Kirk here with some information about whether or not you will receive a “vaccination coupon” (接種券 [sesshuken]) in the mail.

First, the short answer: If you have a residence card (在留カード [zairyu kaado]) and the address on that card is current, you should get your coupon in the mail when your turn is about to come up.

I was prompted to look into this by discussion in response to Atsuko’s post (thanks Atsuko) on this topic:

https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/5496513147088739

The question of whether or not one needs to be a permanent resident in order to get a coupon came up. As I posted above, the answer is “no, just having a residence card (what we all need in order to stay here legally for more than three months) is enough” but it was surprisingly difficult to get a clear answer on this. What should be “authoritative” English pages don’t provide adequate clarity. For example, look at the following:

https://v-sys.mhlw.go.jp/en/flow/

This page on the Ministry of Welfare website says that before “the vaccination becomes available in your area, your local government will send a ‘vaccination ticket (coupon)’ and ‘Notice for COVID-19 Vaccination’ to you” but doesn’t explain how to be sure that you’re on the local government’s list.

Here’s a page from NHK with the same kind of problem:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1556/

I did a good deal of searching in Japanese and even then it was difficult to pin down what conditions foreigners had to satisfy in order to be sure that they would get their coupons.

I finally wound up calling various city government offices. First, I was told that everyone with a local “certificate of residence” (住民票 [juminhyo]) would get a coupon when their turn came. Good information. Next question: “Do all foreigners automatically have a ‘certificate of residence’?” Long pause. I had to call another number to verify that if you have a valid residence card that lists your current address, the municipality of the listed address will also have a certificate of residence on file for you and so you’re safe.

—— End of content. Start of griping. ——-

Even with over 35 years of experience living in Japan and the linguistic skills I gained over that time, nailing this down was hard for me. My impression is that all of the explanations I read (whether in English or Japanese) failed to understand that foreigners living in Japan would want a clear answer to the following question: “How do I know for sure that I’m on Santa’s list and that he’s checking it twice?”

I like Japan but I never cease to be surprised by the difficulty that Japanese officialdom has in communicating effectively with its non-Japanese population. :(

Since the kind of explanation I’ve provided in this post seems to be pretty hard to find on the internet, I’d appreciate it if those of you who have read this far would take moment to share this post with others you know who might be wondering about whether or not they are really going to get a coupon. Thanks.