Move-In Day at a Japanese Care Facility: What to Bring, Sign, and Register

Mochimono: The Packing List and What Facilities Refuse

Most facilities issue a packing list inside the nyukyo no shiori (move-in guide) attached to the contract, and the two categories worth checking twice are labeling and banned items.

Almost every facility asks that clothing, towels, and personal items be marked with the resident's name, usually with a marking pen or iron-on nametape rather than a sewn label, because laundry is handled in bulk for the whole floor. Ask the facility whether they sell a nametape kit at the front desk; many do, and it saves a shopping trip. A family member who cannot be present for move-in day can mail pre-labeled items ahead so the room is ready before anyone arrives.

The banned-item list is where families get caught out. Most facilities prohibit valuables and large cash, glass containers, open flames including some electric kettles, and personal medication kept outside the nursing station. Electrical appliances brought from home, a fan, a heater, a phone charger, often need a one-time safety check by facility staff before use, so bring them a day or two early if the schedule allows rather than plugging them in on move-in afternoon itself.

Furniture is usually the resident's own bed, a chest of drawers, and a chair if the room allows it, with the facility supplying the mattress, curtains, and call button. Confirm room dimensions before buying anything, since single rooms in tokuyo and some rouken facilities run smaller than private paid facilities.

A family coordinating this from overseas can ask the care manager who arranged the placement to walk the packing list with facility staff by phone in advance, rather than discovering the banned-item rule at the door.

• Name-label all clothing, towels, and personal-care items before the day itself
• Confirm the banned-item list in writing, not from memory of a tour
• Have any brought-in electrical items safety-checked a day early if the facility requires it
• Measure the room before buying furniture

Okusuri Techo: The Medication Handover Document

The single document that most affects a smooth first week is the okusuri techo, the medication notebook, and it needs to come with the resident, not be mailed later.

The okusuri techo is a physical or app-based log every pharmacy in Japan updates at each fill, listing drug name, dose, and prescribing clinic. Facility nursing staff use it to reconcile what the resident is actually taking against what the admitting doctor's summary says, and gaps between the two are the most common cause of a delayed first dose after move-in.

Along with the notebook, bring a current prescription list from the referring hospital or clinic (often called a shohosen or a diagnosis and medication summary), and the physical medication itself in original packaging for the first few days until the facility's contracted pharmacy takes over supply. Facilities generally will not accept loose pills without packaging.

If the resident is transferring directly from a hospital stay rather than from home, ask the discharging ward for a shokai-hyo, a referral letter, days before discharge; without it the facility's own doctor may need to re-order tests that duplicate what the hospital already ran. This overlaps directly with the handover questions covered when a family is moving a parent from home care into facility care.

For a family abroad, the practical task is confirming with whoever is present on the day, a local relative, the care manager, or JCC concierge support, that the okusuri techo and the referral letter physically travel with the resident and are not left behind at the old home or the discharging hospital.

• Bring the okusuri techo itself, current medication in original packaging, and a written prescription summary
• Request a hospital referral letter days ahead if the move follows a hospital discharge
• Confirm who is physically responsible for carrying these documents on the day

Nyukyo Tosho: The Contract Signing and Fee Confirmation

The paperwork on the day itself is largely confirming what was already agreed at contract signing, plus a check-in of physical condition.

Facilities re-confirm the fee breakdown on move-in day: the base care fee set by the long-term care insurance schedule, the room and meal charges that are not insurance-covered, and any one-time entrance fee already paid. For a tokuyo or a rouken this is largely fixed by public rules; for a paid facility, confirm the move-in day figure matches the written contract exactly, since verbal adjustments made during the tour sometimes do not make it into the final document.

Staff typically do an initial physical and cognitive check on arrival, partly for the resident's safety record and partly to flag anything the referring documents missed. Families should not be surprised if this repeats questions already asked during the care manager's assessment; it establishes the facility's own baseline, not a re-evaluation of eligibility.

A room orientation covers the call button, meal times, bathing schedule, and visiting hours, and staff usually ask for one or two emergency contacts with phone numbers that work at any hour. If the primary contact is abroad, give a local secondary contact as well, since Japanese facilities generally prefer someone reachable within the country for same-day decisions.

• Confirm the written fee breakdown against the signed contract before the day, not on it
• Expect an initial physical and cognitive check regardless of prior assessments
• Provide at least one emergency contact reachable inside Japan

Uketsuke Shorui: The Documents the Facility Keeps on File

Facilities collect a standard document set at intake that a family should assemble beforehand rather than search for on the day.

The core set is the long-term care insurance certificate (kaigo hoken hisho-sha sho), the care level certification notice, the care plan from the care manager, health insurance card, and My Number notification if the facility requests it for billing. Foreign residents with a residence card should bring it, since some facilities log residence status for their own records even though it has no bearing on care eligibility.

A guarantor or emergency-contact form is standard practice at most facilities and is a separate question from the legal guarantor requirement some contracts carry; if a family abroad cannot provide a Japan-based guarantor, this should already have been resolved before signing, not discovered at move-in.

Facilities also ask for a designated primary contact for medical decisions if the resident cannot communicate one themselves, which matters most for dementia-related admissions such as group home placements, where day-to-day consent questions come up more often than in general residential care.

• Long-term care insurance certificate and care level certification notice
• Current care plan from the care manager
• Health insurance card and, if requested, My Number documentation
• Residence card for foreign residents, if the facility logs it

Jusho-chi Tokurei: The Address Rule That Keeps the Insurer Unchanged

When a parent moves into a facility in the same city where they already lived, the address itself usually does not change who administers their long-term care insurance, but the paperwork confirming that is not automatic.

Japan's long-term care insurance is normally administered by whichever municipality holds a person's residence registration, juminhyo. The jusho-chi tokurei, literally the domicile exception, was written so that municipalities with a concentration of care facilities do not end up carrying the insurance costs for residents who moved in purely because a facility happened to be built there. In practice this means eligible facility types keep the resident's original municipality as insurer even after the resident's registered address changes to the facility.

The exception applies to designated categories: tokuyo, rouken, and long-term care medical facilities under the insurance system, plus most paid nursing homes and qualifying serviced housing for the elderly that provide meals, care, housekeeping, and health management together. It does not apply to community-based services, and dementia group homes are the clearest example, since a resident moving into a group home is registered under the municipality where the group home sits, not the original home municipality.

For a same-city move, this distinction rarely changes anything practical, since the original and facility municipality are the same body either way. In most municipalities, no family filing is required at all: the facility itself notifies the local insurance division of the move-in, and inter-office coordination updates the certificate to reflect the facility address for billing and renewal purposes, with no submission needed from the beneficiary. The one thing worth confirming directly with the ward or city long-term care insurance section is how long that facility-initiated update takes, since a family holding onto the old certificate while a new one is processed is normal and not a sign anything was missed.

Families relocating a parent between different municipalities face a more consequential version of this rule, which is covered separately since it involves which municipality becomes the paying insurer, not just a filing formality.

• Ask the ward or city long-term care insurance section directly how long the facility-initiated update to the certificate takes, since no separate family filing is usually required
• Group homes and other community-based services fall outside the exception regardless of distance moved
• Keep the old insurance certificate until the new one arrives; do not discard it at move-in

Juminhyo Ido Todoke: The Resident Registration Notification

Separately from the insurance question, Japan's Basic Resident Register rules require an address change notification whenever someone's actual residence changes, and the facility move counts.

A move within the same municipality is filed as an ido todoke (change-of-address notification) at the city or ward office, and a move between municipalities is a transfer-out notification at the old office followed by a transfer-in notification at the new one. For a same-city facility move covered by this guide, only the simpler ido todoke applies, and municipalities generally ask that it be filed within about two weeks of the change.

The person who files does not have to be the resident; a family member with the resident's My Number card or residence card, plus their own ID, can usually complete this at the counter. If the resident cannot attend in person because of a health condition, most ward offices accept a filing by a designated representative with a simple power-of-attorney note, though the exact form varies by municipality and is worth confirming by phone before the visit.

Once the address is updated, the health insurance card, My Number card details, and pension-related mail all need to reflect the new address eventually, but these generally update automatically or on the next renewal rather than requiring separate same-day filings.

• File the ido todoke at the city or ward office, generally within about two weeks
• A family member can file on the resident's behalf with the right identification
• Confirm the municipality's own representative-filing rule before the visit if the resident cannot attend

Tenkyo Todoke: Forwarding Mail Without Losing Anything in Transit

Mail forwarding is a separate, optional filing through Japan Post rather than the city office, and it protects against the gap between the old address closing and the new one being fully registered everywhere.

Japan Post's tenkyo todoke (relocation notification) forwards mail addressed to the old home to the new facility address for up to one year at no charge, and can be filed at a post office counter, by mail, or online through Japan Post's e-Tenkyo service using a Yu ID and identity verification. Processing generally takes a few business days, so filing it before or on move-in day, rather than after, avoids a stretch where pension notices or bank statements arrive at an empty home.

Mail marked "do not forward" is never redirected under this service, and forwarding only covers Japan Post deliveries, not private courier companies, so a family should separately notify banks, the pension office, and any subscription services of the address change on their own timeline.

A family managing this from overseas can authorize a local relative or, where the arrangement allows it, a concierge service acting under a documented mandate to file the tenkyo todoke and handle the first weeks of forwarded mail, which matters most for families already coordinating a parent's finances remotely.

• File tenkyo todoke at a post office counter or online through e-Tenkyo
• It covers Japan Post mail only, for up to one year, and does not include courier deliveries
• Notify banks and the pension office separately, since forwarding does not update their records

Saisho no Isshukan: Settling the Resident and Confirming Care Continuity

The first one to two weeks are when small mismatches between the intake paperwork and daily reality tend to surface, and they are easiest to fix while everyone still remembers the move-in conversation.

Confirm within the first few days that the care plan being executed on the floor matches the plan the care manager wrote, since a facility's own care staff sometimes adjust bathing frequency or meal texture based on their initial observation, and those adjustments should be communicated back to the care manager rather than simply happening. Under the long-term care insurance system for foreign residents, the care manager remains the point of contact for any plan revision, even after move-in.

Check that the medication schedule the facility is now administering matches the okusuri techo handed over on day one; errors here are more often a communication gap between the discharging hospital and the facility pharmacy than a facility mistake, and catching it in week one avoids a repeated dosing issue becoming routine.

If the resident seems withdrawn or resistant during the first week, most facility staff treat this as a normal adjustment period rather than a signal to change placement, and a family should ask staff directly what they are seeing day to day rather than judging from a single weekend visit.

For a family abroad, scheduling one video call with facility staff around day seven, after the initial settling period but before the first care conference, tends to surface any documentation or medication gap while it is still simple to correct.

• Verify the executed care plan against the written plan within the first few days
• Cross-check the medication schedule against the okusuri techo handed over on move-in day
• Treat initial adjustment difficulty as expected, but ask staff for specifics rather than assuming
• Schedule a first check-in call around day seven if managing the move from overseas