With inflation and Japan already expensive as it is, depending one goes and lives, for those who are from the U.S. that went there in the past months, how did you bring a large amount of money with you? Three letters, TSA.
Credit cards?
Traveler’s Cheques?
Cash?
There’s key money, reikin, and other high expenses settling down after arriving. Depending on what kind of accommodation it is and what real estate agency was used.
If anyone from the states, how did you accomplish this with TSA with mind? Did you have to declare the amount you had while going through TSA or not?
Thanks for reading.
7 comments
TSA generally doesn’t give a crap about going out of the country. It customs coming into japan you have to declare anything over 1m JPY.
You don’t have to declare credit cards obviously, just make sure yours doesn’t charge overseas exchange rates. You can fund most things via card.
For apartment etc, you’ll need a bank account. Once you have a bank account you can transfer money in from the US.
Japan is expensive? My mortgage for my 4LDK house is 1/4 of what we were paying for rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in the US. Food is cheaper, healthcare is cheaper. Even with a single income household you can live a good life.
To move money you use Wise. Set it up before you leave so your US bank info is confirmed then set up your Japan bank account when you arrive and transfer money as needed. Been doing it monthly for 2.5 years and zero problem.
We didn’t bring lots of physical cash— no real need for that. For paying all the startup fees with our apartment we just did an international bank transfer. After that we just withdrew from ATMs (Schwab so no fees) or used our US credit cards until we had more money in our Japanese accounts. Could have done a big transfer with Wise I guess, but we didn’t really need to.
Check Japan Customs & Excise. If I recall, you must declare financial instruments totalling over 1,000,000 JPY in value.
That includes:
* Cash (in any currency)
* Cheques (if you enjoy pain)
* Gold bullion (don’t hide this in bodily orifices, they look there)
* Stock certificates
* Bonds
* etc…
Credit cards are fine.
Bear in mind that travelling between countries may result in financial instruments being seized, with no reason needing to be given. Make sure you have documents for large sums of cash, etc.
Quite frankly, it would be safer to carry as much as you need, and ensure that you can access further funds until you get banking set up here.
I moved recently and brought cash, but I stayed under the deceleration limit.
Also had two credit cards.
>how did you accomplish this with TSA with mind?
Very few people people bring enough actual cash with them that TSA would give a damn. Bank transfers and ATMs are a thing.
Bringing cash for your initial expenses doesn’t make any sense, as you would still have to get a bank account in Japan to pay for most of the things you’re talking about. Most landlords require a bank transfer rather than a stack of cash.
Even if you ***do*** bring enough cash, so what? It’s not illegal to carry cash. You have to *declare* if you’re traveling with more than $10k. And you’d need to declare it again in Japan if it’s more than 1 million yen ($7500). But “declare” =/= seizure. You just need to fill out some tax forms.
If you’re referring to civil asset forfeiture that’s well outside the purview of this subreddit.
Yeah the best source would be to look up Japanese customs if going into Japan.
I want to say it was amounts over 1million yen.
Not sure what the form name is officially. But “Currency/money declaration form” usually brings it up.
TSA is the USA domestic security. They have no interest in that unless they suspect it has ties to terrorism.
CBP is the US equivalent you’d declare to cash/monetary instruments coming into America.
It’s required if it’s 10k or more usd on a fincen form 105, but only for keeping track of money coming and going. There’s no fee to declare even a million bucks in a suitcase, for example.
Foreign poker players regularly travel in and out with tens of thousands on the way to Vegas.