Personal bank account — bank-by-bank overview

Opening a personal account generally requires roughly 3-6 months of remaining zairyu validity; PayPay Bank (formerly Japan Net Bank) is one exception worth noting for ease of use — a simple, fully online process (application plus paper documents by mail), a convenient app, fee-free withdrawals/deposits from 3000 yen, and it works well both inside and outside Japan; it also issues debit cards relatively quickly and easily to sole proprietors. Sony Bank, by contrast, applies the opposite rule and refuses applicants if less than six months have passed since the zairyu was issued; it does not open corporate accounts, is unfriendly to business transactions, and has no physical branches (online only). Rakuten Bank (楽天銀行) has, per user experience, blocked personal accounts over purchases it considered suspicious. SBI Sumishin (住信SBIネット銀行, also known as SBI NeoBank, due to be rebranded NTT Docomo Sumishin SBI Net NeoBank from October 2025) has a good mobile app for personal accounts but Japanese-only support and no offline support. SBI Shinsei has, in some cases, opened a personal account for a foreigner even with a gap in their residence history; it confirmed accepting 5 million yen from abroad into a personal account, and in some cases sent documents back with an explanation for refusal — a rare practice among Japanese banks, which usually give no reason. SMBC Prestia (formerly Citibank Japan, now SMBC Trust Bank) offers good English-language support, multi-currency accounts, and is convenient for international payments and purchases, though it charges account fees and its cards sometimes fail online (Visa's antifraud system can block them); it is recommended as the simplest option for a personal account at N4-N3 Japanese level. Prestia has NO corporate accounts — several people were refused when they tried to open a corporate account there; the bank works with personal accounts only. Resona (りそな) significantly updated its mobile app for personal accounts by late 2024. Regular SMBC (三井住友銀行) worked fine for receiving a government salary but large international business transfers into a personal account risk triggering a block. MUFG's handling of personal accounts depends heavily on the individual branch staff member — there have been refusals over insufficient Japanese (even a request to read text aloud) as well as cases of easy approval without any Japanese knowledge. Japan Post Bank (Yucho) can, per chat experience, be opened without six months of residence — apparently the only such bank discussed (not fully confirmed) — but it requires a lot of paperwork even for a second account; the personal-account balance cap is around 13 million yen. A Yucho personal account is NOT suitable for receiving SWIFT/international transfers and does not work for corporate use, apart from transfers from oneself or relatives. A special type of yen-denominated account for non-residents, 非居住者円預金, can be opened by a non-resident but cannot be used for commercial activity — only for holding funds. Source: https://wise.com/jp/blog/moving-abroad-bank-account — Wise article listing Japanese banks that open accounts for non-residents (partly out of date).