Ward Office?!?

3 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Ward Office?!?**

   I’m a university student preparing to spend the year in Tokyo under a foreign exchange program. Long story short, because of certain unchangeable circumstances and per my program’s requirements, I will need to make it to the ward office within two days of my arriving. Furthermore my program has a bunch of events in the afternoon that I technically don’t have to attend but I’d really like to go to in order to beat jetlag and meet some of my new classmates. I’m a little bit confused as to how these visits work! Do I need to make an appointment beforehand or do I just show up? How fast do they usually take? The ward office I’ll be going to is the Ebisu branch of Shibuya’—is it a really busy one that I should plan to get to as early as possible?! I’m supposed to go register my residence card and also apply for the national health insurance program… Any advice on how to go about this?!

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2. Hello. You just have to show up, fill up a couple of forms and take a number.

   You’ll want to register your residence card, national insurance and get a national pension exemption since you are a student. You’ll need a student ID for the exemption.

   I was not in the same ward as you but it took me roughly 2-3 hours. I think I went around 10am. I came back for a second significantly shorter round to get the exemption as I didn’t have my student ID on me when I went the first time.

3. You just show up and take a number. I had to prepare some paperwork beforehand, but they will help you even if you have nothing prepared.
   If you have plans later in the day, I would be there when they open.
   If was there 2-3 hours in Meguro and I arrived at like 11.