- Changing the address on your zairyu card (residence card) is finished at one counter: the municipal office covering your new address. There is no second errand at a regional immigration bureau, and no form to post to one.
- That only works because of a deeming provision in Article 19-9, paragraph 3 of the Immigration Control Act. It is triggered by submitting the card. Turn up without the card and the residence-register side of the visit still happens, but the immigration side does not, and you have to make the report again.
- You will not be issued a new card. The new address is recorded on the card you already hold, which is why the card goes across the counter and comes back the same day.
- Anything other than the address, including a change of name, of nationality or of your period of stay, cannot be done at a municipal office at all. That is a regional immigration bureau matter. Guidance that blurs these two is guidance that will cost you a day.
- There is no fee, and the deadline is the same 14 days that applies to the report of a new place of residence.
There are two questions people actually have about the residence card and a house move, and most articles answer neither of them clearly. The first is whether the municipal office is enough or whether immigration also has to be told. The second is what happens to the card itself: whether a new one is issued, what gets written where, and how long you are without it.
This article answers both, and then deals with the boundary that causes the most wasted journeys, which is the line between what a municipal office can change and what it cannot.
One counter, and why one counter is enough
The report of a new place of residence is made under Article 19-9, paragraph 1 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. It is made to the Minister of Justice, but it is made by way of the mayor of the municipality, and the card is submitted as part of it. That is the design: the municipal counter is the front desk for something that ends up with the immigration authorities.
Sitting alongside it is paragraph 3 of the same article. Where you submit your zairyu card and make the moving-in notification or the moving-within notification under the Basic Resident Registration Act, that notification is deemed to be the report required under paragraph 1. One act, two legal effects.
This is the whole reason you do not go to a regional immigration bureau after moving house. It is not an administrative courtesy or a local arrangement that might differ between cities. It is a provision of the statute, and it works the same way everywhere in the country.
The card is the trigger, not the identification
Here is the part that is worth reading twice, because it is the most common practical failure and it is entirely avoidable.
The deeming provision is conditional on the card being submitted. If you go to the municipal office and complete your moving-in notification without your zairyu card, you have made a valid notification under the residence register law. You have not made the report required by the immigration law. The Immigration Services Agency states this directly in its published questions and answers: where the card was not submitted, the deeming provision does not apply and the report of the place of residence has to be made separately.
Nobody will chase you about this. You will walk out of the office with a completed moving-in notification and no reason to think anything is missing, while the 14-day clock on the immigration report is still running. Treat the card as part of the paperwork rather than as the piece of identification you happen to be carrying, and this problem never arises.
The same applies to everyone in the household who holds a card. If your partner or your children hold their own zairyu cards, each of those cards has to be at the counter for each of those reports to have the same effect. Sending one person with a bag of family documents is fine only if the cards themselves are in it.
What actually happens to the card
A change of address does not produce a new card. The Immigration Services Agency's questions and answers state that for a change of place of residence no new residence card is issued, and that the new address is recorded on the existing card.
Municipal offices describe where that recording is done. The city of Koto in Tokyo, for example, publishes that the new address is entered on the reverse side of the card. That is a municipal source, and it is the right kind of source to rely on for that detail, because the national agency's own material says that the address is recorded on the card without specifying the part of the card.
The practical consequences of this are good ones. You do not wait weeks for a card to arrive by post. You do not surrender your only proof of status. The card is handed over, written on, and handed back within the same visit, and the space on the back is why a card that has moved several times gradually fills up.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Where do I go? | The municipal office covering your new address |
| Do I also go to immigration? | No, not for the address |
| Deadline | Within 14 days of moving in |
| What do I hand over? | Your zairyu card |
| Do I get a new card? | No. The new address is recorded on your existing card |
| Fee | None |
| If I forget the card | The immigration report is not made, and has to be made again |
The boundary: what a municipal office cannot change
A municipal office deals with your address. That is the extent of its authority over your residence card.
Changes to the other things printed on the card are a different procedure with a different counter. Koto city's own guidance says it plainly: changes other than the address, such as a change of name, of nationality or region, or of your period of stay, are handled at a regional immigration bureau, not at the municipal office.
This matters in ordinary situations, not exotic ones. Somebody marries and changes their family name in the same season as they move. Somebody's period of stay is extended in March and they move in April. In both cases there are two errands at two different institutions, and doing the municipal one does not carry the other along with it.
If you read an article that tells you to notify immigration of your new address, or one that tells you the municipal office will update everything on your card, that article has the boundary backwards in one direction or the other. The address goes to the municipality. Everything else on the card goes to a regional immigration bureau.
The penalties, stated precisely
The Immigration Services Agency writes, in plain language and without article numbers, that a person who does not make the report may be punished by a fine of not more than 200,000 yen. The provision behind that wording is Article 71-5, item 2 of the Immigration Control Act. The item number is worth getting right, because item 3 of the same article concerns a different obligation, the reporting of changes to card entries other than the place of residence.
A false report is a separate offence. Article 71-2, item 1 provides for imprisonment for not more than one year or a fine of not more than 200,000 yen. Both limbs belong in any accurate description of it.
And beyond the fine there is the revocation ground. Where a person has left the place of residence they reported and has not reported a new one within 90 days of leaving, that is a listed ground for revoking a status of residence under Article 22-4, paragraph 1, item 9. The trigger is leaving the old address, which means the clock can be running during a period when you have no fixed address at all. The main checklist for moving within Japan sets these out alongside the other deadlines a move produces.
The tokutei zairyu card, and what is honestly known about it
Operation of the tokutei zairyu card, which merges the residence card and the My Number card into a single card, began on 14 June 2026, with applications accepted at regional immigration bureaus from 15 June. It is for mid-to-long-term residents recorded on the resident register.
The point that touches this article is that the municipal counter is one of the places it can be applied for. The city of Osaka publishes that an application for issuance of a tokutei zairyu card can be made at a municipal office at the same time as the report of a change of place of residence, specifically the report under Article 19-9, paragraph 3. It also publishes that where the card is received at your first such procedure on or after 14 June 2026, no fee is charged in principle. Applications for issuance are not accepted through the online residence application system, so this is a counter procedure.
What has not changed is the division of labour. Reports about your place of residence go to the municipality. Applications concerning your status of residence and reports concerning the residence card go to a regional immigration bureau. The new card does not move that line.
What we are deliberately not telling you is anything about how the address is recorded on a tokutei zairyu card, or whether holding one changes the card-updating steps at a house move. Those points are not stated in the official material we have been able to check, and this is a subject where a confident guess would be actively harmful. Ask at the counter, and treat any article that answers those questions crisply as unverified.
Why the recorded address matters after you leave the counter
The address on your card is not a formality. It is the address that other institutions copy, and several of them refuse to proceed when their record and your card disagree.
- Banks. The obligation to tell a bank about a change of address comes from the account terms you agreed to, not from anti-money-laundering legislation as is often claimed. The model ordinary deposit terms published by the Japanese Bankers Association ask customers to notify the bank in writing without delay when the name, seal, address or other registered details change, and they provide that the bank is not liable for loss arising before that notification, absent fault on the bank's part. Individual banks write their own terms, so the article numbers and wording differ. If you are still at the stage of choosing where to bank, our guide to opening a bank account in Japan covers what is asked for at the counter.
- Mobile and internet contracts. These are where a delivery address and a contract address quietly diverge, and where a SIM or a router ends up going back to the depot. The order in which to set up phone and internet explains why the registered address sits so early in that chain.
- Everything posted to you. Tax notices, insurance cards, pension documents. These follow the resident register, which is exactly what your municipal visit updated.
A short list of what to take
- Your zairyu card, and the card of every household member being registered.
- Your My Number card, if you hold one, together with its personal identification numbers.
- Your moving-out certificate, if your previous municipality issued one. Where the moving-out notification was made using a My Number card, none is issued and none is needed.
- Identification for anyone attending on behalf of someone else, and whatever authorisation your municipality requires for that.
The document list around the notifications themselves varies between municipalities, and the article on the moving-out and moving-in notifications goes through the parts that are fixed by statute and the parts that are local practice.
FAQ
Do I need to notify the regional immigration bureau of my new address as well?
No. Submitting your zairyu card when you make the moving-in or moving-within notification at the municipal office causes that notification to be deemed the report required by the immigration law, under Article 19-9, paragraph 3. Doing it twice is not required and is not possible in the way people imagine, because the municipal counter is the intended route.
I registered my new address but forgot my residence card. Is that a problem?
Yes, and it is fixable. Without the card being submitted, the deeming provision does not apply, so the report of your new place of residence has not been made. Return to the municipal office with the card and complete the report. The 14 days ran from the day you moved in, not from your first visit, so do not leave it.
How long will I be without my card?
You are not sent away without it. Because no new card is issued for a change of address, the card is handed over at the counter, the new address is recorded on it, and it is returned to you during the same visit.
My name changed as well as my address. Can I do both at the municipal office?
No. The address is a municipal procedure. A change of name, and equally a change of nationality or region or of your period of stay, is handled at a regional immigration bureau. Plan two separate errands.
Does it cost anything?
No fee is charged for the report of a change of place of residence.
The back of my card is running out of space. What then?
Ask at the counter when you make your report. Municipal offices deal with this routinely and will tell you what happens for your card. We are not going to describe a procedure we cannot cite, and you will get a definite answer in the place where the entry is actually made.
I hold the new tokutei zairyu card. Is the process different?
The division of responsibility is unchanged: reports about your place of residence are made at the municipal office, and matters concerning your status of residence go to a regional immigration bureau. Beyond that, the details of how a house move is handled for that card are not something the published material we can cite settles, so ask at your municipal office rather than relying on any article, including this one.
