I’m aware the dollar is currently in power over yen and I intend to keep most of my money in dollars rather than converting it to yen. However, I have to convert some, and I was wonering if there is a difference between converting dollars to yen in the US, versus converting dollars to yen in Japan. If there is a difference, what will get me the most bang for my buck?
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Withdraw yen from your US bank account at an ATM in Japan.
Use transferwise 🤩
Use your debit card to withdraw yen from your US account at the ATM as needed. **Do not** bring dollars in cash. Very few banks do currency exchanges and you’ll have a hard time getting it exchanged
As others say using the ATM with your American card is generally a good way. However you should double check your bank fees and policies first.
However one major problem with this is that Japanese ATM have a fairly low maximum daily withdrawal limit foreign cards. About 30,000 I’d I recall right. So if you need a large amount of money for apartment or car down payments. You’ll either want to bring cash, preferably already converted to Yen, or more advisable look into setting up a wire transfer after your bank account is set up in Japan.
I would advise you bring at least a couple hundred dollars worth of yen to tide you through the first week though. While it is likely not a problem since the maximum withdrawal limits have been implemented, in the past there was a tendencies for the ATM around the JET orientation to completely run out of cash as all the JES would withdrawal money after arrival.
If you make a Wise account and card, you can transfer money into it and hold it as USD, or convert to yen.
You can use the Wise card to withdraw/spend at places that take card. I think there’s a fee if you withdraw more than X amount of cash in one month, so the best way might be to transfer it into your Japanese bank account once it’s set up and withdraw from there.
I would recommend bringing maybe like 400-500 bucks worth of yen already exchanged and exchange the rest here.
Would also recommend getting the Charles Schwab card, so you can withdraw here and get the atm fees refunded
Be careful if you want to wire through foreign currency to a Japanese bank account. You’ll have to front up to the branch in person and tell them about it otherwise they won’t process the transaction.
Probably easier just to withdraw from ATMs and cop the handling fee