Job Discussion Forums

[junk'n]

Hi, its car tax time again and my shaken will be due in August. I am planning on moving ken next year and am wondering if I need to re-shaken if I move to a new prefecture? If it's too much hassle I might just trash the car (already over ten years but perfect as far as I can tell) and look for a cheap yellow plate.

Thanks

[moot point]

No you won't need to get another safety check on your car if you change prefectures.

You can also keep driving your car with the original plates but will continue to pay taxes to your previous local government. After you move, then, you may want to consider paying the few thousand yen at the local police office to have your number plates changed.

[buddhaboyjp]

[ironopolis]

Pretty sure you won't have to re-shaken just because you've moved.

Strictly speaking you are supposed to get the address details on the shaken documents changed. However, my advice would be (what all my Japanese friends told me) to not bother doing this until you have the next shaken anyway.

I didn't take this advice and ended up going through the most mindblowing paper trail of bureaucracy I've ever experienced in several years in Japan. Even though I live in a biggish city, I had to go to some out-of-the-way office, queue up to get a form, fill it in, take it to another building and get another piece of paper, take that somewhere else, etc..etc, eventually go back to my starting point and be told to wait for about an hour for the revised document to be produced.

Don't put yourself through that before you really have to.

[moot point]

buddhaboyjp, sorry but I think you misunderstood my post. He'll definitely need to update the shaken on his car and get another sticker. But when he moves to another prefecture (with his shaken still valid) he will not need to re-shaken his car.

[JimDunlop2]

Shaken is a nation-wide thing. When I shakened my car the last time, I did it in Kyoto because it just so happened that the cheapest place around was there... I live in a prefecture nowhere near Kyoto (more like 6 hours away in fact) but I made it into a weekend pleasure trip, combined with the business of shakening my car.

Anyway, my point is, I had absolutely zero problems and everyone knew (especially the company doing my shaken) that I did not live in Kyoto. They just mailed everything to my home prefecture. Now they send me yearly nengajo cards every New Years...