We are a Japanese-American couple living between the US and Japan in the way a lot of cross-border families do: our bodies are in America, and a second life keeps running quietly in the background. One of us grew up in Japan and moved here as an adult. The other is American, married into a Japanese family, and still can’t read the mail from the city hall in Japan. Dako is 38, Jay is 41, and we’re maybe ten years from financial independence, which would land us there around 48 and 51. And we have not decided where home will be after that.
This first post is the honest map of that indecision, and the plan for what we’ll do with it.
The question under the question
“Will you move to Japan when you retire early?” sounds like one question. It’s actually four or five wearing a trench coat.
Where do we want to spend our fifties and sixties? What do our kids lose or gain in each version? What happens to a green card when you stop living in the country that issued it? And which government taxes what, when, if we get any of this wrong?
We could pretend we’ve settled it. Plenty of FIRE blogs open with a destination and a countdown clock. Ours opens with a shrug, because the truthful answer is that a full move to Japan, staying in the US, and some split between the two are all still on the table. What we do have is a deadline of sorts. Roughly ten years out from our FIRE target, the decisions that matter most are the ones we make now, while both doors are still open.
The money side has teeth
Here’s what surprised us when we started researching in earnest: the financial questions aren’t really about investment returns. They’re about borders.
Take the US exit tax. If a long-term green card holder eventually hands the card back, the IRS may treat it as a taxable event under IRC 877A, as if you sold everything the day before you left. Whether that applies depends on tests almost nobody has heard of until it’s late. Dako just wrote a full explainer on the “covered expatriate” rules as the second post on this site.
Japan has teeth of its own. Its inheritance tax can reach assets that never left the US once you’ve been a resident long enough, under what’s often called the 10-year rule. Japanese mutual funds sound like a natural purchase for us, yet for a US-resident household they can trigger the punishing PFIC regime. Even a boring 401(k) raises a question with no obvious answer: what actually happens to it if its owner is living in Kyoto, or splitting the year between countries?
None of this decides the where-to-live question for us. It prices each option. That’s why the Exit Tax & Green Card and Portable Wealth sections of this blog exist: we’re doing the research for ourselves anyway, so we’re publishing it.
The family side weighs more
If money were the whole story, a spreadsheet could pick our country. It can’t, because we’re raising kids between two languages and two sets of grandparents.
A move changes their schools, their friendships, and which language their inner life runs in. A split life might give them both worlds, or it might give them a thinner version of each. We honestly don’t know yet, and we distrust anyone who claims that answer is obvious in either direction. This is the part of the plan where the two of us disagree most often, which is exactly why it gets its own section of the blog. What we’ve committed to is a rule about privacy rather than a rule about geography: our kids’ names, faces, and details stay off this site, full stop.
What we’re doing while undecided
Our working principle is simple to say and expensive to execute: prepare so that every door stays open.
In practice, that means a research list we’ll be working through in public, twice a week. The near-term items:
- Map the covered expatriate tests and check our own status against them once a year
- Understand which of our US accounts would survive a move, and which wouldn’t
- Learn how Japan’s inheritance tax 10-year rule would apply to each of us
- Keep our investments out of PFIC territory
- Compare 529 and NISA for kids whose future country is unknown
Some findings will push us toward Japan. Others, like the PFIC rules that make Japanese funds toxic for a US-resident household, already push the other way. We’ll write both, including the places where we change our minds, because a decision log with the losing arguments deleted is just marketing.
Questions worth stealing
If you’re a cross-border couple staring at the same fog, the questions that have helped us most are the ones we ask each other on long drives. What would this choice look like if money weren’t a factor at all? Which country do we each picture at 75, not just at 50? If we chose a split life, what would our kids’ school year actually look like, on a calendar, in ink? And what’s the cost of keeping this door open one more year?
That last one matters most. Undecided is a legitimate place to stand, but only if you know what the standing is costing you.
FAQ
Are you planning to move to Japan?
We don’t know yet. A full move, staying in the US, and a life split between both countries are all genuinely still options. This blog documents how we decide, not a decision we’ve already made.
When will you decide?
Honestly? No date. We’re roughly ten years from our FIRE target, and some choices (like what to do with a green card) reward deciding early, so we’ll decide when the research and our family’s needs finally point the same way.
Is this blog financial advice?
No. We’re two people researching our own situation in public, and nothing here is personalized tax, legal, or investment advice. Please read our Disclaimer and talk to your own professionals.
Who writes what here?
Dako, who grew up in Japan, handles the tax and money research, while Jay writes from the non-Japanese spouse’s seat. Posts like this one are both of us. The About page has the longer version.
Nothing on this site is personalized tax, legal, or investment advice. For decisions that matter, consult your own CPA, attorney, or advisor. See our Disclaimer.
Last updated: July 27, 2026