My Number Card in Japan: It Expires With Your Period of Stay

Checked against the Immigration Services Agency, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Digital Agency on 10 September 2026. This scheme only began on 14 June 2026 and is still moving. Check the official page for dates before you go.

Ask a Japanese friend about the My Number Card and you will hear “it lasts ten years”. Yours does not. Their card has no period of stay attached to it. People let theirs lapse every year simply because nobody told them.

What is the My Number Card?

The My Number Card is an official photo ID carrying your 12-digit personal number. It has an IC chip, works as your health-insurance card, gets you certificates from a convenience store, and signs you into government services online.

The number itself is assigned automatically when your first resident record is created in Japan. You do not apply for it. About two to three weeks later a personal number notification arrives at your address by registered mail. The card is a separate step you request yourself, and it is optional.

How long is it valid? Not ten years

This is the part that matters most.

If your status has an end date, so does your card. Student, Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, Specified Skilled Worker, Dependent — that is most people.

Only those with an unlimited stay get the Japanese rule of the tenth birthday after issue: Permanent Resident, Highly Skilled Professional (ii), and Special Permanent Resident. Under 18, it is the fifth birthday.

So extending your stay is not the end of it. Once you have the new residence card, go to your city office before the card’s expiry date and extend the card as well.

Immigration sometimes takes so long that the new residence card will not arrive in time. You are not stuck. Phone your city office before the expiry date and the card’s validity can be extended specially.

What changed on 14 June 2026?

Your residence card and My Number Card can now be a single card, called the Special Residence Card (for Special Permanent Residents, the Special Permanent Resident Certificate equivalent). The legal basis is article 19-15-2 of the Immigration Act.

The real gain is not having to go to the city office a second time. Today, after immigration extends your stay, you must separately visit the municipal counter to update your My Number Card. With the Special Residence Card, the immigration visit alone brings everything up to date.

It is not compulsory. The card you hold now stays valid until its expiry date. You do not have to switch.

The same date changed the ordinary residence card too. Period of stay, type of permission, date of permission and date of issue no longer appear on the face of the card — they live in the IC chip. And photos, previously shown only for holders aged 16 and over, now appear from age 1 on cards issued from 14 June 2026.

What should you know before applying?

The official page lists its own warnings. Going without reading them costs you a trip.

• You cannot apply on its own. Only together with a period-of-stay extension, a status change, permanent-residence permission, a residence-card validity renewal, a change to your printed details, or a change-of-address notification.
• There is no online application. If you want this card, the immigration procedure itself has to be done at the counter.
• It is not issued the same day. Expect at least about two weeks — unlike a residence card, which you get on the spot.
• The certificates on your current card lapse about a week before you collect the new one. Use as a health-insurance card may be affected in that window.
• Keeping it means re-applying every time. Miss the application at a later renewal and you simply get an ordinary residence card back.

If you have hospital appointments that month, apply in a different one. During that week or so without certificates you may not be able to use the card at a clinic.

What does it cost?

Free, in principle, at your first procedure on or after 14 June 2026. That covers anyone holding a residence card issued up to 13 June 2026 who then goes in for a renewal or similar.

After that, two separate fees can apply.

• To Immigration — 1,900 yen (2,600 yen if the card is posted to you)
• To J-LIS, the local-government information systems organisation — 600 yen (800 yen if electronic certificates are issued)

The official page carries a table of which procedure costs what. The combinations are fiddly, so find your own row before you go.

What is printed on it? And what about a common-use name?

The face of the Special Residence Card carries your name, date of birth, gender, country or region of nationality, address, status of residence, the expiry date of your period of stay, the residence card number, the card’s own expiry date, whether work is restricted, and whether you hold permission to engage in activity outside your status. The My Number itself is on the back.

A common-use name appears on the card if it is recorded on your resident record — the same rule as for an ordinary My Number Card.

One practical footnote. Because the period of stay left the face of the card, employers’ reader apps stopped showing it for a while. The Immigration Services Agency has since fixed the residence-card reader app: from the release of 19 August 2026 it shows the period of stay, the type of permission and the date of permission again.

Can you do this without Japanese?

Yes. The application form and a completed example exist in many languages — Japanese, English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Nepali, Thai, Indonesian and Filipino.

The phone lines are multilingual too.

• 0120-0178-27 (about the card) — English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese 8:30-20:00; Thai, Nepali, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Tagalog 9:00-18:00
• 0120-0178-26 (about the system and the My Number Portal) — those ten languages, weekdays 9:30-20:00, weekends and holidays 9:30-17:30

One trap. The application form that comes with your notification has your period-of-stay expiry printed on it, and it stops working once that date passes. If you are within about a month of it, do not use that form — extend your stay first, then collect a fresh form at the city office.

When should you skip the Special Residence Card?

If your next renewal is more than a year away, there is nothing to rush. You cannot apply on its own anyway, so it will keep until that visit.

If you file your immigration paperwork online, you can also leave it. Getting this card means going to the counter in person, which costs you the convenience you already have. Weigh the extra trip to the city office against the extra trip to immigration, and decide.

The clear case for applying is the opposite one: you have a renewal or a status change coming up and will be at the counter regardless. Do it then — the first one is free.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Do foreign residents have to get a My Number Card?

No. It is optional, and so is the Special Residence Card. If you do not want it, you receive the new-format residence card instead.

Q. How long is a foreign resident’s My Number Card valid?

Until your period of stay expires, if your status has an end date. Only Permanent Residents, Highly Skilled Professional (ii) and Special Permanent Residents get the tenth birthday after issue (fifth if under 18).

Q. I extended my stay. Does the card extend automatically?

No. After you receive the new residence card, go to your city office before the card’s expiry date and extend it. If you do not, it lapses.

Q. My residence card will not arrive before my My Number Card expires.

Phone your city office before the expiry date. The card’s validity can be extended specially even when the new residence card is late.

Q. Can I apply for just the Special Residence Card?

No. Only alongside a period-of-stay extension, status change, permanent-residence application, residence-card validity renewal, change of printed details, or change-of-address notification. There is no online route.

Q. What if I lose the Special Residence Card?

You must first apply to Immigration for a reissued ordinary residence card, and you cannot request the Special Residence Card at that point. Once you have the residence card, apply to exchange it — and you can request the Special Residence Card then.

Summary

Your My Number Card expires with your period of stay. Assume the Japanese ten-year rule and you will let it lapse. Extending your stay is only half the job; the city-office extension is the other half.

Since 14 June 2026 the two cards can be one. The gain is skipping the second trip. The costs are: never on its own, never online, at least two weeks, and certificates that lapse a week before you collect it.

Nothing here is urgent. The best moment is the next time you have to visit immigration anyway — the first one is free. And if the Japanese defeats you, there is a free phone line in ten languages.

Sources (official): Immigration Services Agency, applying for a Special Residence Card / the same, integration Q&A / the same, what is a residence card / the same, My Number Card guidance with multilingual forms / My Number freephone (multilingual) (all checked 10 September 2026)