Closing Bank Accounts and Phone Contracts

You have booked the flight, given notice on the apartment and started sorting what goes in the suitcase. The two jobs that trip people up are the bank account and the phone contract, because each one quietly depends on the other. Close the phone first, keep the bank account alive long enough to settle the final bills, and cancel every automatic debit before either contract ends.

Which one should you cancel first?

The order that causes the least trouble is: cancel the automatic debits, give notice on the phone and internet, pay the final phone and internet bills, then close the bank account last. The bank is the instrument that settles everything else, so it should be the final account you shut. Close it too early and a last direct debit or a final utility charge has nothing to draw from, which can leave an unpaid balance behind you.

The Japanese Bankers Association publishes leaflets for foreign customers on opening an account, on foreign remittance and on the consultation counters available in languages other than Japanese, and its bank and carrier cancellation pages are the neutral starting point when a provider's own instructions are unclear. The bank you actually hold the account with sets the rules you have to follow.

What has to be cancelled before anything else?

Automatic debits. In Japan these are usually set up two ways: the 口座振替 (account transfer) that a utility, a mobile carrier or a credit card company pulls from your bank account, and the direct debit you arranged yourself. Both keep running until you stop them. Cancel them at the company that collects the money, not only at the bank, and ask for the date the last pull will happen. The Utilities Gas page sets out the order of service endings and explains how some of those endings sit on top of a bank debit that has to be shut first. If you leave a debit live while you also empty the account, the pull can fail, and a failed payment is what generates the letters that chase you after you have gone.

Work through the list: electricity, gas and water, the mobile phone, home internet, the credit card, any subscription billed monthly, the rent, and the pension or insurance premiums you pay by transfer. Each one needs written notice of its own.

Ending the phone and internet contracts

Phone and internet are usually one contract or two tightly linked ones, and they are the slowest to unwind. A cancellation date has to be agreed, a final invoice is issued afterwards, and any handset instalment plan is billed separately from the line itself. Ask the carrier what the last billing month will be and whether a cancellation fee applies, because that answer changes when you should close the bank.

Keep the number for as long as you need contact. A bank will generally want to reach you by phone if there is a question about a transfer or a closure, and a gap between ending the phone and closing the bank leaves you unreachable at exactly the wrong moment. It is usually simpler to keep the mobile line until the bank account is closed, then cancel the line from outside Japan, than to cancel the line first and try to close the bank without a contact number.

Can you close the bank account from abroad?

Most banks want the account holder in a branch, with the residence card or another form of identification, to close an account; the Japanese Bankers Association page does not publish a common procedure for doing it by post or online, and each bank's own rules govern. Where the contract allows a closure from outside Japan, it usually means posting a form, a copy of identification and a written instruction, plus a destination account for the remaining balance. Confirm the process at your own branch counter before you fly, not after.

If the residence card is about to be returned at the airport, handle the bank before that happens. The Card Visa page covers the sequence around the residence card, and the bank counter will be far easier while the card is still in your hand than after your status of residence has ended.

Move the money out before you shut the door

An account about to be closed cannot be the account that receives a tax refund, a pension lump sum or a final salary payment. Decide where the balance is going: a bank in your home country, an account held by a family member, or a remittance arranged through the bank itself. The Sides of page deals with transferring balances before the account is closed and with the timing that keeps a refund from landing in a dead account.

Empty the account, leave nothing to be swept, and ask the branch to confirm in writing that the account is closed and no further debits can be presented. That confirmation is worth more than a receipt you cannot read from a distance.

What about the credit card and the deposit?

A credit card issued by the same bank is normally cancelled with the account, but a card from a separate issuer is its own contract and needs its own notice. Check for a balance still owed on the card and settle it before the linked account closes. Security deposits and utility deposits are returned by transfer, which means the account has to still exist when the refund is paid; that is one more reason to close the bank last.

If a provider refuses to release a deposit, disputes the final bill or will not confirm a cancellation, the departing residents page points to the official consumer advice channels, and a written complaint carries further than a phone call when you are already abroad.

How long before the flight should all this be done?

Give the closures a full month, and treat the last week as a buffer rather than a work period. The sequence across the final countdown places the phone and bank closures alongside the other notices and warns against leaving them to the last seven days, when a branch appointment cannot be found and a carrier's cancellation desk is fully booked. A deposit refund or a final bill that arrives after you have left is a small problem if the bank is still open and a large one if it is not.

What the bank cannot sort out for you

A bank can close its own account, but it cannot cancel a phone line, end a gas supply or fix a disputed charge. Those calls belong to the company that bills you. Keep a folder of cancellation confirmations, closing dates and the name of each person or department you dealt with, in a form you can open from another country. The pattern to remember is simple: stop the money going out, settle what is owed, move the balance, and only then close the account that made all of it possible.

About the Japanese Bankers Association

The Japanese Bankers Association is the industry body for banks operating in Japan. Its English pages bring together practical tools for foreign customers, including leaflets on opening an account, on foreign remittance and on money laundering prevention, a bank search by prefecture, and details of consultation counters, some of them in languages other than Japanese. The association does not hold individual accounts; the bank a customer uses applies its own closure rules.

Contents of this page

1. Which one should you cancel first?1 min
2. What has to be cancelled before anything else?1 min
3. Ending the phone and internet contracts1 min
4. Can you close the bank account from abroad?1 min
5. Move the money out before you shut the door1 min
6. What about the credit card and the deposit?1 min
7. How long before the flight should all this be done?1 min
8. What the bank cannot sort out for you1 min
9. About the Japanese Bankers Association1 min