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It is highly suggested that you make your account in your home country, as it’s easier to make a Wise Account outside of Japan. With that, this guide is written with the assumption that you had already made your account on Wise outside of Japan.
When searching for ways to send money home, Wise is by far the cheapest and fastest service out there. Wise is an online service that cuts the markup/hidden fees imposed on you by Banks and Money Exchangers . Through Wise, You will be able to transfer (furikomi) money to Wise’s Japanese Bank and Wise will send that money to your Home Country’s bank. The estimated time for Wise to send your money back to your home country’s back will differ from person to person, so it’s best to check the Wise’s website. Your Japanese bank does offer a furikomi service straight from your Japanese account to your home country account but it’s much more expensive than going through Wise.
Switching Wise Account from Overseas to a Japanese Wise Account
Many ALTs across the country have had problems before regarding sending money back to their home countries. Usually it’s because the account was not changed into a Japanese Account. This guide will go step by step on how to switch your account.
Requirements
- MyNumberCard (マイナンバーカード)*
- Residence Card ( Zairyuu Card / 在留カード)
- Residence Certificate [Juminhyo / 住民票]
*in the case of your juminhyo, it’s only needed if you don’t have your MyNumberCard when you try to make the switch*
In order to start the process, you need to find the Settings page that has the option for your “Personal Details” like this picture shown on the right.
At the bottom of that page/section, you should see the Personal details option. Please click that tab!
Inside Personal details, there should be 3 options available, “Personal Information”, “Email Adrress”, and “Phone Number”.
Please click the option for “Personal Information”.
Once inside, you should change your “Country of Residence” to “Japan” like this.
The next sections are very important. Please put in your entire legal name in their respective fields. You must also put in your name in Katakana that is associated with your bank!
If you have a long name, for example, Smith John Taro (last name first name order) and your bank name cuts off at John like this, スミス ジョン, then it is okay to input that even if that’s not your full name.
It’s important that Katakana name must match your bank or else there may be problems with your remittance as they may not be able to verify that it’s you. Please input it exactly like how your Katakana Bank Name is.
After this, Wise will ask you to verify your address with 2 out of the 3 requirements listed above!
If you need to verify using your Residence Certificate/Juminhyo* , please follow Wise instructions clearly on how to get the specific copy they want. If not they will not be able to verify your documents.
For more information, please visit Wise’s own article on how to verify. You can do so by clicking here.
Sending Money Back
It’s a little daunting at first, but don’t worry! It’s not as complicated it seems.
First, press send and click the account you want to send to.
After that, you need to pick the amount you want to send to that account. Make sure that you are sending it from JPY. It should look something like this.
This chart will exactly tell you how much money in the currency you want to send in, will be. This is with fees already included. If the amount is not enough, or the amount is too much, then you can adjust the number of JPY to send. As long as you’re not sending 1 yen, you can send, for example, 1001 yen if you need to do so.
When you are done adjusting the amount, you will then be asked to choose a Payment Method. The slowest and the cheapest method is doing it through a bank transfer. However, if you need to send it as soon as possible, Wise does give an option for something that’s faster.
After this, it will ask to review the details one more time, just in case, and then Wise will give you a very detailed instruction on how to transfer. Please follow their instructions exactly as a deviation from it may cause your money to not go through.
And that’s it. After that, Wise should give you a tracker on their app where it is on the stage in terms of sending the money. All you have to do at that point is wait.