Opening a Bank Account in Japan: The Rules Bank by Bank, and What a Debit Card Does

A Japanese bank account is not just somewhere to receive your salary. It is the payment instrument that mobile carriers, internet providers and landlords expect you to have, and it is the step in the setup sequence after you arrive that most often stalls. It stalls for a specific reason: the rules are not national. They are set bank by bank, they are worded carefully, and the parts that matter most to foreign residents are often buried in a footnote about how long you have been in the country.

This article sets out what each of four banks actually publishes, what the merged residence card changed in 2026, what a debit card does that a credit card does not, and what to have in your hand before you walk in. Where a bank has not published something, this article says so rather than guessing, because guessing is how people end up making a wasted trip.

The zairyu card is the document you cannot substitute

For foreign nationals, Japanese banks work from the residence card. Rakuten Bank states the requirement plainly: a foreign national applicant needs a zairyu card, or a special permanent resident certificate if that is the status they hold. There is no version of this process that starts without one of those two cards.

There is a second, less obvious condition sitting underneath it. Rakuten Bank also states that a person classed as a non-resident under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act cannot hold an account. Residency in that legal sense is not the same thing as holding a visa or being physically present, and it is worth knowing that the category exists, because it is the reason some applications are refused for reasons that appear to have nothing to do with the documents submitted.

Practical consequence: keep the card current. Renewing your period of stay late does not only create an immigration problem, it creates a banking problem, and one bank has published exactly what that problem looks like. Sony Bank states that if it cannot confirm your renewed card before your period of stay expires, it will restrict transactions from the day after the expiry date. That is a restriction on an account you already have, not on a new application, and it is entirely avoidable by sending in the new card as soon as you get it.

The six-month wall, and why it is not one rule

Newly arrived residents are often told that they have to wait six months before a bank will deal with them. That is a distortion of something real, and the distortion matters because the details differ.

AEON Bank publishes the strictest version. In principle it does not accept applicants who have been in Japan for less than six months since entry. There is a published exception: if your employer is a business establishment in Japan, an application may be possible, and that exception explicitly excludes part-time and casual work. So the six-month wall at AEON is real, but it is a wall with a door in it for people in regular employment with a Japanese employer.

Rakuten Bank handles the same situation differently. If it has been less than six months since your residence card was issued, you can still open an account by supplying either a document showing that your period of stay is six months or longer, or a health insurance card from your workplace in Japan. That is not a waiting period. It is a documentation requirement, and it is one that a lot of newly arrived employees can satisfy immediately.

The difference between those two paragraphs is the whole reason not to give up after one refusal. One bank counts months since you entered the country. The other counts months since your card was issued and offers two ways around it.

Four banks, side by side

Two of those four entries are about keeping an account rather than getting one. That is deliberate. The application is a single afternoon. Living with the account is years, and the restriction Sony Bank publishes is the kind of thing that stops a salary payment from landing at the worst possible moment.

What the merged residence card changed

In June 2026 Japan introduced the tokutei zairyu card, a single card that combines the functions of the residence card and the My Number card. On paper this is a simplification. In practice, during the transition, it has broken some of the automated identity checks that were built around the older cards.

The clearest published example is at Docomo SMTB Net Bank, formerly Sumishin SBI Net Bank, which changed its name on 3 August 2026. Following the introduction of the merged card, the bank suspended the smartphone-based identity check and the IC chip reading step for account opening, and switched to handling those applications by post for the time being.

The same pattern shows up outside banking. At least one major mobile carrier states that its quick smartphone identity check cannot be used with a tokutei zairyu card, which forces an in-store application. We cover that in detail in the Rakuten Mobile guide, because it changes how you should plan the whole sign-up.

If you hold the merged card, the working assumption should be: online verification may not be available, postal or in-person routes probably are, and either way it takes longer. Build that into your timing rather than discovering it at 11pm halfway through an application form.

Debit cards: what they do, and what they do not

A debit card takes the money out of your account at the moment you pay. A credit card lends you the money and bills you later. That is the entire difference, and everything that follows from it is downstream of that one mechanism.

For a newly arrived resident, the practical significance is not about shopping. It is about which contracts you can sign. A large part of Japanese recurring billing is designed around either a card number or an automatic transfer from an account, and if you have neither, the contract does not start. A debit card gives you a card number without needing the lending relationship a credit card involves.

It is not a universal substitute, and this article will not pretend otherwise. Two limits are worth stating clearly:

• Acceptance is decided by the other side. One major carrier lists its own bank's debit card as accepted, and lists debit cards issued by other companies as accepted in part, with the explicit note that whether a given card works is a decision for the card issuer. That is an honest way of saying "try it and see", and you should read it that way.
• Automatic bank transfer is not a documented right. The same carrier publishes a long list of banks it can take payment from by automatic transfer, including Rakuten, MUFG, Mizuho, SMBC, Resona, Saitama Resona, Japan Post Bank, PayPay Bank, Sony Bank, the former Sumishin SBI online bank, Seven Bank, au Jibun Bank, AEON Bank, Shinsei Bank and shinkin credit unions, with corporate accounts excluded. What it does not publish is whether foreign nationals can use that route. A list of banks is not a list of eligibility conditions, so do not treat your bank appearing on it as a promise.

If you have neither a credit card nor a debit card yet, that is exactly the situation the no-installation WiFi comparison is written for, because payment method is the single biggest filter in that market.

What to have ready before you apply

Gather these before you start, whether you are applying online or walking into a branch. The list is short, but the failure mode is always the same item missing.

• Your zairyu card, or special permanent resident certificate. Current, not expired, and ideally not about to expire.
• Your registered address, matching what city hall has. A juminhyo (certificate of residence) copy is worth having, since other steps ask for it too.
• A Japanese phone number. Applications ask for one and verification codes go to it.
• Your My Number, or the document showing it. Banks ask for it as a separate step from photo identity.
• Employment evidence, if you have it. Rakuten Bank names the health insurance card from a workplace in Japan as one route for people whose residence card was issued recently, and AEON Bank's exception to its six-month rule turns on your employer being a business establishment in Japan.
• Your name written consistently. Use the same form of your name, in the same order, as it appears on your residence card, everywhere. Mismatches between a card, an application and an existing account are a common reason for things being sent back.

What the account unlocks next

Once the account exists, three things become possible that were not before.

First, recurring billing. Mobile and internet contracts can be paid, which is why the account sits before the internet step and not after it.

Second, receiving salary in a normal way, which in turn produces the documents other institutions want to see later.

Third, sending money out of Japan. That is a genuinely separate subject with its own costs and its own paperwork, and getting it wrong is expensive in a way that opening the account is not. Start with the overview of sending money home from Japan for the comparison of routes, and with opening a Wise account with a residence card if you want the non-bank option explained document by document.

And if you are still working through the wider list of first-month tasks, the moving to Japan checklist puts the bank account back in context alongside health insurance, residence registration and the rest.

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