How Much Money Should I Bring?

From HyogoAJET

Unfortunately, there isn't an exact answer to this, as Every Situation Is Different. You will have to bring enough money to survive your first month. Enough to pay rent and utilities, buy groceries, and whatever else people use money for.

So how much do you need? Your contracting organization and your predecessor should be able to give you an estimate on rent costs etc, so that's one question to ask them. The General Information Handbook recommends ¥200,000 (about $1,800 US), and that should be more than enough. However, one of the biggest factors will be what you want to do your first month, and whether you will need to furnish your apartment or not. It is possible to get by with only ¥50,000 in some cases, but you should bring extra to be safe.

You should bring at least ¥30,000-¥50,000 in cash. Japan is a relatively safe country, and it is fairly normal to carry around this much money. The rest can be brought in travellers checks, or withdrawn via an ATM card from your home country bank. Travellers checks can be cashed in all major cities (including Kobe), but may be difficult to cash if you are in rural areas. You can withdraw money from your bank account in all postal ATMs, all ATMs in 7-11s, and some other ATMs. See Banking in Japan for more details.

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