March 19, 2026· Updated May 7, 2026
By the HalfKey team
Tokyo banking without juminhyo: monthly-stay options
Most English-language guides to opening a Japanese bank account skip the part where the bank asks for a 住民票. Midterm guests rarely have one. The four products that fill the gap each solve a narrower problem than a real bank account, and the per-transaction math decides which you actually need.
A new midterm guest reading the standard "open a Japanese bank account" guide is being given the wrong instruction. The guide assumes you have a 住民票 (jūminhyō — resident certificate, the address-registration document the ward office issues to people on visas of 3 months or longer), a registered seal, and six months of patience. You almost certainly have none of those things. The guide is for people staying two years.
The real question on a 30-to-90-day stay is narrower. You need to receive yen. You need to pay konbini bills. You need to top up a Suica. You may need to send money home. None of these requires a city-bank account. They require four different products with four different fee structures, and the choice depends on which problem you actually have.
Start with what a 住民票 is for. The ward office issues it once you register an address under the Basic Resident Registration Act (住民基本台帳法 — jūmin kihon daichō hō). Registration requires a 在留カード (zairyū card — resident card, issued at the airport for visas of 3 months or longer). A 90-day visa-free tourist stay does not produce a card. A digital nomad visa produces a stamp but no card. A 90-day business visa produces no card either.
Without a card, no juminhyō. Without a juminhyō, the city banks (MUFG, SMBC, Mizuho) refuse the account application at the screening step. The desk clerk does not even take the form. Yucho (Japan Post Bank), Shinsei, and Sony Bank were the foreigner-tolerant exceptions for years. The 2018 amendment to the 犯罪収益移転防止法 (hanzai shūeki iten bōshi hō — Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds) tightened verification rules across all of them. Yucho still opens accounts to non-residents at some branches; the same branch may refuse you next month. The rule is now functionally per-clerk.
So the standard advice fails for a stay measured in weeks rather than years. The substitute products are not banks at all. Three are payment institutions licensed in the UK or EU. One is a Japanese internet bank that survived the foreigner-onboarding tightening better than its competitors did.
Wise (formerly TransferWise) is the default for receiving JPY. It is licensed in the UK as an electronic money institution (EMI) under FCA rules, not as a bank. The product holds balances in 50+ currencies in a single account. The JPY balance gets a Japanese-format account number (7 digits) and routing details that work for domestic 銀行振込 (ginkō-furikomi — bank transfer). An employer or a freelance client in Japan can pay your Wise account exactly the way they would pay a Japanese bank. The transfer clears in 0 to 2 business days.
The fee structure is what matters. A JPY-to-JPY transfer into the Wise account is free. A USD-to-JPY conversion runs roughly 0.4% to 0.6% of the converted amount, plus a fixed JPY fee of about ¥250. Wise quotes the mid-market exchange rate (the rate Bloomberg and Reuters print) without a markup.
Compare a SWIFT transfer from a US bank to a Japanese bank. Sender fees run $35 to $50. Correspondent-bank fees of $15 to $30 are deducted in transit. The receiving bank applies a 2% to 4% exchange-rate markup on top.
The math at one horizon. Receive ¥500,000 from a US client. Via SWIFT into a Japanese bank: $50 sender + $20 correspondent + 3% rate markup = roughly ¥10,500 in fees and rate spread, against ¥500,000 received. Via Wise: 0.5% conversion fee = ¥2,500. The difference is ¥8,000 on a single transfer. Run that monthly across a 90-day stay and Wise saves you ¥24,000 against the SWIFT path.
Wise does not give you a Japanese debit card on a foreign-issued account. The Wise card is issued in the country where you registered, on Mastercard or Visa rails. Konbini ATMs (Seven Bank, Lawson Bank) accept it for cash withdrawal at standard JPY rates with a typical ¥220 ATM fee. Yucho ATMs accept it too. You spend the JPY balance directly via card or via QR-code through Wise's regional integrations.
Revolut is the closest competitor product in shape. Licensed in Lithuania as a bank (the EU passport reaches the UK and other markets), it offers a multi-currency wallet, a JPY balance with Japanese receiving details, and a debit card. The fee math is similar to Wise on most pairs, with two structural differences.
Revolut runs a tiered subscription. The free tier caps free FX conversions at ¥150,000 worth per month; above that, a 1% fee applies. The paid tiers (Plus, Premium, Metal) raise or remove the cap for ¥1,000 to ¥4,000 per month. Wise has no monthly subscription and no free-conversion cap; you pay 0.4% to 0.6% on every conversion regardless of volume.
Revolut's weekend FX rates carry a 1% markup that Wise's do not. If your client pays you on Friday evening and you convert before Monday open, Revolut charges 1% extra against the Friday-close mid-market rate. Wise quotes the same mid-market rate seven days a week.
The math at two horizons. Convert ¥100,000 worth of USD on a weekday: Wise 0.5% = ¥500. Revolut free tier 0% = ¥0. Revolut wins for low volume on weekdays. Convert ¥1,000,000 worth of USD on a weekday: Wise 0.5% = ¥5,000. Revolut free tier hits the ¥150,000 cap and charges 1% on the remaining ¥850,000 = ¥8,500. Wise wins for high volume. The ¥150,000 cap moves the crossover to roughly ¥250,000 of monthly conversion volume, plus or minus depending on which week you use.
Both products fail one test. They are not Japanese banks. Some Japanese counterparts (older landlords, ward office, some pension and insurance flows) want a Japanese-bank account number and refuse a Wise or Revolut JPY number. The number format is identical. The institution name on the slip is not. A clerk reading "Wise (Japan)" or "Revolut" in the bank-name field can refuse the form.
GMO Aozora ネット銀行 (netto-ginkō — internet bank) is the one Japanese bank in this product set. It is the retail brand of GMO Aozora Net Bank, Ltd., a fully-licensed Japanese commercial bank. It operates under Banking Act (銀行法 — ginkō-hō) supervision and is jointly held by GMO Internet Group and Aozora Bank. It onboards online with no branch visit.
The opening requirements, on paper, are a zairyū card and a Japanese mobile number. A juminhyō is not technically required for the screening step. In practice, the bank asks for one when the visa is short (under 6 months) or when the address registration cannot be verified by another means. The 2024 onboarding flow rejects a non-trivial fraction of applicants on the first attempt; resubmission with a different address proof sometimes clears it. The product is real but the success rate is not 100%.
When it works, you get a real Japanese-bank account number, a Visa debit card on Japanese rails, and access to 口座振替 (kōza-furikae — direct debit) for utilities. The TEPCO, Tokyo Gas, and Tokyo Suidō switch flows accept GMO Aozora as a primary bank. The companion piece on switching from konbini slips to auto-debit covers the form mechanics. The number is read as Japanese by every counterparty.
GMO Aozora does not solve cross-currency. Wire-out to a foreign account uses standard SMBC or Mizuho correspondent rails at standard JPY-bank fee structures (¥3,500 to ¥5,500 per outbound wire plus the receiving bank's fee). For sending money home, Wise from a separately funded balance is cheaper. The GMO Aozora account is the receiving and paying-domestic side of the stack.
Yucho (Japan Post Bank) sits at the edge of this set. Yucho operates the 通常貯金 (tsūjō chokin — ordinary savings account, the default deposit product), and historically opened it to non-residents on tourist or short-stay visas at branch discretion. The branch network covers every postal code in Japan. The ATMs accept foreign-issued Visa, Mastercard, and JCB at no foreign-exchange markup beyond the issuing bank's.
The Yucho path used to be the standard recommendation for a midterm guest. Walk into the branch with a passport and an address (a hotel address sufficed at some branches), fill in the form, and walk out with a savings book (通帳 — tsūchō) the same day. The 2018 amendment to the criminal-proceeds-prevention act broke the consistency. Some branches still open the account to non-residents. Some require a juminhyō and reject without it. The rule is per-branch and, increasingly, per-clerk.
The practical implication: Yucho is a gamble worth running if you have an afternoon and a nearby branch. The downside is one wasted hour. The upside is a real Japanese bank account with full domestic-rail access and a familiar cash-deposit mechanism (Yucho ATMs accept up to 100 banknotes per deposit). If the first branch refuses, walk to the next one. The branch behaviors do diverge.
What Yucho does not give you is a JPY-receiving number a foreign client will accept without friction. Yucho's IBAN equivalent (the BIC plus account number) routes through Japan Post correspondent rails that some foreign banks treat as second-tier. SWIFT transfers to Yucho can take 5 business days. Wise routes around this by holding a JPY balance directly.
The four products solve four different problems. Mapping them to the actual midterm-guest situations is the only piece of this that matters.
If you need to receive JPY salary or invoice payments from a Japanese employer or client, Wise is the default. The receiving rails are domestic-format. The fees are visible. No juminhyō required, no branch visit, no rejection risk.
If you need to pay konbini bills, top up Suica, or run day-to-day spend in JPY, a multi-currency debit card covers it. Wise, Revolut, or a home-country card all work. A 7-Eleven or Lawson ATM withdrawal runs ¥220 above mid-market on the conversion. The yen lasts the same way it would from any account.
If you need 口座振替 for recurring utilities and a Japanese bank-name field, GMO Aozora is the only product in this set that delivers. The onboarding has friction. The output is a real domestic-bank account.
If you need to send money home, Wise outbound from a JPY balance runs 0.5% to 0.7% all-in. A SWIFT outbound from a Japanese city bank runs 2% to 4% all-in. Add a flat ¥3,500 to ¥5,500 sender fee on the SWIFT side. The spread is ¥10,000 to ¥40,000 on a typical ¥1,000,000 transfer.
The Yucho path is the legacy option that still occasionally works. Treat it as a 50/50 gamble that costs one afternoon. Do not plan around it.
The rebuttal to "open a Japanese bank account" is that a midterm guest does not need one to function in Tokyo. They need a JPY-receiving number, a card that spends JPY at ATMs and konbini, a way to pay utilities, and a way to send money home. Wise covers receiving and outbound. A multi-currency card covers spend. Konbini slips cover utilities until month two. Four problems, two products if you stay short, three if you stay long.
The original guide fits someone on a five-year working visa, with a residence card, a juminhyō, an inkan, and a year of paystubs. Almost nobody on day five of a 90-day stay matches that profile. The guide is not lying; it is answering a different question.
If your stay is under 90 days and you are not eligible for a juminhyō, skip the Japanese-bank-account project entirely. Open a Wise account in your home country before flying, and add Revolut if you expect more than ¥250,000/month of FX conversion. If your stay extends past 90 days and you have a zairyū card by then, attempt GMO Aozora once for the auto-debit upgrade. Otherwise the konbini path covers you for the duration.
— halfkey runs furnished Tokyo apartments for stays of 30 days to 12 months. Browse listings for your dates.