About Landing in Japan
Who runs this site, why it exists, and what it is trying to be useful for.
Landing in Japan explains how to drive, and how to get hold of a car, as a foreign resident of Japan — in English, using the same sources a Japanese resident would use.
Why it exists
There is a large amount of English-language writing about living in Japan. There is very little that goes to the primary source and reports what it actually says.
On the two subjects this site covers, the gap is unusually wide:
- Licence conversion changed substantially on 1 October 2025. Many English guides still describe the old procedure.
- Car leasing companies disagree with each other about whether they will accept you, and most of them publish no rule at all. English guides paper over that with confident numbers — a required length of credit history, a required Japanese guarantor — that appear in no company’s published terms.
Neither of those gaps needs an insider to close. It needs somebody willing to read the police websites and the companies’ own terms, and to write down what is there and what is missing.
That is what this site does.
Who runs it
Yasumasa Yamamoto. I live in Japan and I run this site on my own. I am not a lawyer, an immigration consultant, a licensed administrative scrivener, or a car dealer, and this site is not a substitute for any of them.
What I do is read the primary sources — the National Police Agency, prefectural police forces, JAF, and each leasing company’s own published terms — and set out what they say in English, with a link back to each one so you can check it yourself.
Where a source says nothing, I say so rather than filling the gap. That principle is set out in detail in How We Compare, and it is the reason this site exists rather than being one more summary of other people’s summaries.
What it will and will not do
It will: explain procedures, compare what companies publish about their own requirements, and point you at the office or company you need to deal with.
It will not: act on your behalf. This site does not accompany you to the licence centre, fill in your forms, contact companies for you, or give legal, immigration or financial advice.
How it pays for itself
Some links here earn a referral fee. That is disclosed at the top of every page and explained in full on the advertising disclosure page.
The short version: it does not affect what appears in the comparisons. The provider currently rated highest here for residents without permanent residency pays nothing at all.
Corrections
If something here is wrong or out of date, I want to know — that is more useful to me than a compliment.
Corrections get made, and the date at the top of the affected page changes.
Coming next
The site currently covers driving licences and cars. The intention is to extend it to the rest of getting around Japan as a resident — including the options that do not require a Japanese licence at all, which matter most to people who have just arrived.