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.
In short
- Your My Number Card expires on the day your period of stay expires. Not on your tenth birthday, the way a Japanese holder’s does.
- When you extend your stay, extend the card at the city office too. Otherwise it lapses.
- Since 14 June 2026 your residence card and My Number Card can be one card — the Special Residence Card.
- But you cannot apply for it on its own. Only alongside a renewal, a residence-card reissue or similar. And not online.
- Your current certificates lapse about a week before you collect it, so the card may not work as a health card in that window.
What changes: you know a visa extension alone does not save the card – and you extend it at the city office before it lapses.
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?
- How long is it valid? Not ten years
- What changed on 14 June 2026?
- What should you know before applying?
- What does it cost?
- What is printed on it? And what about a common-use name?
- Can you do this without Japanese?
- When should you skip the Special Residence Card?
- Frequently asked questions
- Summary
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 (including the seal certificate) 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 (MIC and Digital Agency leaflet for foreign residents on the My Number system, in Japanese). The card is a separate step you request yourself, and it is optional. If you were out when the letter came, request redelivery in English before the holding period ends.
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 (Immigration Services Agency, My Number Card guidance for foreign residents). 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 (Immigration Services Agency, integration Q&A, Q13).
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. If you use it as your health insurance card, a missed extension shows up at the clinic too, so know what happens to it at reception after expiry.
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 (integration Q&A, Q5 and Q6).
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 (Immigration Services Agency, what is a residence card).
What should you know before applying?
The official page (Immigration Services Agency, applying for a Special Residence Card) 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, a change-of-address notification, or a reissue of your residence card (for a damaged card, or on request). If all you want is to switch cards, apply alongside a reissue on request (Q2-1 on the official page).
- 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.
My Number Card and Special Residence Card at a glance
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Expiry (people with a fixed period of stay) | The last day of your period of stay |
| Expiry (permanent residents, Highly Skilled Professional 2, special permanent residents) | Your 10th birthday after the card is issued (5th birthday if under 18) |
| Is it compulsory? | No. Both the My Number Card and the Special Residence Card are optional |
| Your current residence card | One issued before 14 June 2026 stays valid until its expiry. You do not have to switch |
| Applying for the Special Residence Card alone | Not possible. Only together with one of: period-of-stay extension, change of status, permanent residence, address notification or change, change of other details, renewal of the card’s validity, or reissue (damage etc. / by request) |
| Online application | Not supported |
| Electronic certificate | The one on your current card is revoked about a week before you receive the Special Residence Card (this can affect the My Number health insurance card) |
| Fees | Normally free the first time you receive it from 14 June 2026 with a card issued by 13 June. Otherwise 1,900 yen to Immigration + 600 yen to J-LIS (800 yen if you get an electronic certificate) |
| New-style residence card | Period of stay, type of permission, date of permission and issue date are gone from the surface and only in the IC chip. A face photo is shown from age 1 |
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 application page carries a table of which procedure costs what. The combinations are fiddly, so find your own row before you go.
For applications from 1 October 2026, some fees changed for holders of a residence card issued on or after 14 June 2026: with a permanent-residence application both fees apply, and with a change-of-address notification neither does (notes 3 and 4 under the same table).
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, as announced on its residence card page: 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 Immigration Services Agency guidance page carries the application form and a completed example in many languages — Japanese, English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Nepali, Thai, Indonesian and Filipino.
The phone lines are multilingual too (My Number freephone).
- 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 (MIC and Digital Agency leaflet).
When should you skip the Special Residence Card?
If your next renewal is more than a year away, there is nothing to rush. Applying at that visit saves you a separate trip to the counter.
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.
If it is the residence card you lose, report it to the police, then re-issue at immigration within 14 days.
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, change-of-address notification, or a residence-card reissue (damaged card or on request). To switch cards only, apply with a reissue on request. 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) / MIC and Digital Agency, leaflet for foreign residents on the My Number system and card / e-Gov law search, Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act / Immigration Services Agency, applying for a Special Residence Card (procedures table, fee notes 3 and 4, Q2-1) (checked 26 September 2026)
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WHO WROTE THIS
mori
Japanese. I read the ministries’ own notices, orders and Q&As in the original, and I start from what my Nepalese and Sri Lankan friends in Japan actually ran into. I do not write about what I have not checked or been told.
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