I just moved here from the US where I’d lived most of my life but maintained Japanese citizenship. I’m doing all the things I need to get set up: establish residency, get a phone/My Number/health insurance card, open a bank account, land an apartment, etc.
I hit a couple of snags that I thought I’d share. I first went to the city office and got my juminhyo. I got the juminhyo with my My Number printed on it so now I’m at least able to supply it on docs that ask for it. But since I hadn’t been living here, they never sent me the 23-digit number that’s required to kick off the application process to get the physical ID card. I went back to the city office to see if I can get a 23-digit number and when they tried to issue one, they said my account was in a pending status because of the recent juminhyo update and now I have to wait for them to mail the number to me. So I’m stuck with no photo ID beside my passport, and the My Number card would take over two months to process anyway.
Which leads me to the bigger snag at Japan Post when I tried to open a yucho bank account. I brought in my juminhyo, koseki tohon, and passport but when it came time to verify my identity, they said my passport was not valid since it was issued *after* February 2020. Apparently the new version doesn’t have a place to write in your name in kanji nor your address so they said they can’t verify it’s me because my (Japanese!) last name is in romaji. I was preparing myself for weird shit like this but I was blown away by the absurdity of it.
I’m wondering if this particular group of people at Japan Post didn’t know what they were talking about..? I [found this article](https://www.j-cast.com/2020/04/06383782.html?p=all) but it seems like it talks more about the physical address than the name (and they still haven’t figured it out almost three years later).
Anyway, I just applied for a bank account at Rakuten which now only requires a juminhyo so fingers crossed. Had I renewed my passport before February 4th, 2020, I would’ve been able to write in my name in kanji and had a yucho account by now. I just can’t believe the Japanese government “upgraded” the passport which made them invalid at their own post office/bank.
2 comments
To be honest, otherthan the new comers, Yuucho Ginko is not worth the hassle.. so no worries, you didn’t lose much.
I don’t think they’re wrong about the passport. But koseki tohon and juminhyou should be enough I thought. You can suppliment that with health insurance card. No photo id should be required as far as I know. Why noy open account with UFJ? I never opened yucho and prefer UFJ.