I have seen a few reddit posts on the topic however these are all now a few years old. I was hoping someone could provide a 2023 estimate of costs per month/year for a white plate car. I recently acquired my license and would love to drive in Japan. I live in Yokohama for reference and to my understaning, the costs of driving long distance on the expressway is slightly cheaper than making the same trip on public transport. Of course, there’s fuel and parking to add on with driving.
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Just a rough estimate would be perfect like your monthly fuel costs and how much you spend on parking per month would help me out a lot!
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Basic costs:
* Parking – average 30K per month (rental, metro area)
* Insurance – average 15K per month
* Shaken – prorated 5K per month (dealer)
* Tax – prorated 4K per month
So you’re looking at 54K per month (on average) to have a white plate sitting in your parking space. Drops to 24K a month if you’ve got parking included in your rent or you own a space. You can cheapen it further by doing your own shaken.
Gas and tolls are entirely dependent on how you drive, how far you drive, and what roads you take.
The government mandated fees are road tax (annual) and maintenance inspection plus compulsory insurance (every 2 years). Road tax depends on your engine size, but I think up to 1.5 liter engines is 34500 yen then it increases 5000 yen for every 0.5 litre increase in engine size. The maintenance inspection and compulsory insurance, if you bring it to the inspection center yourself, will cost about 60,000 yen but if you bring it to like Autobacs or yellow hat, they will charge up to 100,000 yen.
So that alone is about 65,000 a year give or take, or about 5400 per month.
If you want liability insurance (highly recommended) that is about 5000-10000 a month depending on the car and your driving history.
Parking fees vary so you fill in the blank there.
So average cost including liability insurance but minus the parking fees could go from 10,000 15,000 a month.
If you go Kei
Insurance is less than 10,000 Yen a month if you include your vehicle, 5000 Yen if you just include whatever you hit.
Shaken is 50,000 Yen every 2 years.
Tax is 11,000 Yen a year.
Highway toll is 20-30% cheaper. I cant remember, but its a nice discount.
Fuel cost is higher especially if you drive on freeway or mountains and have to rev the engine all the time.
Parking can be significantly cheaper if you can find a Kei only space in the city. if not its the same
It mostly depends on the car, your age and the color of your driver’s license.
Per year, I pay:
– parking 0
– Insurance 37,180 yens (season hoken with unlimited coverage)
– Shaken 30,000 yens every 2 years (mechanic friend did the application for me, I pay barely more than what I’d pay if I did it myself)
– Road tax 39,500 yens
So in total 91,680 yens per year or 7,640 yens per month. I drive a second hand 2017 Toyota sienta.
As a young fresh driver you will probably pay much more than this and you will also need a parking spot, which can be quite expensive in Yokohama.
If your goal is to just have a car to go on vacation and week end trips every so and on (like me), make sure to properly check how the car model, engine CC and age will impact the price of your insurance.
Engine CC will impact the cost of your annual road tax (lower CC pay less).
I forgot what impacts the price of the shaken, but you can drastically reduce the cost by filling the paperwork yourself. Dealers will make you pay a premium price for something they do in 15 minutes when they have no customer in their store.
Get a mechanic friend, it will save you tons of money. My friend does my inspection for meat and beer and only charges me whatever it costs him when things need to replaced.