The short version
- Three routes cover most people leaving Japan: Japan Post's international parcel post (cheapest, slowest, and size-limited), Yamato's courier services (faster, priced by box size or by shipment volume), and a full-service international mover (door-to-door, priced after a survey, generally the most expensive).
- Japan Post has been trimming its international lineup — SAL has stayed suspended and further limits on airmail-based parcel services took hold around January 2026 — so which of its services is even open to your destination is worth checking directly rather than assuming from an older blog post.
- Yamato prices its international TA-Q-BIN by destination zone and parcel size, while its international moving plans are generally priced by shipment volume (cubic meters) rather than weight, with a minimum around 1 cubic meter — a distinction that matters once you're shipping furniture, not boxes.
- "Unaccompanied baggage" is a real customs mechanism, not a universal rule — the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia each treat belongings that travel separately from you differently, and at least one of them (Australia) doesn't give unaccompanied items the same duty-free treatment at all unless you've owned them for a year or more.
- This guide compares how these services generally work. It isn't a shipping agent or a customs broker, and it doesn't calculate duty on your specific boxes.
Two suitcases and one carry-on is the baggage allowance printed on most long-haul tickets, and it was never going to cover a life that took a couple of years to accumulate. The rice cooker, the winter coat that actually works, the box of documents and photos you're not ready to scan and toss — none of it fits in checked luggage, and not all of it belongs in the trash either. Our guide to disposing of furniture and appliances before you move out covers what to do with the stuff you're genuinely done with. This one is for what's left after that: the things you want on the other side of the flight, just not in your arms when you board it.
Three ways to get it there
Every option for shipping personal belongings out of Japan is a trade-off between price, speed, and how much of the packing and paperwork you do yourself. Roughly speaking:
- Japan Post's international parcel post is the mail-it-yourself route: you box things up, take them to a post office, and pay by weight and destination zone. It's generally the cheapest per kilogram and the most limited on size and weight per box.
- Yamato (Kuroneko Yamato) covers two different products under one brand: International TA-Q-BIN, a courier service for individual parcels, and a separate international moving service priced by shipment volume rather than weight, aimed at people sending more than a few boxes.
- Private international movers — Crown Relocations, Santa Fe Relocation, and Asian Tigers Group are the names that come up most often for Japan — send someone to your home, pack what you choose, and ship it door to door. This is the only route of the three that includes the packing labor.
Japan Post: cheapest per kilogram, and currently in flux
Japan Post's international lineup has historically split into three tiers. EMS (Express Mail Service) is tracked, insured, and the fastest of the three, commonly reported at roughly 3–7 business days. It also carries a higher per-kilogram weight ceiling than the other options, widely cited around 30 kg, though the exact limit is set per destination. International Parcel Post by airmail is generally slower, at roughly 6–10 business days. Surface mail is the cheapest option of the three, but it moves by ship rather than plane, so it can take one to three months.
That lineup has been narrowing. SAL, a mid-price airmail-adjacent service, has remained suspended, and English-language coverage of Japan Post's international shipping describes further cuts to airmail-based parcel options taking effect around January 2026, with some destinations now limited to EMS, surface mail, or private couriers like FedEx, UPS, and DHL instead. Japan Post has also introduced a newer tracked courier product for international shipments, but whether it's set up for a one-off personal shipment the way EMS is, rather than aimed mainly at business or e-commerce senders, is worth confirming directly if you're considering it. Given how much of this has changed inside a single year, checking Japan Post's own destination-by-destination page before you plan a shipment around any one service is worth the five minutes it takes — a service that worked for a friend last year may not be listed for your destination today.
Because parcel post is boxed and weighed one package at a time, it tends to suit someone shipping a manageable number of boxes — clothes, books, small electronics — rather than furniture or anything that exceeds a single box's size and weight limit.
Yamato: courier speed for boxes, volume-based pricing for a fuller move
International TA-Q-BIN groups destination countries into four pricing zones, with the rate depending on both the zone and the parcel's size. One secondhand estimate puts a roughly 5 kg parcel to the United States at somewhere in the ¥8,000–10,000 range with delivery in about 5–7 days — treat that as an illustration of the shape of pricing, not a quote, since Yamato's own calculator is the only place to get a real number for your box and destination. Coverage isn't universal either: the service is available to a defined list of countries and regions — the U.S., Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and parts of Europe are commonly named — so it's worth confirming your destination is on that list before you plan around it.
Yamato's international moving service is a separate product built for people sending more than a courier box's worth of belongings. Per its own English-language pages, pricing is generally based on shipment volume rather than weight, with a minimum around 1 cubic meter (about 35 cubic feet) for its self-packed plan, moving by sea freight rather than air. That volume-based structure is the detail worth remembering: a box of paperback books and a box of winter coats can weigh completely differently but take up roughly the same space, which is what this pricing model is actually charging you for.
Private international movers: door-to-door, priced after they see your stuff
Crown Relocations, Santa Fe Relocation, and Asian Tigers Group all operate in Japan and describe a similar process: someone visits your home (or you complete a video or photo survey), estimates the volume of what you're shipping in cubic meters, and returns a quote for packing, transport, and delivery to your new address. Asian Tigers' own materials note that a 40-foot shipping container holds roughly 60 cubic meters, which gives some sense of scale — most single residents or couples ship a small fraction of a full container.
None of these companies publish a rate card the way Japan Post or Yamato's calculators do, so this guide can't responsibly print a number without a quote behind it. What's consistent across comparison sources is the general positioning: expect this route to cost meaningfully more than doing your own boxes through Japan Post or Yamato, in exchange for not having to pack, carry, or box anything yourself. For a full household — furniture included — it's often the only realistic option among the three, since neither Japan Post nor Yamato's courier products are built to move a bed frame.
Side by side
| What matters to you | Japan Post | Yamato (TA-Q-BIN / int'l moving) | Private international mover |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it's priced | By weight and destination zone, per box | TA-Q-BIN: by size and zone. Moving plans: generally by shipment volume (CBM) | By shipment volume, quoted after a home survey — no published rate card |
| Roughly how fast | EMS ~3–7 business days; airmail parcel ~6–10 days; surface mail 1–3 months | TA-Q-BIN roughly 5–7 days to some destinations; sea-freight moving plans take considerably longer | Weeks to a couple of months, depending on route and whether it travels by sea or air |
| Who packs it | You, entirely | You, on the self-packed plans described here | Generally included — packing staff visit your home |
| Availability | Wide, but narrowing — some services limited or suspended by destination; check current status | TA-Q-BIN limited to a defined list of countries; moving plans broader | Most countries, subject to each company's own network |
| Best fit | A manageable number of boxes — clothes, books, small items — and you don't mind carrying them to a post office | More than a courier box's worth, up to a modest volume of furniture, on a route TA-Q-BIN or the moving plans actually serve | A full household, furniture included, or you'd simply rather not pack any of it yourself |
Prices, transit times, and which services are open to which destinations change often enough — as Japan Post's own recent changes show — that every figure above should be treated as a starting point to verify, not a current quote.
Unaccompanied baggage: a duty exemption that depends entirely on where you're headed
Many countries let a returning resident declare belongings that are traveling separately — shipped ahead, or following by mail or courier — as duty-free personal effects, provided the goods are declared correctly and generally arrive within some window of time. Japan's own version of this, run by Japan Customs, is a useful illustration of how the mechanism can work in practice: someone entering (or re-entering) Japan submits two copies of a written declaration for unaccompanied baggage at the time of entry. One copy comes back stamped as proof for later, and the goods generally need to reach the traveler's own custody within six months of arrival. We're describing Japan's process here for shape, not because it applies to your move. It's the rule for entering Japan, which matters if you're a returning Japanese resident coming back later, not for the country you're headed to now.
That's the detail worth sitting with: "unaccompanied baggage" is not one universal rule with the same shape everywhere. A sample of destination countries shows real differences, based on each country's own customs authority:
- United States: U.S. Customs and Border Protection generally requires goods to accompany you at entry to qualify for the standard personal duty-free exemption. A separate, narrower unaccompanied-articles process exists, but it isn't the same broad allowance as bringing something in your suitcase.
- Canada: The Canada Border Services Agency allows "goods to follow" — items shipped later by courier or mail — to qualify for duty- and tax-free treatment, but only if you declare them at your first point of entry using the correct form, even before the goods themselves have arrived.
- United Kingdom: UK rules don't use the same accompanied/unaccompanied framing for the ordinary personal allowance. Someone genuinely relocating their home to the UK instead has a separate process, Transfer of Residence relief, administered by HMRC, with its own eligibility rules and paperwork.
- Australia: The Australian Border Force does not extend the same duty-free treatment to unaccompanied baggage that it gives to items travelers bring with them, unless those items have been owned and used for 12 months or more — a meaningfully stricter position than the other three.
Four countries, four different answers, and none of this is a complete list of destinations. The only reliable move is checking your destination country's own customs authority before you assume any exemption applies to what you're shipping, and before you pack something valuable on the assumption it'll cross duty-free.
What this guide does not cover
This is a general comparison of how three shipping routes and one customs concept work, not a recommendation of one named company, a packing guide, or a walkthrough of any specific country's import paperwork. It doesn't cover insurance claims if something is lost or damaged in transit — that's governed by each carrier's own terms of service, worth reading before you ship anything irreplaceable — and it doesn't cover shipping items that need special handling, like alcohol, batteries, or anything a carrier classifies as dangerous goods, which follow their own rules on top of everything described here.
Where this connects
Shipping what you're keeping is only half of leaving an apartment. Our guide to disposing of furniture and appliances before you move out covers the sodai gomi and appliance-recycling side for everything you're not taking with you, and the two guides are meant to be read together before a final move-out date. If you're not fully certain you're leaving for good, or just need a few more months before deciding what to ship, our comparison of trunk rooms and delivery-type storage in Japan covers the cheaper alternative to shipping everything right away.
This guide covers leaving Japan. If you're the one arriving instead, our comparison of airline extra baggage, international luggage shipping, and freight for moving to Japan covers the same choice in reverse, including how Japan's own unaccompanied-baggage exemption works when you're the one declaring it at entry.
Money tends to move out of Japan around the same time belongings do. Our comparison of Wise, Revolut, SBI Remit, and a regular bank transfer walks through the fee-and-exchange-rate side of that, which is a separate question from anything on this page. And if part of what's left is a household you're moving within Japan first, rather than out of it, our guide to choosing a domestic moving company in Japan covers that different, in-country process.
Sources
Checked 2026-08-19.
For Japan Post's international mail and parcel services, see the official English-language pages (post.japanpost.jp and its service-comparison page), alongside English-language coverage of the 2026 changes to airmail-based and SAL services at J-Subculture News (j-subculture.com) and CSTOYS International (cstoysjapan.com). For Yamato's International TA-Q-BIN pricing zones, see the official page (kuronekoyamato.co.jp); for the international moving service's volume-based pricing and minimum shipment size, see Yamato's own Kuroneko International Moving pages (business.kuronekoyamato.co.jp). For general context on both companies' consumer-facing options, see MailMate (mailmate.jp) and Gaijin Blog (gaijinblog.com). For private international movers' door-to-door, volume-based process, see Asian Tigers Group's own description of its Japan service (asiantigersgroup.com). For Japan's own unaccompanied-baggage declaration process on entry, see Japan Customs (customs.go.jp, and its FAQ on declaring unaccompanied articles). For how destination countries differ on unaccompanied belongings, see U.S. Customs and Border Protection (cbp.gov), the Canada Border Services Agency (cbsa-asfc.gc.ca), UK gov.uk's guidance on bringing goods into the UK for personal use (gov.uk), and the Australian Border Force (abf.gov.au). Prices, transit times, service availability by destination, and customs allowances all change over time and are set entirely by each company or government agency named above; confirm current details directly with the shipping company or the relevant customs authority before you ship anything or rely on a specific exemption.