Before you start

A Certificate of Eligibility obtained by your employer or sponsor before the visa application, for most work statuses
A visa issued by a Japanese embassy or consulate
A passport valid well beyond the intended stay
An address in Nagoya — you generally need somewhere to live before you can register

Step-by-step

1
Collect the residence card on arrival
The zairyū card is issued on landing at major airports for medium and long-term stays, and Chubu Centrair handles it, so you can fly in directly. Check the name spelling, status of residence and period of stay at the counter — corrections there take minutes and corrections later take weeks.
In personWho: YouOn arrival
2
Confirm which municipality you actually live in
Nagoya has sixteen wards, but the metropolitan area is a patchwork of separate cities. Toyota, Kariya, Anjō, Nagakute and Ichinomiya are their own municipalities with their own offices and their own tax bills. Anyone working in the automotive cluster should confirm which local authority covers their address before setting out.
OnlineWho: YouBefore registering
3
File the move-in notification within fourteen days
Take the residence card and passport to your ward or city office. The address is written on the back of the card there, which produces the jūminhyō and starts your My Number. Fourteen days is a statutory deadline under the Basic Resident Registration Act.
In personWho: YouWithin 14 days of moving in
4
Enrol in health insurance and pension in the same visit
If your employer runs shakai hoken they handle it. Otherwise enrol in National Health Insurance and the National Pension at the same counter — both are compulsory, and doing them together saves a second morning off work.
In personWho: YouSame visit
5
Use the prefecture's multilingual services rather than struggling alone
Aichi and the Nagoya International Center run consultation in Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog and English, covering immigration procedures, employment, schooling and housing. This infrastructure exists because of the size of the region's foreign workforce and it is materially better than in most Japanese prefectures.
In personWho: You
6
Apply for the physical My Number card
The number arrives by post; the card is a separate application. It now functions as your health insurance card, enables online tax filing, and is the identity document institutions prefer. Getting it early removes friction from everything that follows.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Passport with the visa
Certificate of Eligibility, if one was issued
Residence card
Proof of your Nagoya address
Employment contract, for status-related procedures
Passport photographs to Japanese specification

Things most newcomers don’t know

Working in Toyota City does not make Toyota City your municipality, and the reverse also holds.

The automotive cluster spreads across Toyota, Kariya, Anjō, Ōbu and Nagakute, none of which are Nagoya wards. Your registration, your health insurance, your residence tax bill and your children's school allocation all follow where you sleep, not where the plant is. People routinely turn up at the wrong city office in their first fortnight, and later find residence tax demands arriving from a municipality they did not expect.

Source: Immigration Services Agency

The Nagoya Regional Immigration Bureau covers eight prefectures and is nowhere near the city centre.

It sits out at Shōhō-chō in Minato-ku, a bus ride beyond the subway network, and serves Aichi, Gifu, Mie, Shizuoka, Nagano, Toyama, Ishikawa and Fukui. Queues at the start of the academic and fiscal year are long. Go early, take everything including documents you think are optional, and set aside the whole morning rather than a lunch break.

Source: Immigration Services Agency

Aichi's Brazilian community means the Long-Term Resident route is genuinely familiar to local employers.

Since the 1990 immigration reform, people of Japanese descent have been able to obtain a Long-Term Resident status with no occupational restriction, and hundreds of thousands settled in Aichi's manufacturing belt. The consequence for anyone arriving now is practical: employers, ward offices, schools and hospitals here have decades of experience with foreign residents, and Portuguese-language support is standard rather than exceptional.

Source: Immigration Services Agency

The Highly Skilled Professional points system is worth calculating before you accept a standard status.

Japan scores education, income, age, research output and Japanese ability, and clearing the threshold brings a five-year period of stay, permanent residence in as little as one to three years instead of ten, and the right for a spouse to work more freely. Engineering salaries in the Aichi cluster often clear the income component comfortably, but employers apply for an ordinary work status by default and nobody checks.

Source: Immigration Services Agency

Common mistakes to avoid

Registering at a Nagoya ward office when you actually live in Toyota, Kariya or Nagakute.
Missing the fourteen-day deadline and finding insurance, banking and your phone all blocked behind it.
Travelling to the Nagoya immigration bureau on a lunch break and running out of time in the queue.
Leaving the residence card at home with your passport instead of carrying it.
Accepting a standard work status without checking your Highly Skilled Professional score.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.