What actually changed
From 14 June 2026, Japan began issuing second-generation residence cards, which can carry My Number Card functionality on the same chip. Consolidating two cards into one is a real convenience.
The problem is downstream. Online identity verification — the step where a service asks you to photograph your card or tap it against your phone — was built to read the old card. Several systems cannot yet read the new one.
A card issued in the last few months is exactly what a recent arrival has. So the people most likely to be setting up a phone, an internet contract and a bank account are the people most likely to be holding a card the sign-up flow cannot read.
What it blocks, concretely
ahamo states that second-generation cards, and specified residence cards with My Number functionality, cannot currently be used for its online identity check.
The application does not fail. You choose identity verification on delivery (配達時に本人確認) instead — the courier checks your card at the door. It works, but it means being home for the delivery, and nobody mentions it until you are halfway through the form.
What to do instead
- Pick verification on delivery where it is offered. It is not a downgrade, just slower.
- Choose services that do not verify online at all. Prepaid and rental SIMs sidestep the problem, which is convenient because they also sidestep the credit check.
- Do it in person if the service has a shop. Counter staff read the physical card.
The fourteen-day rule, while you are here
Separately from all of the above: when you move, you have 14 days to register your new address at the city office. The address goes on the back of the card, and plenty of other things depend on it — a bank will ask for the card with the address already on it, and an internet contract will too.
The address registration is the dependency almost everything else sits on. Doing it in your first week removes a blocker you would otherwise hit three separate times.
What we have not verified
Which other services can and cannot read second-generation cards is not centrally published, and we are not going to guess. ahamo is documented above because ahamo says so itself. If you hit the same wall elsewhere, it is the same cause and the same workaround.