Child allowance after you move in, and Tokyo's 018 payment

Two monthly payments are easy to mix up. Child allowance (児童手当, jidō teate) is national, paid by your municipality, or by a civil servant's workplace. 018 support (０１８サポート) is a Tokyo payment on top of that, and only while the child is a Tokyo resident. Neither one starts because the other was approved.

What the allowance pays

The Children and Families Agency's fiscal 2026 budget paper (令和8年度) says the expanded rules apply from October 2024 (令和6年10月分), including 所得制限なし (no income limit). The paper and the agency's parent guide print the same monthly amounts:

Child's age	1st or 2nd child	3rd and later
Under 3	15,000 yen	30,000 yen
From age 3 through high-school age	10,000 yen	30,000 yen

High-school age runs until the 31 March after the 18th birthday. The child must be living in Japan. The guide's rule is 原則として、児童が日本国内に住んでいる場合に支給します. A child living abroad is outside the payment, apart from a narrow study-abroad exception on the agency FAQ.

"Third and later" is not "the third child who still lives at home." The FAQ counts the child and older brothers and sisters from the oldest. An older sibling counts, through the fiscal year they turn 22, when a parent is paying their living costs, even if that sibling is too old to receive the allowance. The third person in that list, if still young enough to be paid, is the one at 30,000 yen. If you support an older sibling, file the confirmation of care and living costs (監護相当・生計費の負担についての確認書). The municipality does the count.

Payment months are February, April, June, August, October and December. Each deposit is the previous two months. The guide's example: the June deposit is April and May.

File within 15 days of a move

The allowance is a claim (認定請求, nintei seikyū), not a side effect of registering your address.

The agency FAQ says, for a move between municipalities:

転出した日（転出予定日）の次の日から数えて15日以内に、必ず転入先の市区町村で申請手続きを行ってください。

The "move-out day" is the planned date you wrote on the move-out notice. In the ordinary case the new municipality pays from the month after you apply. If that planned date falls near the end of a month, an application in the next month still covers the month of the move when it is inside those 15 days. After 15 days, the FAQ says the months you were late are, in principle, not paid.

A birth uses the same 15 days, counted from the day after the birth, at the municipality where you actually live. A birth registered in a home-town city during a stay with family does not file the allowance there.

If the parent who receives it is a civil servant, the workplace pays, not the city hall. The guide says that becoming a civil servant, leaving that job, or changing government office means a fresh filing, at both the workplace and the municipality, within 15 days.

The bank account is the recipient's, not the child's. The FAQ states that limit.

The June check, and a child with no family register

From the June 2022 payment onward, the annual status form (現況届, genkyō todoke) is no longer required of everyone. The guide still requires it for some households. One of the listed groups is a child who has no family register (戸籍, koseki):

支給要件児童の戸籍がない方

A foreign child usually has no Japanese family register. If you are in that group, the June form is still required, and the guide says that without it the payments from June stop. The same page allows a municipality to demand the form more widely. Ask your municipality in May whether they will send you one. Other people who must still file include a guardian the resident register cannot track, parents living apart during divorce talks, someone receiving the allowance at an address that is not the registered one because of violence from a spouse, and people the municipality writes to.

Tokyo 018, fiscal 2026

The Tokyo 018 FAQ (fiscal 2026, 令和8年度) prints 5,000 yen a month per child, 60,000 yen if the child is in Tokyo all year, and 所得制限はありません。 Age is from 0 through the 31 March after the 18th birthday. On foreign nationals the FAQ says:

支給要件を満たしている場合、外国籍の方も日本国籍の方と同様に対象となります。

Each month is judged on the 1st. The FAQ's example: a move into Tokyo on 10 August pays September through March, seven months, 35,000 yen. A move inside Tokyo does not change the amount. A move out of Tokyo stops the months after the 1st you were no longer a resident.

Fiscal 2026 is paid in three rounds:

Apply by	Payment round	Months in that round
1 July 2026	August 2026	April–July
1 November 2026	December 2026	August–November
1 March 2027	April 2027	December–March

The July 2026 round is past. An application by 1 November 2026 is the next round. Someone already receiving 018 does not file again, unless Tokyo cannot see the qualification in its records, or the child lives outside Tokyo for school, work or medical care, or the registered address is not where the child lives. Those cases need a status report.

If fiscal 2025 (令和7年度) was never claimed, the FAQ says it is paid in your first fiscal-2026 payment month. The worked example is an application by 1 July, paid in August. Fiscal 2025 applications stay open until 1 March 2027. If your first round is December, confirm the back months with 0120-056-018 (9:00–19:00, closed 29 December–3 January).

A My Number application needs cards for parent and child, one Tokyo household, and a public-benefit account. Otherwise use the other online route. The FAQ lists a residence card (在留カード) as identity paper for that route. The call center can also post a paper form.

The 018 top page describes a separate one-off, 子育て応援＋: 11,000 yen once, for a child aged 0–14 in the window 2 February 2026–1 April 2027, with no application, payments having started 13 April 2026. That is not the monthly 5,000 yen.

What goes wrong

• Counting 15 days from the day you visited city hall, rather than from the day after the planned move-out date.
• A civil servant filing only at city hall.
• Skipping the June form because a neighbour said it was abolished, when the child has no family register.
• Expecting 018 for a month when you arrived on the 2nd. The 1st is the test.

What to do now

The wider list of payments, including medical aid and school support, is the money map.