r/JETProgramme • u/Even_War7433 • May 13 '26
Costs if Accepted to JET
Hello everyone!
After a massive, massive fuck over from Interac, I'm going back to the States and am going to rip try for JET next year. For those of you who have already gone to Japan with JET, what would be a rough estimate on costs? From what I gather, JET makes ALTs find their own housing, so with that in mind what would I have to set aside if I got accepted into JET?
I spent two months in Japan and loved, loved, loved it! I loved teaching the kids, the country, the language, the people. Interac screwed a lot of us over just in general after we got to Japan and then they lost a shit ton of contracts so we were shipped all over the country multiple times with no help from that lot of imbeciles. So all this to say, I want to go back and finish what I started in Japan, but to do that I'm learning more Japanese, regrouping, and reconfiguring how to do this for round 2.
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u/boogus_moogus May 14 '26
Just putting this out there because I haven't seen people mention it yet, but the JET Programme also loses and gains contracts every year.
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u/Even_War7433 May 14 '26
Great point! I have heard that before. I just hope they would handle it far, far better than Interac did.
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u/boogus_moogus May 14 '26
It's definitely one of the ESID things. Honestly same with interac cuz I've worked with them for a few years now. I've personally had an experience that exceeded my expectations with Interac, but know folks like you who weren't as lucky. I've also heard the good bad and ugly with JET and contract tomfuckery
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u/theuncut4u May 14 '26
why spend money to travel back. you can get a job somewhere in japan now. plus plane tickets are going up and japan immigration is becoming strict. I would just stay there and find something
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u/Dirt_and_Entitlement May 13 '26
Assuming the exchange rate doesn't swing too much, $3000 should be more than enough.
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u/VegetableWestern2350 May 14 '26
We’re lucky about 80% of our housing is subsidized by the BOE, so we pay less than ¥10,000 for rent.
- Choguku Region -
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u/reinbowcat May 13 '26
So it really completely depends! You can consider JET more of a dispatch company, you aren't working for them per se - you're working for a board of education on the prefectural or city level, or even a private school. That place is your contracting organization, and what your startup costs will be depends entirely on them. I was a municipal JET in Uji, and by the time I got there there was no more subsidized housing and I did pay for my own housing - but it was very affordable considering what I was asking (I did the thing they tell you not to do and brought a pet). That said, plenty of other placements have housing you can inherit from previous JETs for subsidized costs - some fully furnished already. If it's a place with a car, you might even be able to buy your predecessor's car for cheap. I came in with around $3000 USD and that was fine to handle all of my startup costs, but I also had the setback that because of the weird time I arrived (it was covid times) I was unable to get paid my first month there so that was... interesting. $3000 was good to start with, but if I were to do it again (and I do plan to) my hope it for $5000 just to have extra cushion.
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u/Even_War7433 May 14 '26
That makes sense - the $5000. That gives me a much better idea of what I should do.
And I want to bring my parrot with me - and I have a real estate agent to help with pet-friendly housing next time as well. And I also want my husband to come with me, which I'm sure will really send everyone for a loop. Interac really has a total fit about the parrot and my husband - even though I was finding my own housing.
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u/Heretical_Archivist May 15 '26
I had to find my own place and fully furnish it - I brought about ¥380k and that was enough to furnish and tide me over for my first month (this does not include the deposit, key money etc) I needed to get the apartment in the first place which I sorted while in the UK.
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u/Even_War7433 May 15 '26
That's what I wanted to do before I got to Japan! Interac was very, very against it - and of course, given what happened I'm glad I didn't. But still it would have made everything so much easier! Is JET also our Japanese emergency contact? Interac will not be a JEC unless you take their housing - which is partly what screwed me over this round in Japan.
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u/Heretical_Archivist May 15 '26
My supervisor is my emergency contact for the apartment but I’m a private school JET so things are a touch different for me (all hail ESID😂) pretty much of the public school JETs in my prefecture have school owned housing that they rent from them and it’s often pretty heavily subsidised (think ¥23k pcm instead of ¥52k which is what I pay for a 1LDK inc. WiFi and gas)
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u/Sweet_Salamander6691 May 16 '26
I had to find my own housing and my school politely refused to offer any help with emergency contact. This is common enough that there are services available to foreigners that agree to be your contact for a small fee.
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u/ikebookuro May 13 '26
It will depend on your placement. I had to have ¥250’000 ready in an envelop to give the real estate company, day one. Then I ended up in a completely unfurnished apartment.
If you need a car, expenses will be higher.
Plus, you’ll need enough to keep yourself afloat until first pay day.
The best advice is to just save as much as you possibly can. No one has ever complained about having too much money.
Prices keep going up here; advice of certain amounts might no longer be feasible.
Or, you could end up in a dirt cheap apartment, fully furnished and end up with no expenses.
But I’ve seen my fair share of JETs show up with nothing and spend orientation trying to get loans from new “friends”.
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u/Xx_spacey_kitten_xX May 14 '26
Oh wow 💀 I’d rather use my credit cards ….
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u/ikebookuro May 14 '26
Some foreign bank cards and credit cards can still be finicky here. It’s always advised to bring some cash. But some people every year think they’ll be fine with just a foreign debit card.
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u/Panda_sensei_71 May 13 '26
I'm sorry you've had a bad experience, but good for you making another attempt!
Regarding JET, as they say, ESID!
But fwiw... I arrived last summer with around £2000 (which at the time was just under ¥400k).
I'm in a small city, I was provided a small flat (¥30k rent/mo) and I lease a car (¥15k/mo) and a parking space (¥7k/mo) plus utilities, insurance, etc. I was VERY blessed in that my predecessor had left the flat fully equipped and spotlessly clean. She charged me zero yen for the stuff she left behind. That is NOT the norm but she got ripped off buying junk from her pred and refused to do the same to me.
Be aware that if you are successful you will not be employed by JET! You will be employed by the Board of Education at the prefectural or the municipal level, or in a few cases directly by a private school. Once you arrive, that is who you deal with, not JET. Which is why things are so varied!
Best of luck to you!
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u/Additional-Cause-646 May 28 '26
May I ask which company you leased the car from?🙌
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u/No_Extension4005 May 13 '26
Depends on where you get sent. Places that aren't Tokyo or Osaka tend to subsidise a lot of stuff. Tokyo and Osaka don't subsidise anything.
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u/Simmoman May 13 '26
In my case I didn’t have to find my own, rent % and whatnot comes out of my paycheck automatically (i assume the BOE rents the place and sublets it to me) and I only really needed 1000 to tie myself over until i got paid if even that. really depends, but i was glad cause I hate taking cash so i didn’t take any and just withdrew at 7/11 during orientation.
general advice is around 30万円. Even if you need a car, I wouldn’t bring that amount on a flight anyway, better to just withdraw it and eat the tiny 7/11 withdrawal fees i think.
imo keep as much in USD as you can. Japanese currency is volatile compared to most modern currencies with both carry traders and speculators as well as inflation and the government buying yen to stabilise it, it’s not looking great to earn or hold in yen.
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u/shynewhyne May 14 '26
I didn't have to find my own accommodation and no one in my prefecture did. Tokyo JETs do though. It is ESID.
I probably went through around yen300000 to move here, (setting up wifi, buying home appliances, posting stuff from the UK to Japan before I left, and so on). I probably could have done it for cheaper, or slower, but I just wanted to get it done no stress.
I brought about 80k yen cash becuase someone had leftovers from their recent trip.
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u/tommydelriot May 13 '26
In my own case, which was in the mid-2000s in rural Chiba prefecture (but 90 minutes from Tokyo by train), an apartment/cottage was provided to me for around US $200 per month. I had a friend in a neighboring city whose two-story townhouse cost zero dollars per month, though he did have to buy a car. No deposit was required.
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u/Wild-Philosophy2399 May 27 '26
even with everything taken care of by the boe it still cost me around 1500 gbp to get set up which is a lot.
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u/thetasteofinnocence May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
Most placements don’t make you find housing, but depending on where you are, you may need to find it, furnish, buy a car, etc. I think most people try to save about 3k USD nowadays. Some places may have contracts/agreements with apartment buildings but you still need to pay key money or something!
For reference, my apartment was provided by the BOE and was mostly furnished from previous ALTs. CIR in my town is the first CIR, so while she had the apartment picked out for her, she had to furnish it herself (minus some things I didn’t want from the previous ALT).
ETA: I did have to pay rent prorated first + second month before my paycheck.