How to Use J-Compass: Reading Paths for the Living-in-Japan Pillar
The how to use J-Compass Living in Japan guide is a map of the pillar, not another procedure. Find your profile below, follow its articles in order, and check the last-verified date on anything you act on.
Procedures, fees, and requirements can change. Confirm current details at the official source linked from each article you read before you act.
Overview
The Living-in-Japan pillar covers long-term-resident life by category: visas and immigration, housing, money and banking, health, taxes and pension, and community. No single reader needs all of it at once, and reading it front to back wastes the week you needed it for.
Each section below names one reader profile and threads the published articles that profile should read, in the order they apply. Every threaded title is a live article; where the pillar has not built a category yet, the section says so instead of pointing at empty space.
Prospective Mover
A prospective mover is still abroad and answering three questions: whether the move fits, what it costs, and whether any visa leads there. Start with Statuses of Residence in Japan: The Complete Map, which lays out the 在留資格 (zairyū shikaku, "status of residence") system the whole pillar assumes.1
Then price the decision. Realistic Cost of Living: Single Resident, Three City Tiers gives the three-tier snapshot, and Sample Budget Templates by Lifestyle Tier turns it into a personal number. Read The Patterns Foreign Residents Encounter alongside the budget, since community availability and friction shape the decision as much as rent does.
First-90-Days Newcomer
The newcomer sequence runs registration and ID first, then health insurance, bank, phone, and housing. Start at the ward office with Yakusho: Japan's Ward Office as Universal Interface, then confirm what the card proves with Residence Card: Japan's Foreign-Resident ID and what the registry records with Jūminhyō: Japan's Residence Record Explained.
Health insurance comes with registration: NHI Enrollment at the Ward Office covers the filing, and How Japan's Universal-Coverage System Works explains the system it buys into. Money follows with Bank Account Opening Documents in Japan, then Japan Post Bank for Foreigners: Opening a Yucho Account as the standard first bank, with Bank Account in Japan for Foreigners: The Six-Month Rule setting expectations on megabank friction.
The phone side starts with Prepaid SIMs for the First Month, then widens to Big Three Carriers vs. MVNO Sub-Brands and Mobile Plan Considerations for Foreign Residents once a domestic account exists. Housing closes the sequence: How Renting Works in Japan for the market mechanics, The Guarantor Company System for the screening workaround, and Share Houses and Serviced Apartments for the low-friction bridge.
Mid-Term Resident
Settled residents stop setting up systems and start optimizing them. Extension of Period of Stay keeps status current, My Number and Banking: Requirements and Rules keeps accounts compliant, and The Residence-Tax Year-Two Surprise defuses the second-year bill before it lands.
Depth replaces logistics after year one. Long-Term Integration in Japan: Patience and the 5-Year Mark describes the documented adjustment curve, and The Foreign-Resident Community Structure maps where lasting ties actually form.
Pre-PR Applicant
Pre-PR applicants are stabilizing status for the long term. Permanent Residency in Japan: Overview is the anchor article, read against Statuses of Residence in Japan: The Complete Map for the system it sits inside and Extension of Period of Stay for the renewal record a strong application rests on.
Two money questions ride alongside the status question. Totalization Agreements with Japan: What They Do covers keeping pension value across borders, and The Gyoseishoshi for Visa and Immigration explains which licensed professional reads an individual case. Applicants weighing the further step read Naturalization in Japan: Becoming a Japanese Citizen for the alternative path.
Pre-Departure Resident
Departures run in reverse order: close, reclaim, notify, surrender. Departure Checklist: The 90-Day Run-Up sets the 90-day order, then Closing or Maintaining Bank and Brokerage Accounts resolves the account question and Lump-Sum Withdrawal: Pension Refund on Leaving Japan reclaims pension value.
The registry side closes last. Filing the Tenshutsu (Move-Out Notification) ends the ward record, and Residence-Card Surrender at the Airport returns the card at the final counter.
How This Pillar Earns Trust
Every article is built from sourced facts a reader can check. Structural claims cite the primary system owner: the MOFA living guide for the overall frame, the Immigration Services Agency status list for visa categories, the National Tax Agency treaty pages for cross-border tax, and the Japan Pension Service agreement pages for totalization.2134
Figures that can change carry explicit as-of dates instead of pretending to be timeless. Currency is the default assumption across the pillar, because fees, brackets, quotas, and processing times move on government schedules.
Stale figures trigger maintenance even when nothing else is wrong. A volatile fact aging past its as-of date sends its article back through re-verification, so the date next to a number is a maintenance promise, not decoration.
A fee without a verification date is incomplete information in this pillar. Read the date first, then decide whether to confirm the number before acting.
Good to know
This map threads published articles only
Every title named above resolves to a live article in the pillar index as of this writing. Nothing here points at a page that does not exist yet, so a profile path never dead-ends.
A missing category is a shipping order, not a verdict
The pillar publishes category by category, and an unbuilt topic is simply uncovered, not judged unimportant. Check back as the index grows; paths get re-threaded when new canonicals land.
Your profile can change mid-read
A mid-term resident can become a pre-departure resident in a month, and a prospective mover can land and need the newcomer path the same week. Switch profiles when life switches, rather than finishing a path that no longer fits.
See also
- Sample Budget Templates by Lifestyle Tier
- Prepaid SIMs for the First Month
- Share Houses and Serviced Apartments
- Big Three Carriers vs. MVNO Sub-Brands
- The Foreign-Resident Community Structure
- Filing the Tenshutsu (Move-Out Notification)