Sending Money from Japan to Canada: Wise, Revolut, Wire Compared

JPY→CAD is a clean, well-supported corridor. Wise works, the rates are competitive, and most Canadian bank accounts receive international transfers without friction. The mechanics take ten minutes to sort out.

What tends to surprise Canadians in Japan is everything else. The TFSA that has been sitting open while you are a non-resident — and the 1% monthly penalty quietly accumulating if anyone made a contribution. The T1135 form you may be required to file if your Japanese accounts exceed CAD $100,000. The RRSP room building up unused while your tax situation in both countries stays unresolved.

This guide covers the transfer side and everything behind it.

Service Comparison

Wise

Wise uses the mid-market rate — the same rate shown on Google — and charges a transparent fee upfront.

Typical fees for JPY→CAD (as of early 2026 — verify before transferring):

Approximately 0.4–0.7% of the transfer amount, no hidden spread on top

On a ¥300,000 transfer (roughly CAD 2,700 at current rates), that is ¥1,200–¥2,100 in fees. Canadian bank accounts receive funds by direct deposit, usually within one business day.

Best for: Regular monthly transfers of any size. The default choice for most Canadians in Japan.

Revolut

Competitive with Wise on weekday transfers. The same two caveats apply as in every corridor:

Weekend markup: 1% on weekend conversions — an extra ¥3,000 on a ¥300,000 transfer. Schedule large transfers on weekdays.

Plan limits: The free Standard plan exchanges up to ¥300,000/month on weekdays with no extra fee; 0.5% applies above that. Premium and Metal plans raise or remove the cap.

Best for: Existing paid-plan users transferring on weekdays.

Bank Wire (PRESTIA, MUFG, Japan Post Bank)

For large one-off transfers — moving savings ahead of a return to Canada, a property transaction — a SWIFT wire is the right choice. SMBC Trust Bank’s PRESTIA is the best option: English-language service, formal Overseas Remittance Records downloadable online, designed for documentation needs.

Fees: ¥3,000–¥5,000 per transfer plus a spread above mid-market. Your Canadian bank may also charge an incoming wire fee.

Best for: Large one-off transfers above ¥500,000, formal bank documentation.

Rate Comparison at a Glance

Service	Effective cost on ¥300,000	Speed	Best for
Wise	~¥1,200–¥2,100 (0.4–0.7%)	Next business day	Regular transfers
Revolut (weekday)	~¥1,200–¥1,800	Hours	Paid-plan users, weekdays
Bank wire	¥3,000–¥5,000 + spread	2–3 business days	Large one-off, formal docs

Illustrative ranges. Verify current rates before transferring.

Canadian Tax Residency — No Simple Day-Count Rule

The first question every Canadian in Japan should have a clear answer to: does the CRA still consider you a Canadian tax resident?

Unlike the UK’s Statutory Residence Test — which has a clean automatic non-residency condition if you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK — Canada has no equivalent day-count rule. The CRA determines residency based on residential ties.

Primary residential ties (the ones that matter most):

A dwelling place available for your use in Canada
A spouse or common-law partner in Canada
Dependants in Canada

Secondary ties (each adds weight):

Personal property in Canada (car, furniture)
Social ties (memberships, bank accounts, driver’s licence)
Provincial health insurance coverage
Canadian passport as primary travel document

A Canadian who moved to Tokyo but kept a home in Vancouver, a Canadian bank account, an Ontario driver’s licence, and provincial health insurance has probably not broken Canadian tax residency — even if they have been in Japan for two years.

What this means in practice:

Non-resident for Canadian tax: The CRA taxes only Canadian-sourced income (rental income, dividends, RRSP withdrawals). Your Japanese salary is outside Canadian tax. Most withholding obligations shift to the payer — your Canadian investments may have non-resident withholding tax deducted automatically.
Still a Canadian tax resident: The CRA taxes worldwide income including your Japanese salary. The Japan-Canada tax treaty prevents double taxation — Japanese income tax paid offsets your Canadian liability on the same income.

Sending money from Japan to your Canadian bank account does not create or change this liability. The question was settled when you left.

Your RRSP and TFSA While You Are in Japan

Most Canadians in Japan have both a registered account and a real question about what to do with it. Here is what is actually happening.

TFSA — The Penalty Trap

This is the one that catches people off guard. You generally cannot contribute to a TFSA while you are a non-resident of Canada. The penalty is 1% of the contribution amount for each month it remains in the TFSA — with no cap on how long it accumulates.

Two practical consequences:

Your contribution room does not accumulate. The annual TFSA dollar limit (CAD $7,000 for 2025, indexed) only adds to your room for years you are a Canadian resident. Years spent in Japan as a non-resident generate no new TFSA room. When you return, your room picks up from where it left off — you do not get the years abroad added back.

Your existing TFSA keeps going. Investments inside a TFSA continue to grow tax-free. You do not need to close or sell anything. You just cannot add new contributions until you re-establish Canadian residency.

If you or anyone with access to your accounts made a contribution while you were a non-resident, log into your TFSA, check the contribution date, and calculate the penalty. It is better to find this now than at tax time.

RRSP — Less Urgent, Still Worth Understanding

RRSP contribution room continues to accumulate based on your prior-year earned income in Canada. If you had Canadian employment income before leaving, you may have unused RRSP room building up that you can use later.

As a non-resident, you can technically still contribute to an RRSP if you have contribution room — but there is usually no tax benefit to doing so unless you have Canadian taxable income against which to claim the deduction.

Withdrawals as a non-resident: Subject to non-resident withholding tax. The Japan-Canada tax treaty generally reduces the withholding rate on RRSP withdrawals, but the mechanics depend on how the withdrawal is structured. If you are planning any RRSP withdrawals while living in Japan, confirm the rate with a tax professional first.

The Big Picture on Registered Accounts

The most important thing to avoid: contributing to your TFSA as a non-resident. Everything else — RRSP room accumulating, investments growing inside either account — is benign. The TFSA penalty is the one active risk.

T1135 — The Form Most Canadians Abroad Have Never Heard Of

If you are a Canadian tax resident — and as discussed above, that is not always a settled question — and you own specified foreign property with a total cost exceeding CAD $100,000 at any point during the tax year, you are required to file a T1135 Foreign Income Verification Statement with the CRA.

What counts as specified foreign property:

Foreign bank accounts (your Japanese bank account)
Foreign brokerage accounts (a NISA account or any Japanese investment account)
Foreign bonds, shares in foreign companies held outside a registered account
Foreign real estate that is not primarily for personal use

What does not count:

Personal-use property (your Tokyo apartment that you live in)
RRSPs and TFSAs (even if they hold foreign investments inside)
Property used in an active business

The threshold is cost — not market value. A Japanese bank account that you funded with ¥12,000,000 (roughly CAD $110,000) hits the threshold even if the current balance is lower.

Simplified vs. detailed reporting: The T1135 has two tiers. If the total cost of all foreign property is between CAD $100,000 and $250,000, you can use a simplified one-line-per-account method. Above $250,000, detailed reporting is required for each property.

Penalties for non-filing: CAD $25 per day up to $2,500 for late filing, plus potential additional penalties based on a percentage of the unreported cost amount. The CRA has been active on this.

Japan and Canada have had a bilateral social security agreement in force since March 1, 2008. The key practical effects:

While working for a Japanese employer in Japan, you contribute to Japanese social insurance (kosei nenkin) and are generally covered by that system — not expected to contribute simultaneously to CPP.
Totalization for CPP: Periods of kosei nenkin contributions can be combined with Canadian CPP contributions to help meet CPP’s minimum qualifying period. If you have, say, two years of CPP and two years of kosei nenkin, totalization may help you meet the minimum threshold for a partial CPP benefit. The actual CPP payment is calculated only on real Canadian contributions — totalization helps with eligibility, not benefit size.
OAS totalization: The Old Age Security pension requires a minimum of 10 years of Canadian residence after age 18 to receive any benefit (40 years for the full amount). Under the SSA, periods of residence in Japan can help you meet the 10-year minimum if you would not otherwise qualify. Again, only if you need it — Canadians who spent most of their adult life in Canada before coming to Japan usually have residency covered already.

One clarification: the SSA applies to the government pension system (CPP/OAS and kosei nenkin/kokumin nenkin). It is completely separate from your private registered accounts — RRSP and TFSA accumulate independently regardless of the SSA.

For Working Holiday Visa Holders

Canadian citizens can enter Japan on a Working Holiday Visa (typically valid for one year). The remittance setup is the same as anyone else — Wise is the cleanest option for regular JPY→CAD transfers. But there is one WHV-specific point that almost no one knows about until it is nearly too late.

The Japanese Pension Lump-Sum Refund

If you worked as an employee in Japan and contributed to the Japanese pension system (kosei nenkin) for at least 6 months, you may be eligible for a Lump-Sum Withdrawal Payment (脱退一時金, dattai ichiji-kin) when you leave Japan.

The conditions:

You are not a Japanese citizen
You no longer have an address registered in Japan
You apply within 2 years of losing your Japanese address
You have not reached pension-eligible age in Japan

The amount returned is a portion of your contributions — not the full amount paid in — and Japanese withholding tax applies (typically 20.42%). The payment is based on contribution months, capped at 60 months (5 years).

The SSA trade-off: If you claim the lump-sum withdrawal, those months are removed from the Japanese pension record and cannot be used for CPP totalization under the Japan-Canada SSA. For a WHV holder who worked one year in Japan, claiming the lump sum is almost certainly the right call — one year of kosei nenkin contributions has minimal impact on CPP eligibility totalization. For someone who spent several years contributing, the calculation is worth thinking through before filing.

Before You Return to Canada

If you are planning to move back in the next one to three years, these are the things worth resolving before you go.

Understand your departure tax position. When a Canadian becomes a non-resident, the CRA deems them to have disposed of most property at fair market value on the day they left Canada. If you became non-resident when you moved to Japan and owned assets (stocks, mutual funds, cryptocurrency) at the time, that deemed disposition may have already created a taxable event in the year you left. When you return and re-establish residency, the same logic applies in reverse — you are deemed to acquire assets at their current value, which resets your adjusted cost base going forward. An accountant familiar with this is worth involving before you book the flight home.

Watch provincial residency on return. Federal Canadian tax residency and provincial residency are assessed separately. Provinces like Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec are notably active in asserting provincial residency if you have maintained provincial ties while abroad. The provincial tax implications can be significant — provincial rates add a substantial amount on top of federal rates. Make sure you know which province you will be resuming residency in, and whether any steps are needed to establish or re-establish provincial status cleanly.

Deal with your TFSA room before you contribute. When you return to Canada and re-establish residency, you can start contributing to your TFSA again. Your room will be whatever accumulated in the years you were resident, plus the new year’s allowance. Log into your CRA My Account to check your exact room before making any contribution — excess TFSA contributions carry their own 1%/month penalty.

Consider RRSP catch-up contributions. If RRSP room has been accumulating unused during your Japan years, returning to Canada with savings is an opportunity. Contributions made in the year of return or the following year are deductible against Canadian income. If you plan to resume employment quickly, the tax benefit compounds against your new Canadian salary.

If you plan to move large savings back and invest soon after returning, coordinate the timing with your accountant. The remittance itself is not the tax event, but the later income those funds generate can matter, especially if you return partway through the year.

Claim the Japanese pension lump sum before the 2-year window closes. The clock starts from when you deregister your Japanese address. If you qualify, start the application soon after departure — do not let it expire.

Recommended Setup

Regular monthly transfers → Wise. Best rate, fastest, no surprises.

Paid Revolut user on weekdays → Wise or Revolut are close — check the rate on the day.

Large pre-return transfer of savings → Wise for most amounts; bank wire via PRESTIA for formal documentation.

On a Working Holiday Visa → Wise for transfers home. Apply for the Japanese pension lump sum within 2 years of leaving Japan.

Concerned about TFSA → Check whether any contributions were made while you were non-resident. If so, calculate the penalty and consider whether withdrawal and re-contribution timing matters on return.

Not sure about T1135 filing obligation → Start with whether you are actually a Canadian tax resident. If yes, total up the cost of your Japanese accounts. If above CAD $100,000, the T1135 is required.

Never formally assessed Canadian tax residency → CRA’s NR73 form is the starting point. An accountant familiar with Canadian non-residency is worth one session.

If you want to try Wise, you can sign up with my link and get either a free card or zero fees on a transfer up to ¥75,000, depending on the offer Wise is showing at the time.

If you want to try Revolut, you can sign up free with my link. The free Standard plan currently gives you up to ¥25,000/month of ATM withdrawals with no Revolut fee, weekday FX up to ¥300,000/month with no extra fee, free virtual and single-use cards you can manage in-app, and access to cashback offers with selected online merchants in Revolut Shops.

Key sources: CRA on determining residency status, CRA on the NR73 form, CRA on TFSAs for non-residents, CRA on RRSPs for non-residents, CRA on the T1135 Foreign Income Verification Statement, CRA on departure tax and deemed dispositions, Service Canada on the Japan-Canada Social Security Agreement, Japan Pension Service on the Lump-Sum Withdrawal Payment, PRESTIA on Overseas Remittance Records, Wise Japan. Exchange rates and provider details change over time, so always verify the live rate and current requirements before transferring.