a month or so. Will also avoid trouble with your company.

   2. Sharehouse companies tend to be very local at least the good ones. For Tokyo I had a great experience with one Calle “Couverture”. I used to take care of finding accommodation for company interns . Good sharehouse rooms (2 years ago) started around 70-80k in Tokyo but can go quite a bit higher. As I mentioned, you will not only have problems but also finding a sharehouse. Good sharehouses interview the people they are renting to quickly. If you are a foreigner, most will require a minimum of Japanese to make sure you get along with the people living there. Not sure if they will even rent to you for just one month. Airbnb is, thank god, not a big deal in Japan and places there are basics all hotels . You could do budget hotels or something for foreign young travelers. Very cheap and budget/business hotel standard is pretty high here.

   3. You will not be able to rent anything. Even if, you can break contract but you will need to give a heads up probably at least a month in advance. Also, broker fees/key money/bs move in fees/deposits will absolutely kill you. It’s anywhere from 1x~3x rent (Expensive places even more) every time you move.

   There are short term business rentals but they have a massive mark up in rent. Not sure if they would deal with you as a private person. Finding a place and getting the paperwork done will also take you a couple of weeks, since they will vet you and your income.