Leaving Japan in 6 months for another country (not my own) could I just leave my Yen in my wise debit account?

[bmanuel77]

As per title, I'm kind risk adverse and will probably have almost 2 mill in the Japanese bank, which is quite a chunk of lost cash (home country is the UK). I will probably be moving to Vietnam and don't in particularly won't to bite the bullet and move everything to my UK account. I was considering dumping it all in my wise account before I leave and then I can just use the card/occasional ATM transaction. Or should I just deal with shit conversion and transfer a 100,000円 a month into my UK account?

 

[mototothemax]

@bmanuel77 Wise will only let Japanese residents have 30 days to hold 1mm yen, so it's probably not a good solution.

 

[jandolphrohnson]

@mototothemax Guess it depends what their rules for Vietnamese residents are and how fast OP can do the procedures.

 

[stream26]

@jandolphrohnson This could be worth looking into—contact Wise, explain your situation, and ask about balance limitations in Vietnam. If they don’t have any, dump your money in Wise the last week or so in Japan, then switch your account to Vietnam as soon as possible.

Again—not advice, but something to research as an option.

 

[torontostreet]

@mototothemax Considering how easy it is to change your wise profile this is really a non issue.. I’ve had no problem changing residency in wurde multiple times for various reasons and such and never any problems

 

[bjplumm]

@torontostreet Just to get this straight, since I'm pretty much doing the same thing as the OP...

I put my money in to Wise here in Japan, move (in my case to Canada) then change my profile to a Canadian address and withdraw it there?

 

[torontostreet]

@bjplumm yeah, that would be no problem. And you can keep way more than 1 mil yen in a non-japanese account..so transfer as much as you want to your account, change home location and presto, no problems

 

[mocast83]

@bmanuel77 Does your UK bank allow Foreign Currency accounts? If so, you can transfer your yen to the UK without requiring forex and keep it their for some time at possibly a small interest rate.

 

[resjudicata]

@bmanuel77 Well the bank won’t suspect you left Japan if you put a valid address where you can get letters from them. Maybe some friend or family address in Japan. But keep in mind that by the end of your zairyu card validity the bank might ask for a copy of the new one and if you fail to provide it they can close/freeze the account. So basically if you still have a lot of time remaining in your current zairyu card then you can try to keep the account open and link it to wise (before leaving)