Housing and Travel for a Chef Moving From Japan: The Practical Steps

Before a chef leaves Japan, someone has to file a moving-out notice at city hall, decide on National Pension, register with the nearest embassy after arrival, and find a place to live in a country where they have no bank history and no guarantor. This page is the practical, Japan-side checklist for housing search and travel logistics. What to offer and what the law requires by country is on relocation package for chefs.

1. What the chef files in Japan before leaving

These are the chef's own procedures, but a company that hands over a checklist with dates gets fewer surprises later. None of it is difficult; all of it is easy to forget amid packing and a leaving party.

• Moving-out notice for the resident register (海外転出届), at city hall, before departure. Individual inhabitant tax is levied by the municipality where a person is registered as living on 1 January of that year, on the previous year's income (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). File late in the year and a large tax bill can still arrive after the chef has left; explain the timing so it is not a shock.
• National Pension: decide whether to stay in. Japanese nationals living abroad aged 20 to under 65 can join the National Pension voluntarily. It is the chef's own decision, not the employer's, but most chefs have never had to make it before and appreciate being told it exists.
• Residence notification (在留届), after arrival, not before. Article 16 of the Passport Act requires anyone who establishes an address abroad and stays three months or more to notify the Japanese embassy or consulate-general for that area. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs runs this online through ORRnet. This is the one item on this list that happens after landing, not before.
• Japanese bank account, phone line and credit card: check what keeps working. Some Japanese banks and phone carriers restrict or close accounts held by a non-resident. A chef who finds this out after departure cannot easily fix it from abroad. Tell them to check with each provider before leaving, not after.

2. Why house-hunting from Japan is hard, and how to bridge it

The actual friction point in most relocations is not the flight or the paperwork. It is that a chef cannot view a flat, open a local bank account, build local credit history, or find a local guarantor before landing, and most ordinary leases assume at least one of those. This is not a legal question with an official answer by country; it is operational, and the fix is the same everywhere.

• Do not expect the chef to sign a year's lease from Tokyo. Plan for temporary accommodation on arrival, long enough to view real places in person: two to four weeks is standard practice, though no official source sets that figure, so adjust it to your city's rental market.
• Decide who signs the first lease. Three common patterns: the company signs and subleases informally; the company acts as guarantor or pays a guarantor company's fee; the chef signs once they have a local bank account and payslips, usually not before month two or three. Put your pattern in writing before the chef lands.
• A local bank account is usually the blocking step, not the lease itself. Many landlords and guarantor companies want proof of local income or a local account before they will deal with a new arrival. Help the chef open one in the first week, ideally with a company introduction, because it unblocks almost everything else.
• Get quotes for a guarantor company (hoshonin gaisha) or the local equivalent where the practice exists. No official fee schedule exists for this, so price it from local quotes rather than assuming a figure from Japan carries over.
• Send photos and a floor plan before the chef leaves Japan, even for temporary housing. Arriving to an unknown room after 12 hours of flights is a small thing that shapes the first week's morale out of proportion to its cost.

3. Booking the flight and moving belongings

Decide the following before you quote a figure to the chef, and put the answers in the offer letter, not left as a verbal understanding.

• One way or return. If return, state the conditions for the flight home clearly (end of contract only, or also if the company ends the contract early).
• Cap and seat class. Economy at actual cost, capped at a stated amount, is the common pattern.
• Baggage. Chefs often bring knives and tools. Decide who pays for extra checked baggage before the chef is standing at the check-in counter.
• Family. Whether you pay for accompanying family's travel, how many, and under what conditions.
• Home leave. An annual flight home is a relatively small cost that has an outsized effect on whether a chef stays for a second year.
• Timing against the visa. Do not let the chef resign in Japan until the visa or work permit is actually granted, not merely applied for. The backward schedule below puts this in order.

On repayment clauses

A clause that says "repay travel costs if you resign within a year" is treated very differently depending on the contract. Article 16 of Japan's Labour Standards Act prohibits fixing a penalty or a pre-agreed damages amount for breach of an employment contract. If the chef is seconded under a Japanese employment contract, this provision applies directly and a flat repayment penalty is likely unenforceable. If the chef is employed locally by the overseas company, the same clause is judged under local law instead, which this page does not cover market by market; check with a local employment lawyer before you rely on one. A design that rewards staying, such as a return flight home paid after twelve months of service, works at least as well for retention and avoids the question entirely.

4. A backward schedule, from departure date

Weeks are planning allowances, not fixed processing times; check your visa route's own published timeline first and lay this over it.

5. One line on secondment versus local hire

Whether the chef is seconded from a Japanese company or hired locally by the overseas company changes which pension and health insurance system they stay in, who issues which documents, and how much of this checklist head office handles versus the chef alone. That comparison, and the social security agreement rules behind it, are covered in full on secondment versus local hire and social security agreements for chefs; as of 2 June 2026 Japan has agreements in force with 24 countries, which decide whether contributions are due in one system or both.

General information, not legal, tax or immigration advice. Employer obligations, tax treatment and what a local lease requires vary by country and change. Check the primary sources below and consult a professional where needed.