---
title: "Is Japan a Good Place to Live? — Geo-Parity"
description: "Japan (Tokyo): 248 Mbps internet, safety 99/100, healthcare 86/100 — essentials ≈ $1,393/month, so $3k lives \"very comfortable\". Full quality-vs-cost breakdown."
canonical: "https://geo-parity.com/livability/japan/"
json: "https://geo-parity.com/api/livability.json"
generator: geo-parity markdown twin
---
Livability · rank 24/167

# Is 🇯🇵 Japan (Tokyo) a good place to live?

Quality score **84/100** against essentials of **$1,393/month**. Safest big cities on earth, superb healthcare; English rarity is the friction.

## The five metrics

Internet 99 248 Mbps median broadband, 85.5% online

Safety 99 0.2 homicides/100k (2023)

Healthcare 86 UHC service coverage 86/100 (2023)

Air quality 92 PM2.5 8.5 µg/m³ (2023)

English 42 day-to-day usability

## Beside the score, not inside it

Neither of these is part of the composite above, deliberately. Folding governance into a quality-of-life number would bury a political judgement where you could not see it or argue with it, and connection *price* is a different question from connection *speed* — somewhere fast and expensive and somewhere slow and cheap are different trade-offs, not one average.

- **Rule of law**: very strong
- World Bank WGI estimate 1.51 · corruption control 1.36 · stability 1.13 (2024). Scale −2.5 to +2.5, higher is better.
- **What connectivity costs**: $28.85 /mo broadband
- Mobile 10GB $29.35/month. ITU price basket. The speed above is scored; this price is not.

## What your budget buys

| Monthly budget | vs essentials ($1,393) | Verdict |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $2,000 | 1.4× | comfortable |
| $3,000 | 2.2× | very comfortable |
| $5,000 | 3.6× | like royalty |

Essentials from the [Pint & Property basket](https://geo-parity.com/expenses/?tab=prices). Rank countries by your own priorities in the [interactive matrix](https://geo-parity.com/livability/).

🛂 **Digital Nomad Visa** — income floor ≈ $5,700/month. [Visa finder →](https://geo-parity.com/nomad-visas/)

🪤 Tax residency triggers at **183 days**. [Tax residency details →](https://geo-parity.com/tax-residency/japan/)

## Similar value-for-money

- [🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo](https://geo-parity.com/livability/republic-of-the-congo/) — quality 39.7, essentials $657/mo
- [🇪🇸 Spain](https://geo-parity.com/livability/spain/) — quality 86.2, essentials $1,438/mo
- [🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago](https://geo-parity.com/livability/trinidad-and-tobago/) — quality 66.3, essentials $1,097/mo
- [🇲🇻 Maldives](https://geo-parity.com/livability/maldives/) — quality 70.9, essentials $1,186/mo

See also: [everyday prices](https://geo-parity.com/cost-of-living/united-states-vs-japan/) · [retiring in Japan](https://geo-parity.com/fire/japan/)

## Frequently asked questions

- **Is Japan a good place to live for remote workers?**: Japan scores 84/100 on our equal-weighted livability composite (internet 248 Mbps, safety 99, healthcare 86, air quality 92, english 42) — rank 24 of 167. Safest big cities on earth, superb healthcare; English rarity is the friction.
- **How fast is the internet in Japan?**: Median fixed broadband is around 248 Mbps. Safest big cities on earth, superb healthcare; English rarity is the friction.
- **What does $3,000/month get you in Japan?**: Single-person essentials run about $1,393/month at local prices, so $3,000 lives "very comfortable" (2.2× essentials).

Safety, healthcare and air quality are objective figures from the World Bank (homicide rate, life expectancy) and WHO (PM2.5); internet speed and English are curated. City variation is real — verify locally. Agents: GET /api/livability.json?budget=3000.

---

Source: Geo-Parity — https://geo-parity.com/livability/japan/ · JSON: https://geo-parity.com/api/livability.json