Tokyo move-out: what to cancel first, what to close last

Seven things to cancel before you leave a Tokyo furnished apartment, ranked by how much lead time each one needs. Not by how much it matters. The internet contract goes first and the bank account goes last, and most people do it in exactly the opposite order.

I ranked on four things:

• How many days of notice the contract needs before the billing stops
• Whether something physical has to move: a box, a meter reader, a key
• Whether you can finish it from another country
• Whether money still has to reach you after you leave

One item sits above all seven and is not on the list. If you are on a rolling monthly renewal instead of a fixed end date, the notice that you are not renewing has the longest lead of anything here. Go read that clause today, before you read the rest of this.

1. The internet line: first, and it is not close

Start here even though it feels like the last thing you would need. Cancelling a home internet line in Japan is not one action. It is three, and the last two happen after you have stopped using the service.

First you tell the provider to stop. Then a return box arrives in the post. Then you put the rented equipment in it and carry the box to a counter.

NTT East mails that return kit after the cancellation goes through, and its own return page says where the box goes: a post office, or a Lawson, Ministop, or Seicomart that handles Yu-Pack. The kit is addressed to the apartment you are leaving. If you have already flown, nobody is there to take delivery of it.

Losing the equipment is worse than posting it late. The same page says the amount for a lost device is quoted to you only after you file the report: 「正式な費用はお申し込み後に弊社からご案内します」 ("we will tell you the formal cost after you apply"). You cannot budget for a number nobody will give you in advance.

The second trap is whose contract it actually is. If your line is a 光コラボ (hikari korabo — fiber resold under another company's brand, running on NTT's line), NTT East will not process the cancellation at all. Its page says to contact the reseller instead. Find out which one you have before you call anybody.

How much notice does it need? That varies by provider, and several bill by whole calendar month rather than by day. Ask two questions in one message: what is the last date I can cancel and still stop this month, and when does the return kit reach me. Send it three weeks before your flight.

A rented pocket wifi device is the same shape, tighter. It goes back by post, and the deadline is the date the box is postmarked, not the date you stopped using it. Get that date in writing when you book, not on the way out.

Skip this whole section if your building includes internet in the rent. There is nothing in your name to cancel, and which of the two you have is worth checking before you assume.

2. Utilities in your name: gas before the other two

Most furnished midterm apartments fold electricity, gas and water into the rent or into one flat monthly utility charge. Pull up last month's invoice. If there is no separate line for each, they are not in your name and this section is not yours.

If they are in your name, book gas first, because gas is the only one that can need a human standing in the apartment. Tokyo Gas names the two cases on its own page: 「オートロック式の建物などで作業員がガスメーターのある場所まで一人で立入れない場合」 ("when the worker cannot reach the gas meter alone, such as in an auto-locking building") and 「リース契約の警報器を設置いただいている場合」 ("when a leased gas alarm is fitted"). A stand-in is allowed. Your building manager counts.

The visit takes about ten minutes. Getting the slot on the day you want is the part that takes weeks, so book it the same afternoon you book the flight.

Electricity is easier. Tokyo Gas says 「お立会いは不要です」 ("attendance is not required") for the electricity stop, and both bills are worked out the same way: 「使用中止日までの日数・使用電力量により日割り計算してご精算いたします」 ("we settle by day count and usage up to the stop date"). Leaving the country does not stop either meter. Filing does.

Neither company publishes a fixed number of days of notice. Tokyo Gas's own wording is 「引越しの日程がきまった段階で、早めに使用停止する日を決めて手続きすることをおすすめします」 ("once your moving date is set, we recommend deciding the stop date and filing early"). Read that as: nobody will promise you a slot, so do not plan on leaving it late.

Water is usually the building's account rather than yours. Check the invoice the same way, and if there is a water line in your name, the Tokyo waterworks bureau wants what the others want: a date and an account number.

3. Auto-debits: the charges that outlive you

Third, because it takes one sitting and costs real money to skip. Anything on 口座振替 (kōza furikae — automatic debit from your bank account) keeps pulling on its own schedule: the gym, the co-working desk, a phone plan, a streaming service billed to a Japanese card.

Two things can go wrong here, and the second is the ugly one. If money is still in the account, the charge goes through and you have paid for a month in a country you left. If the account is empty or closed, the debit fails, and the company posts a paper slip to the apartment you moved out of, the kind you would otherwise pay at a 7-Eleven counter.

That slip does not go away. It becomes an unpaid balance in your name at an address that no longer reaches you, and the first you hear of it can be a year later. Moving a bill onto auto-debit is a mid-stay convenience; moving it off again is a departure job.

Do it from a laptop in one sitting. Open the last three bank statements, list every repeating line, and cancel each one at its source. Closing the account cancels nothing. It only hides the failures from you.

4. The ward office: skip it unless you registered

Fourth, and only if you hold a residence card and a registered address. On a short stay or a tourist stamp you never entered the resident register, so there is nothing here to undo.

If you did register, you file a 転出届 (tenshutsu todoke — the moving-out notification) before you go. Two things about it surprise people.

The online route does not work for you. Minato ward publishes the rule plainly: the Mynaportal service is 「国外へ引越しする場合は利用不可」 ("not usable when moving abroad"). Moving inside Japan is a phone job. Moving out of Japan is a counter job, or a posted envelope that Minato says takes 「1週間から10日程度」 ("about one week to ten days") to process. Check your own ward's page for the same line.

You also get no certificate. Minato says of the 転出証明書 (tenshutsu shōmeisho — the paper a domestic mover carries to their new city): 「国外への転出では発行しません」 ("not issued for a move abroad"). Nobody hands you a receipt for leaving.

Bring everything you have to give back. Minato takes back the national health insurance card and the seal-registration card from anyone who holds them, and the counter accepts the form 「原則、新しい住所に住み始める日まで」 ("in principle, up to the day you start living at the new address"). Go once with the full set rather than three times.

5. The deposit claim: the law says "must," not "by when"

Fifth in the order, first in money. If your contract is a real lease, the Civil Code is on your side, and it is narrower than most people expect.

Article 622-2 says the landlord 「返還しなければならない」 ("must return") the deposit minus what you owe, once two conditions hold: 「賃貸借が終了し、かつ、賃貸物の返還を受けたとき」 ("when the lease has ended and the rented property has been given back"). That is the entire rule. There is no number of days anywhere in it.

So the deadline lives in your contract or it does not exist. Go find that clause today. If there is no date in it, that is the sentence you fix before you hand back the key, not after.

Now the part that can undo all of the above: a furnished midterm agreement may not be a lease at all. Plenty of short-stay furnished contracts are facility-use agreements, and Article 622-2 does not govern those. Which law your contract sits under changes what you are allowed to ask for, so read the first page of the contract, not the deposit page.

Either way, do the same thing at the inspection. Get the deductions itemized, in writing, on the day, with the name of the person who wrote them. A deduction you cannot see is a deduction you cannot argue with.

Two charges to catch while you are standing there. Check that the departure cleaning charge has not also been deducted as damage, because that fee is usually its own separate line and paying twice for one job is the most common mistake on these sheets. Check the room for anything you cannot fit in a suitcase, because a microwave left behind is a disposal fee waiting to happen.

6. Your phone line: demoted from first to sixth

This is the one everybody gets wrong, and they get it wrong early. The Japanese number feels like the clean break, so it goes first. It should go almost last.

Your number is where the codes go. The bank sends its one-time password there. The operator confirms the refund transfer there. The gas company calls it when the technician cannot get into the building. End it in your first week of packing and you have locked yourself out of all three while they are still running.

Keep the line alive through the last day you expect money to move, then end it. If your carrier bills whole months, that may mean paying for one more month you barely touch. Pay it. It is cheaper than a bank account you cannot log into from abroad.

There are two ways to end a Japanese mobile contract, and they are not the same. 解約 (kaiyaku — cancel outright) kills the number. MNP (number portability) moves the number to a different carrier, which lets you keep it on a cheap plan while the last payments land. Both need you standing in Japan with a working address, so pick one before the flight rather than after.

What varies here is the notice. Some plans stop the day you ask, some stop at the end of the billing month, and some charge a fee if you leave inside a minimum term. Ask your carrier for the exact stop date and the exact final amount before you choose a day. If you are switching to a foreign number, change it on the bank's file first and receive one real code on the new number before you let the old one go.

7. Your Japanese bank account: dead last

Last, and this is the trap the whole ranking exists for. Refunds in Japan move by 振込 (furikomi — a transfer between two Japanese bank accounts). Your deposit is a refund. Close the account on your way to the airport and the money has nowhere to land.

What happens next is not a helpful error message. The transfer bounces back to the sender, somebody in accounting notices at month end, and an email goes to an address you may have stopped reading. Then it sits.

So the order is money in, then account closed. Not the reverse. If you truly cannot wait, ask in writing for an international transfer instead and accept that the fee comes out of your refund, which is its own piece of arithmetic.

Ask your bank one question before you decide: can this account stay open while I live outside Japan? Some banks run a service for exactly that, some restrict an account once you stop being a resident, and the answer depends on which bank and which account you opened. Your options were already narrow when you opened it as a midterm guest.

If the answer is no, keep it open anyway until the refund clears, then close it. Ask the branch whether closing needs you in person or a posted form, because that answer decides whether the last step fits in your final week or has to happen from another country.

Lead time, side by side

Read the middle column. Five of the eight rows need you physically in Japan, and four of those five are the ones people leave until the final week. The final week is when you are packing.

The message to send, three weeks out

Send this to your operator twenty-one days before checkout. One message, five questions, and every answer is a date or a number you can hold them to.

Subject: Checkout on [date], refund and handover

Hello,

I check out on [date]. Five questions so I can plan the last three weeks.

1. Which utilities and internet are in my name, and which are in yours? Please list them.
2. How is the deposit refunded, and to which account?
3. How many days after checkout does the refund leave your account? If the contract gives a number, please quote the clause.
4. Will I get an itemized list of any deductions on the day of the inspection, in writing?
5. If I have already left Japan, can you send the refund overseas, and what does that cost?

Thank you.

Every one of those answers changes what you do next week. Question two is the one that decides whether you close your bank account before you fly or after the money lands, and the answer is almost always after.

— HalfKey runs furnished Tokyo apartments for stays of 30 days to 12 months. Browse listings for your dates.