Leave Japan w/Japanese wife - bank/licence

So I have been in Japan for 5 years and currently on an Intracompany Transferee visa (valid until March 2021). My Japanese spouse and I are moving back to Australia in a few months. I have searched many other threads and most are more applicable about people leaving japan with no ties to Japan (ie no spouse etc.)

Although we wonft be residing in Japan, we will be back here quite regularly for holidays, visiting family and business trips, hence wanting the convenience of maintaining things here.

So my questions are:
- Can I keep my bank account?
- Can I keep my driverfs licence?
- Can I keep my phone contract?
I understand the visa will be pot luck, if I donft inform Immigration and my company many never inform the immigration department and i can keep the visa until 2021, providing i meet the re-entry conditions. I also assume the licence and bank account will depend on the visa situation.

So my thinking is, inform my city office I am moving out, and register my residence at my wifefs parentsf house. Change my driverfs licence and bank etc.. to the new address. When we move overseas, I can inform the city office I am going overseas for a long business trip (but returning within 1 year) - I have done this before when I moved house before and after an overseas business trip for 3 months, they just register my residence as overseas temporarily.

Has anyone had experience in doing this? Or has anyone had any experience in keeping their visa until it expires while they have lived overseas?

Alternatively other option is to get a spouse visa. I have read for the first time a spouse visa is issued it will likely only issue it for 1 year. The issue with this is when we it comes time to renew the visa, I would have spent 9 months of the 12 months outside of Japan and since we are both not employed in Japan and registered as goverseash they wonft re-issue a second visa.

Does anyone have any experience in this? Or does everyone just suck it up and wait in the tourist line, and get an international drivers permit etc.etc.?


Thanks and sorry for the long post!

Aaron

I just know for sure about bank account and credit card. I just left Japan for Europe and went to my bank (Smbc Prestia) and just gave them my new Dutch address. No problem for them. The same with credit cards.

For the phone contract I am also keeping that at least initially out of convenience as I will be back in Japan for business on a regular level. I havenft thought about informing them about my new address. The payment obviously continues from my Japanese bank.

For the driving license there was a similar thread recently here it was however somewhat inconclusive. You can for sure keep it, but it wasnft clear to me from that thread if you can use it when back in Japan as the address wouldnft match. In that case the person did no longer reside in japan at all.

What I find strange that you want to keep being resident in Japan at your in- laws. I donft know if it is legal or not, but wouldnft you need to pay taxes for residence? My company advised me to leave Japan officially in2017 (rather than early 2018) so I did not need to pay resident taxes for 2018.

Enjoy your life in Australia.

Wife has kept her JP drivers licence. Renewed it last november whilst over there. Uses her parents address.

Also has kept her bank account. Same as above.

I can only speak about the resident status and the tax implications. (Yes, true there was another rather recent thread about driver's license, with no conclusion.)

By now both the employer and the employee need to inform the immigration authorities of any major change such as end of employment contract, within two weeks of that happening.

Another thing is that if you keep yourselves registered with your wife's parents' address, you will be considered "resident" and incur resident tax, health insurance, and pension liabilities. This will be applicable to you unless you remove yourselves from the "juminhyo" (resident's register).

Looking back, I can say you should have changed to Spouse (and possibly to Permanent Resident if you were already eligible) status while you were in employment, but that's a bit too late now.

i think you have wonderful experience in japan .
your question you already answer them all.

bank card and acc. .. is your property. unless you want to close the account. or stop it.


drivers lisence is your property . dont need to return . can still use it in as much is still valid .

visa issue if you have time it should be better to change to spouse visa before living japan.

Thanks everyone for the replies!
Maybe i should have looked into the spouse visa 9 months ago....

I guess ill change my bank and drivers licence details to my spouses parents house (so i can at least get mail) then just use the licence until it expires.