Bringing Your Family to Japan

My son often walks a few blocks to the convenience store to buy a snack. His friends bike to our house to play. And as my daughter’s coming home from school, the neighbors no longer say “Konnichiwa,” when she passes. They call out “Okaeri!” which means “Welcome home!”

I’ve witnessed considerable debate online about whether or not Japan should be considered a “child-friendly” country. Proponents love the safety of Japan, and the freedom and independence kids can still find here. Other parents get glared at for taking a stroller on the subway, or struggle with bullying in schools.

My own experience is that Japan is kid-friendly, but not necessarily kid-easy. In general, our family has been touched by the consideration and foresight we see regarding children. For example, we recently attended an “Easy Japanese” disaster prep class. The event wasn’t specifically intended for children, but when we arrived, the organizers had already set up a tent and toys for kids to play with in one corner of the room. My children got a bit noisy during the presentation, and several times I got up to shush them, but each time the organizers rushed over with reassurances: “Daijoubu, daijoubu, really it’s ok!” Since the staffers also stayed behind to play with my kids after the meeting was over, I have to assume they meant it, and weren’t just being polite.

The local approach to children here may be kind-hearted, but I wouldn’t call it easy-going. Japan also has high expectations for parents, a patchwork system of childcare that doesn’t always add up, and a social safety net that, while impressive to us Americans, pales next to the standard benefits of many European countries.

The process of bringing your family to Japan, though, is relatively easy. I’ve imported two children to Japan, and two dogs. Let me assure you, the dogs were far more difficult.

Can I legally bring my family to Japan?

Jobs on TokyoDev that offer relocation to Japan do so through two visas: either the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa, or the Highly-Skilled Foreign Professional (HSP) visa. Both visas permit you to bring your family with you as dependents, but vary on the specifics.

If you have an Engineer visa or its equivalent, you are qualified to bring your legally married spouse and children with you on Dependent visas.

“Spouse and children” do not include:

your children who are over 18
parents or other relations
your partner to whom you are not legally married
your spouse’s children that you haven’t legally adopted
your married, same-sex partner

Even if you are legally married to a same-sex partner, Japan does not currently recognize same-sex marriages. Your partner therefore can’t arrive on a Dependent visa. However, there have been cases where same-sex spouses, married legally in another country to the work visa holder (or Japanese partner), have been able to come to Japan on a Designated Activities visa. The process and requirements for this visa are a little different, and involve the same-sex spouse coming to Japan as a tourist rather than applying for a Certificate of Eligibility (CoE). For this visa, even more than for other visas, I’d recommend getting professional advice. It’s also important to note that, since Japan doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, the same-sex spouse won’t be able to access the working partner’s health insurance and benefits.

However, there has been a positive development on this front: courts in both Tokyo and Sapporo recently decided that the ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional. There have already been a number of legal challenges to the ban since 2019, and the cases are moving through the courts, so immediate action by the government is unlikely; nonetheless, we can hope for a revision of this policy.

If you have a Highly-Skilled Foreign Professional (HSP) visa, you can bring more than just your spouse and children. You’re also qualified to bring a grandparent, solely for the purpose of taking care of a) a child under the age of seven or b) the pregnant visa-holder or their spouse. The grandparent’s Dependent visa is restricted to one year or six months, depending on the circumstances. HSP holders can also bring a house servant, with a visa of one year’s duration.

Can we all come to Japan at the same time?

Some online sources claim that only large or important companies can get the special authorization to issue both your and your dependents’ (CoE) simultaneously. That wasn’t our experience: although my visa was sponsored by a small startup, my family all received our CoEs at the same time.

The truth is that if you ask one question about Japanese visas, you’ll probably get three answers. You may even receive different answers from different Immigration officials, depending on who is at the counter that day. It’s best to consult a professional, and have them advocate for you, whenever possible.

If your company can’t (or won’t) process your dependents’ visas at the same time as yours, you can:

Apply for their Certificates of Eligibility yourself, in Japan. Here is the application and a list of required documents.
Receive the CoEs in Japan.
Mail them to your dependents, in your home country.

Your dependents then bring their CoEs to their local Japanese embassy, and receive their visas. This process should take 3–5 months overall.

Should we all come to Japan at the same time?

There are pros and cons to bringing your entire family to Japan at once.

Pros:

You’re not separated in the event of an emergency. This is an especially important point in a post-Covid world, as many families were separated due to Japan’s restrictive entry policies during the pandemic.
Your spouse can assist in the immigration process. There’s a great deal of paperwork involved in establishing a legal presence in Japan, and a lot of sitting around city hall. If you need to work long hours, your spouse can help set up bank accounts, communicate with officials, etc.
Your family can offer their opinions. If you have a choice between schools or neighbourhoods, your spouse and children might want to see the options personally, and weigh in on the final decision.

Cons:

Initial costs can be high. Depending on your situation, finding the right place may take months. If you need to house your spouse and kids as well as yourself in the interim, the hotel or share house costs will be that much higher.
There will be a gap in your children’s schooling. Since it may take a while to find a house and settle down, your children necessarily won’t be attending school during that time. If you’re concerned about your children missing weeks or months of classwork while you relocate, then coming to Japan by yourself, and letting your children remain in their home country until everything is ready, will reduce that gap.
You’ll all be learning together. This could be interpreted as a benefit, but it’s more likely to be a detriment. If you can figure out the basics of Japanese life in advance—everything from where to buy groceries, to how to send a bank transfer—your family’s later transition to Japan will be much smoother.

In many cases, it depends on what your housing situation is. If your company will provide housing, then there’s little reason to delay your family’s arrival. If you have to find your own housing, it might be wiser to wait. See the section on housing below for more details.

Can my spouse work?

If you have a spouse on a regular Dependent visa, they are not permitted to work without changing their visa or notifying Immigration. However, it’s easy to go to Immigration and request “Permission to engage in activities other than that permitted under the status of residence previously granted,” which will allow them to work for up to 28 hours a week.

My husband went to the Tachikawa Immigration Bureau for this. Contrary to everything we’d ever read on the subject, he immediately received the stamp on the back of his card that permitted him to work. There was no turnaround time for him at all.

If you have an HSP visa, though, it’s possible for your spouse to work full-time, with a special variation of the Dependent visa.

Should my spouse work?

Come to Japan, and you’ll soon encounter the same problem the locals do: how can two working parents accommodate the kids’ schedules?

There are a number of childcare options available in Japan, which Keiko details in her article Childcare Options in Japan. There’s also a reason why over 35% of mothers with a child two years or younger don’t work. School and daycare schedules aren’t always accommodating to work hours, and what after-school care is available is heavily region-dependent—as is the cost.

Even elementary school schedules can be inconveniently fluid and varied. For example, our two elementary-age children go to school at 8 a.m., but our third-grade son finishes at 3 p.m. every day, except on Wednesdays, which are half days. Our first-grade daughter finishes every day at around 1 p.m., but because the school offers after-school care until 5 p.m., she’s able to stay until her brother is done and then walk home with him. This Saturday is Sports Day, so families need to attend on Saturday morning. (Trust me, it’s fun, but definitely mandatory.) To compensate, the children have a day off school on Monday, but that’s not a national holiday, so parents will still be required to work.

The expectations for parents’ availability are high in general. Parent meetings, school assemblies, and PTA duties can add up to a busy schedule. Schools send home paperwork every day for parents to review, as well as emails and app messages about the lunch menu, new school policies, PTA initiatives that require parents to vote, and more.

There are certainly workarounds, and many different types of childcare are available, as Keiko explained in-depth. However, it’s worth sitting down with your spouse and weighing the costs and benefits of having one parent stay home.

I’ll add that the stay-at-home spouse doesn’t need to be the mother. My spouse is a househusband (主夫, shufu), and it works well for us. There’s still sometimes the default assumption that I, the mother, am the first person the school should contact, but for the most part everyone understands the situation.

What about housing?

Finding housing in Japan as a foreigner can be a difficult, time-consuming process. This is particularly true if you want to rent your own housing, without your company’s assistance.

Why rent your own place? There’s certainly a short-term benefit to relying upon company housing in the beginning. As mentioned above, the great drawback to your entire family arriving at once in Japan is that costs can mount during the house hunt. If you can have housing arranged for you, before arrival, that eases the stress and financial burden of locating it on your own.

That said, there’s the bigger picture to consider. The problem with company-provided housing is that you need to be with that company to use it; if your contract ends, or you resign, you’ll be forced to relocate, possibly away from your children’s schools and your spouse’s part-time job. If you intend to remain in Japan long-term, you might be better off renting your own housing from the beginning.

The best-known roadblocks to renting a house or apartment in Japan are:

Prejudice against foreigners. Quite a few landlords will refuse to rent to non-Japanese tenants, particularly if you don’t speak the language. Since this isn’t something they’re likely to declare openly on a website, that makes real estate sites like Suumo a waste of time for foreigners.

I’d personally recommend either working with an agent who specializes in finding housing for foreigners, or—if you already know exactly where you want to live—visiting a local real estate agency with a Japanese-speaking friend or coworker. Both the specialist and the local agent are more likely to have connections and know the “good” landlords.
The chicken-and-egg problem. You need a bank account to rent housing, but you need an address to set up a bank account, and it has to be an address registered with city hall. You also need a phone number to register your address, but to get a phone plan, you need a bank account. This is an infamously frustrating dilemma for foreigners in Japan, sometimes called “the chicken-and-egg problem,” because it’s unclear which step should come first. Luckily, Michelle Tan has a solution.
High upfront costs. Landlords in Japan require more than a deposit and first and last month’s rent. That first payment can also include key money (a nonrefundable “gift” to the landlord), the real estate agent’s fee, compulsory insurance, payment to a guarantor company, the key replacement fee, and possibly more. Conventional wisdom is that these initial fees can add up to 4-5x the monthly rent. However, when my family was house-hunting, we viewed houses where the upfront payment would have been approximately 8x the monthly rent.

Of these well-known problems, the upfront costs affect foreign families the most, simply because families with children require more space. The bigger the house or apartment, the bigger that first payment. For that reason, it’s advisable to save a substantial amount—between 1,000,000–2,000,000 yen—before arriving in Japan, to cover those initial costs. If money is tight, renting an older house or apartment, or one that is farther from a train station, is the best way to reduce both the rent and those upfront costs.

An unconventional solution would be to simply buy a house in Japan. It’s perfectly legal for foreigners, even those on a short-term visa, to purchase property in Japan. Depending on where you’re located, it’s possible to purchase a property for as low as three million yen. Most houses with that low of a price tag are located in rural areas and older, which means they are likely not compliant with modern earthquake codes or insulation standards. Costs rise steeply the closer you get to big cities. Still, if you can spare the cash and have other considerations (such as a large dog), it may be worth inquiring.

What schools should my kids attend?

Your children’s educational options in Japan will vary by region. As I point out in my article, Japanese vs International Schools: Which Will Work For Your Children?, the majority of international schools are located in big cities, particularly Tokyo. If having your child attend an international school is a high priority for you, you’ll want to stick close to urban centers when selecting your home. If you’re willing to have your children attend a public or private Japanese school, that gives you a wider range of options.

See the article linked above for more thoughts on what schools may be right for your family.

Does Japan offer financial support to families with children?

First, the private sector: as many as 76% of Japanese companies offer family allowances as a benefit of employment. Average rates are 10–15,000 yen a month for a spouse, and an additional 3–5,000 yen for each child.

As for state benefits, whether you consider them generous will depend on your experience in your home country. Because policies can vary so much between prefectures and cities, it’s difficult to paint a comprehensive picture of exactly what support families can expect. As one example, our family with two children in Tokyo prefecture receives:

A child support allowance (jidou teate, 児童手当) of 10,000 yen per month, per child, until they are 15.
Combined national and city health insurance for each child, which effectively makes all their medical care either free or very cheap—200 yen for a cavity filling, for example.
At the elementary school level, after-school care until 5 p.m. for 500 yen a year. The 500 yen is solely to help cover insurance costs. (Note that this may not be available at all schools, or there may be waiting lists for the service.)

There are other benefits that we are not qualified to receive, such as reduced school fees, and others we haven’t taken advantage of yet, such as the babysitting discount coupons TokyoDev previously reported on.

If you’re from a nation with more comprehensive familial support, you may be unimpressed. Yet Japan appears poised to roll out a number of new benefits for families with children, ranging from increased allowances to completely free medical care for children.

Conclusion

Japan’s intensive approach to child-rearing means it’s stressful for anyone to raise a family here, let alone foreigners. But with the possible exception of finding housing, most of the obstacles you will face are shared with Japanese parents. Complaining about the schedule, the paperwork, and the PTA duties is a rite of passage between parents here, and a quick way to forge a bond. Their struggles are yours, and vice versa—so it’s also good that everyone we’ve encountered, from city hall clerks to our childrens’ teachers, are quick to lend a hand in any way they can.

Whether or not you should bring your family to Japan depends on your job, your reasons for coming, your spouse’s feelings, how adaptable your children are, etc. My experience is that, if you can find your own personal connection to the culture, it’s well worth stamping all those city hall forms.

I felt my family was going to be ok in Japan shortly after my daughter started kindergarten. She couldn’t speak Japanese yet, and started crying during a birthday celebration because she didn’t know how to sing the songs. While I was walking her home that day, she asked if we could return to the US.

“We could,” I said, “but do you know what? They don’t have curry rice there on the kid menus.”

“No curry rice? Really?! Ok, we’ll stay in Japan!”

So there you have it: bring your family to Japan, for the curry rice. It’s delicious.