All articles
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From Reporting a Pregnancy to Registering a Birth: the Procedures and Costs of Giving Birth in Japan
Once you find out you are pregnant in Japan, you report it to the municipality where you live and receive a Maternal and Child Health Handbook. Every municipality in the country publicly subsidizes at least 14 prenatal checkups, and health insurance pays a lump-sum childbirth allowance of, in principle, ¥500,000 toward the cost of giving birth. Once the child is born, you must submit a birth notification within 14 days, and apply for a status of residence within 30 days.
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Electricity and Gas to the Company, Water to City Hall: Who to Contact When You Move In and Out
To use electricity, gas, and water in a home in Japan, you apply separately: electricity to an electric power company, gas to a gas company, and water to your city, town, or ward. Gas requires an in-person inspection on the day service starts, and your appliances must match the local gas type. This article also covers how to cancel when you move out or leave the country, and where to go if you have trouble with a contract.
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To Keep Receiving Your Ukrainian Pension From Japan, Complete ID Verification by December 31 Each Year
You can continue to receive a Ukrainian pension even while living abroad. However, under a 2024 legal amendment, payment to people temporarily living abroad is limited to a bank account inside Ukraine, and is conditional on identity verification completed by December 31 each year. Without it, payment stops from January of the following year. This article explains, following the text of the law, the verification methods available from Japan and the procedure for resuming payment once it has stopped.
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If an Absence Notice Slip Arrives, Act Within 7 Days: Receiving Mail in Japan
Under Japan Post's rules, mail that could not be delivered because you were out is returned to the sender seven days after the first delivery attempt. This article covers how to request redelivery, the identity checks required for registered mail and recipient-only mail, leave-at-doorstep delivery, the one-year forwarding period when you move, why mail is not forwarded overseas, and how to watch for SMS scams that pretend to be about a missed delivery.
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Preparing for Earthquakes and Typhoons: What You Can and Cannot Read in Ukrainian
As of September 2026, the disaster-prevention app "Safety tips," supervised by the Japan Tourism Agency, and the Japan Meteorological Agency’s multilingual pages do not support Ukrainian. On the other hand, NHK WORLD-JAPAN’s disaster-prevention Q&A, the voice-translation app VoiceTra, and the Immigration Services Agency’s Guidebook on Living and Working can be used in Ukrainian. This article lines these up alongside what to do to prepare for earthquakes and typhoons.
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Fire and Ambulance: Call 119. Crime: Call 110. When Unsure, #7119 Covers Only 41 Areas
In Japan, emergency calls go to 119 for a fire or an ambulance, and 110 for a crime or accident. Wherever a fire department has introduced phone interpreting for 119 calls, it covers English, Chinese, and Korean, but whether Ukrainian is available depends on the area. #7119, for when you are unsure whether to call an ambulance, operates in only 41 areas nationwide. This article also covers what you are asked when you call 110, and how to report an emergency when you cannot speak.
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Public Assistance for Foreign Nationals Is “Applied by Analogy”: The 1954 Notice and Status of Residence
The Public Assistance Act covers Japanese nationals. People of foreign nationality receive assistance as an administrative measure based on a 1954 notice from the (then) Ministry of Health and Welfare. Because it is not a legal right, they cannot file an appeal. It applies to people with certain statuses of residence, such as Permanent Resident, Long-Term Resident, and Spouse or Child of Japanese National. This article also covers how people who evacuated from Ukraine are treated, based on publicly available materials as of September 2026.
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Ukrainian Has Been on VoiceTra Since August 2022: Translation Apps and Interpreters at Government Counters
VoiceTra, the free speech-translation app from the national research institute NICT, added Ukrainian in August 2022 and supports both voice input and spoken output. It is a research app meant for translating travel conversation sentence by sentence. This article covers examples of translation devices and video interpreting at municipal counters, how to speak so a translation device understands you, and situations where you should not rely on machine translation alone.
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Opening a Bank Account in Japan — and Telling the Bank When Your Period of Stay Is Renewed
To open a bank account in Japan, you are usually asked for your residence card or passport, a personal seal, and something like an employee or student ID. After that, if you renew your period of stay, you need to tell the bank before it expires — otherwise your transactions may be restricted. Based on the Financial Services Agency's Ukrainian-language pamphlet and other materials, this article sets out the procedures from opening an account to closing one.
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Identity Verification by Your Residence Card’s IC Chip: Contracting for a Mobile Phone in Japan
Contracting for a mobile phone in Japan requires identity verification by law, and a residence card is one of the accepted documents. Reading the IC chip becomes mandatory in principle for online contracts starting April 2026, and for in-store contracts starting April 2027. Data-only SIMs will also come under the rule. This article covers what's changing and why you should never hand your phone over to someone else.