We Moved Out of Osaka. We Expected ¥1.9M in Subsidies. We Got ¥0.
We expected about ¥1,600,000 from the national relocation grant — ¥1,000,000 base, plus ¥300,000 per child under 18 (we have two).
We expected another ¥300,000 from a separate marriage-support grant.
We received ¥0 from both.
“I’m 40,” I said at the city hall counter.
The clerk went quiet. Not rude. Not surprised. Just that small Japanese intake-of-breath that means I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this.
“Ah,” she said.
My husband laughed and patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
That was April 2026. We had just moved from Osaka to a town in the mountains — population around 100,000, dense forest on three sides, the kind of place locals refer to (with affection, and a little warning) as “the Siberia of Japan.”
It is May now. We are still unpacking. We have already learned several things.
The short version
- Where we moved: from Osaka to a mountain town of ~100,000 people. Same rent, half again the floor space.
- When: April 2026 (we’re two months in as of writing)
- Subsidies we’d counted on: about ¥1,900,000 — ¥1,000,000 base relocation grant, ¥600,000 child top-up for two kids, ¥300,000 marriage-support grant
- Subsidies we actually received: ¥0
- Reason #1: The national relocation grant only counts moves from the greater Tokyo area. Osaka doesn’t qualify.
- Reason #2: The marriage-support grant has a strict age cap. I’m 40.
- What we actually spent: about ¥1,800,000 total (movers + setup + appliances + everything you don’t think about until you need it)
- Biggest surprise we hadn’t been told about: bears in the garden in spring. Pipes that freeze in winter. The locals’ fond name for this town: “the Siberia of Japan.”
Why we moved
The honest answer: we wanted our boys to be able to run outside without a plan.
Two parks per neighborhood. Public schools that aren’t last in the prefecture. Air that doesn’t feel like a damp towel in August. Floor space wide enough that both boys can fall over without hitting furniture.
Osaka was wonderful for the eight years we were there. But there’s a moment when “next year, maybe” turns into “actually, let’s go now,” and last winter, that moment arrived.
We also told ourselves it would be cheaper. We told ourselves the subsidies would cushion the move. We told ourselves a lot of things.
¥0: how we lost both subsidies for completely different reasons
I’m going to flatten what was actually a several-week process into one paragraph, but here’s the shape of it: we applied for two subsidies. Both said no. Both said no for completely different reasons that we should have checked beforehand.
Subsidy #1: the national relocation grant (¥1,000,000 base + ¥300,000 per child)
This is the famous one. “Move to the countryside, get up to ¥1,000,000.” With two kids under 18, our headline number was ¥1,600,000.
What we hadn’t read carefully enough: the program is for people moving from the greater Tokyo area (Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa). You have to have lived in central Tokyo for five-plus years, or worked there.
We were moving from Osaka. Osaka is not Tokyo. Osaka has never been Tokyo. We knew this.
But the local government’s promotional materials don’t lead with “and by the way, only people fleeing Tokyo count.” They lead with “¥1,000,000!” in friendly font, with photos of children skipping past pumpkins. Our brains filled in the rest.
We were not eligible. We had never been eligible. The clerk was extremely kind about explaining this.
Subsidy #2: the marriage-support grant (up to ¥300,000)
This is a smaller national program implemented through municipalities, designed to help newly-married couples set up house.
“Newly married” is generously defined — the cutoff is whether you got married within the last few years. We did. We had checked.
What we hadn’t checked: the age cap.
- Both spouses 29 or younger at marriage: up to ¥600,000
- Both spouses 39 or younger at marriage: up to ¥300,000
- Either spouse 40 or older: ¥0
I am 40.
This is the conversation where the clerk said “ah,” and went quiet, and my husband laughed and patted my shoulder and told me not to worry about it. I appreciated the laugh. The ¥300,000 was still ¥300,000.
(As of May 2026. Both programs are administered through municipalities and the exact numbers can vary — confirm with your local city hall before counting on them.)
What it actually cost
The day the moving estimate came back, I left the printout on the kitchen counter and went into the other room. My husband picked it up before his commute.
His eyebrows climbed. He turned the paper over to see if there was a mistake on the back. There wasn’t.
“Why is it this much? In America you do this with friends and beer. You feed them dinner, and nobody pays anybody.”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say. Welcome to Japanese moving culture, where strangers in matching uniforms wrap each individual dish in custom-shaped quilted pads.
The actual breakdown:
- Movers: about ¥500,000
- Housing deposit and initial fees: about ¥300,000
- Appliances, electrical work, internet transfer, restocking pantry, replacing the things we left behind: about ¥1,000,000
- Total: about ¥1,800,000
To my husband’s credit, he did learn the phrase 引っ越し業者. He also learned that you do not, in fact, just hand the movers a beer.
The actual final boss of moving
We have two boys, ages 5 and 3. Both of them treated the packed boxes as an obstacle course and the box-cutter blade as a personal challenge to my parenting.
By the end of week two of packing, I had developed a small but unique skill set: how to repack a sealed box one-handed while gently extracting tape from a toddler’s hair.
I felt smug. I was, I told myself, winning at moving.
Three days before move day, my husband walked into the kitchen at 7am and asked, very normally, “Where’s that gray suit?”
The suit was in a sealed box. The sealed box was at the bottom of a stack of sealed boxes. The sealed boxes had all been taped.
He found the box-cutter.
The final boss of the move was not the toddlers. It was the husband.
Two months in
We have not seen this town in winter yet. Locals keep telling us, with what feels like pride and what I suspect is also a small warning, that this is “the Siberia of Japan.” They say the pipes freeze and bears wander into the garden in spring. The bears are seasonal. The pipes, apparently, are not.
What we have noticed in two months:
- Rent went from ¥60,000 for 40㎡ in Osaka to ¥60,000 for 60㎡ here. Same yen, half again the space.
- Both boys have stopped catching the eternal preschool cold-rotation. Whether it’s the air or the lower population density, I don’t know. I’ll take it.
- On the day we moved in, the 5-year-old walked into the living room and announced: “It’s pretty. It’s big. It’s so nice.” The 3-year-old confirmed this with a firm nod.
We know two months is too short to judge a move. We haven’t survived a winter. We haven’t survived a summer. We haven’t had a parent-teacher meeting at the new school.
Ask us in twelve months. We’ll have an actual opinion then.
What we’d tell other couples thinking about this
Retroactive advice to ourselves, three things:
- Read the subsidy fine print before the move, not after. Specifically: where you’re moving from, the age cap, and the income cap. The headline number on the flyer is almost never the number you actually qualify for.
- Check what the local government offers for kids, separately. Childcare subsidies, school lunch fees, medical co-pays — these vary dramatically between municipalities and can matter much more long-term than a one-time relocation grant.
- Find out whether the city hall has a 移住 (relocation) desk before you arrive. The cities that do are the cities that have already thought about you. The cities that don’t are still figuring it out.
We did not get the subsidies
Two months in, the box-cutter has been quietly relocated to a high shelf. The boys have found a park with a rope bridge they have decided is Mount Everest. My husband has learned the word 回覧板. He still flinches when he sees a moving truck.
If you’re thinking about doing this too, we’re cheering for you. Read the fine print. Trust your own arithmetic over the friendly font.
Want more of our story?
The expensive surprise that came before the move: We Lost ¥400,000 Cancelling Our Wedding in March 2020 →
Or the money side of starting over in Japan: How My American Husband Got Unemployment Benefits in Japan →
P.S. We’ll write a one-year update — winter included, parent-teacher conferences included, and we’ll see how we feel about the bears.
This is our personal experience, not financial or tax advice. Always consult a qualified professional for your situation.