All Guides in English

2026.08.04

LIFE IN JAPAN, EXPLAINED

Life in Japan costs more when nobody tells you the rules.

Residence status, health insurance, rent, part-time work, tax, sending money home. The rules are not complicated — they are only written in Japanese. So every guide here exists twice: in English, and in Japanese simple enough to practise on.

The order is decided too. Protect your visa, cut your costs, then earn more. It works while you are still a student.

JUST ARRIVED?

Do these three first. Everything else waits for them.

  1. Register your address — within 14 days, or you can lose your status
  2. Join National Health Insurance — it is not optional, and it caps what a hospital can charge you
  3. Open a bank account — your part-time job cannot pay you without one

Latest guides

See every English guide, newest first →

Five skills, and the order is the point

Skill 1 protects the other four. Skill 3 is where the money actually changes — moving from a student job to a work visa is worth about 2.1 million yen a year. Skills 4 and 5 only make sense after that.

What this site is really trying to hand you

Rules change with the country and the decade. So these guides also set out the principles underneath them — the part that still works after you leave Japan. Who writes this, and why, is spelled out honestly.

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