By Dako
Nobody loses a brokerage account at the border. That’s the fear that brings people to this question, so let’s retire it in the first paragraph: moving to Japan does not freeze, confiscate, or erase your US accounts. What actually happens is quieter and more annoying: one by one, each account loses a specific ability. Your taxable brokerage might lose the ability to buy, the IRA stops accepting new money, and the HSA loses almost everything that made it special.
So the useful question isn’t “can I keep it?” It’s “what will this account still be able to do after I land?”
I’m Dako. My husband Jay and I are a Japan–US couple in the US, saving toward FIRE, and we still haven’t decided between moving to Japan, splitting the year between countries, or staying put. While we stall, I’ve been auditing our own account list with exactly this question. Here’s the account-by-account answer, plus the Japan side of the ledger that most US-focused articles skip.
Taxable brokerage: you keep it, but can you still buy?
Your regular brokerage account is the one most exposed to a change of address, and the reason has nothing to do with you personally. Compliance rules like FATCA made overseas customers expensive for US brokerages to serve, and each firm has drawn its own line. Some close accounts of customers who move abroad. Others flip you to hold-and-sell: your positions stay, but no new purchases. A third group offers a dedicated international account, and a few firms serve Japan residents through a local entity.
There’s one restriction you should simply expect, because it’s close to universal: no new purchases of US mutual funds once you have a foreign address. SEC-registered funds can’t be marketed to people abroad, so brokers shut the buy button off. ETFs and individual stocks usually keep trading normally.
Notice what that means for a portfolio like ours, US-domiciled ETFs and individual US stocks. The likely outcome isn’t losing the account. It’s some version of “you may hold and sell, and depending on your broker, still buy.” Which policy applies to you is a phone call to your specific broker, made before the movers come. Policies shift often enough that any blog listing company names, this one included, would be out of date within a year.
Two rules while you make that call. Answer the address question honestly, because pretending to still live in the US is fraud against your broker and unwinds badly. And update your tax paperwork to match reality, W-9 if you’re still a US taxpayer, W-8BEN once you’re not.
One quiet advantage of keeping the account US-side: US-domiciled ETFs can never become PFICs, the tax status that makes foreign funds toxic for US taxpayers. And a US account never shows up on FBAR, which only covers foreign ones.
401(k) and IRA: the money stays, the contributions stop
Retirement accounts travel better than taxable ones. Your 401(k) does not care where you live. Balances over $7,000 can’t be pushed out of the plan without your consent, and no rule forces a departing employee to cash out. Leaving the country doesn’t change that. The account sits there compounding under US rules until you’re ready to draw it down decades later.
What ends is the inflow. A 401(k) needs a US paycheck feeding it, and an IRA needs taxable US compensation, which is where movers get tripped: wages you exclude under the foreign earned income exclusion don’t count as compensation for IRA purposes. IRS Publication 590-A says so explicitly. Plenty of people abroad keep IRAs for years; far fewer can legally add a dollar to them.
Distributions from Japan are their own topic. The short version: the US–Japan treaty says pensions are taxed where you live, and a nonresident alien faces a default 30% withholding until the treaty claim is made on Form W-8BEN. Which spouse holds which passport changes the entire analysis. We wrote that story in full in our 401(k) post, so here I’ll leave it at this: the accounts survive. The paperwork multiplies.
Rolling a 401(k) into an IRA is easier with a US address, so if consolidation is part of your plan, do it before the move, not after.
HSA: the account that travels worst
I expected the HSA to be a footnote. It turned out to be the most diminished account on our list.
The account itself survives, like everything else here. Your balance stays invested, and the US side keeps honoring the deal: withdrawals for qualified medical expenses stay tax-free wherever you are, including care you receive in Japan. The conditions are reasonable ones, real medical treatment, prescriptions legal where they’re written. Spend it on anything else before 65 and you pay income tax plus a 20% penalty.
But contributions require being covered by a US-style high-deductible health plan, and Japanese insurance won’t qualify, however high its out-of-pocket costs look. Enrollment in Japan’s national health system effectively ends your ability to add money.
And then the deeper problem, the one that earns HSAs the “travels worst” title. The US–Japan tax treaty explicitly shelters retirement accounts, IRAs and 401(k)s are named as pension funds. The HSA is not on that list. Japan has no equivalent account, and there’s no settled public guidance on how Japan taxes one. The triple tax advantage is a US invention that probably stops at the US border, and “probably” is doing real work in that sentence, because nobody can currently tell you for certain. Of everything in this post, the HSA is the account where I’d most want a cross-border professional’s opinion before moving.
The Japan side: same account, two different taxpayers
Everything above is the American half of the story. The Japanese half starts the day you become a resident, and it splits my own household in two.
Japan sorts residents into categories that most US-side articles never mention. A Japanese national, me, is taxed on worldwide income from day one of residence. A foreign national, Jay, spends roughly his first five years as a “non-permanent resident,” taxed on foreign-source income only to the extent it’s paid into or sent to Japan. Same house, same brokerage statements, two different tax answers. If your household holds two passports, this asymmetry belongs in your plan.
For the taxable account, Japan’s headline number is friendly: gains and dividends on listed securities are taxed at a flat 20.315%. The retirement accounts do even better. Under the treaty, Japan ignores the growth inside them until you take distributions, and how Japan classifies the withdrawal when it finally comes is an unsettled question we’re saving for a post of its own. And once a non-NPR resident’s overseas assets pass ¥50 million, an annual disclosure called the Overseas Assets Report joins the filing calendar. Not a tax, just paperwork, but paperwork with teeth.
A dual-base life doesn’t dodge any of this, by the way. It just adds a preliminary fight over which country counts you as a resident at all, and Jay’s five-year non-permanent clock keeps ticking through every stay. That question deserves its own post too.
Our own account checklist
We ended up sorting our accounts into three boxes. Here’s the actual list, from one FIRE-minded household that hasn’t decided anything yet:
- Travels well: the taxable brokerage (US ETFs and individual stocks, hold-and-sell at worst), both 401(k)s, both IRAs, and the plain-cash layer, a high-yield savings account and an emergency fund. Cash is boring everywhere. That’s its job.
- Travels with homework: the kids’ 529 and Coverdell accounts. They survive a move fine. But whether US-defined “education savings” stays useful for kids who might grow up partly in Japan is a planning question, not a tax question, and it’s big enough that we’re giving it its own post.
- Travels badly: the HSA, for every reason above. Ours would keep its US job, an old-age medical fund that stops taking new money the day we leave, and we’ve made peace with it being the account Japan may treat as nothing special.
Our standing policy hasn’t changed since we wrote about the 401(k)s: every US account stays open and untouched until retirement, in all three futures we’re weighing. What this audit changed is smaller and more concrete. Before any move, we call the brokerage, we stop expecting to fund the IRAs, and we ask a professional about exactly one account: the HSA.
FAQ
Will my brokerage account be closed if I move to Japan?
Maybe, but closure is only one of several outcomes, and not the most common one. Hold-and-sell restrictions and mutual-fund purchase blocks are more typical. The answer is broker-specific, so ask yours directly before you move, and answer their address questions honestly.
Can I keep contributing to my IRA from Japan?
Only if you have US-taxable compensation. Income you exclude under the foreign earned income exclusion doesn’t count, which quietly disqualifies many people working abroad. The existing balance stays put either way.
Does Japan tax my 401(k) or IRA while it grows?
Generally, no. Under the US–Japan treaty these accounts qualify as pension funds, and Japan mostly leaves the internal growth alone until you take distributions. Taxation at withdrawal is where it gets complicated, and where professional advice earns its fee.
Is my HSA worthless in Japan?
No, it keeps working on the US side: tax-free for qualified medical costs anywhere, including Japanese clinics. What likely disappears is any Japanese recognition of its tax-free status, and what definitely disappears is your ability to contribute. It becomes a sealed US medical fund.
This article is general information about US and Japanese tax rules, not tax or legal advice. Broker policies and cross-border tax treatment depend on your specific situation and change over time. Please talk to a qualified cross-border tax professional before acting, and see our Disclaimer for details.