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2026-09-09

Inheriting bank savings ― when is an account frozen, and the \"provisional payment system\" that lets you withdraw before the estate is divided

The deceased's account is frozen as soon as the bank learns of the death and, in principle, cannot be touched until the division of the estate is complete. So what do you do about funeral costs and immediate living expenses? This article sets out the provisional payment system that began in July 2019 (one third of your statutory share, up to 1,500,000 yen per financial institution), how freezing works in practice, the procedure up to closing the account, and the problems with withdrawing money on your own.

About this translation ― This page is an English translation of an article originally written in Japanese by KuraLab's operator, a licensed real-estate transaction specialist (宅地建物取引士) and administrative scrivener (行政書士) in Japan. The Japanese original is the authoritative text; where the two differ, the Japanese version prevails. The article explains Japanese law and procedure in general terms as of the date shown. It is not legal, tax or immigration advice for your situation ― please confirm with a licensed professional in Japan. Japanese terms are kept in parentheses so you can search for them. Read the Japanese original

"I have to pay the funeral company 1,800,000 yen by the day after tomorrow." The call came from a woman three days after her father died. Her father's accounts had been stopped the day she told the bank of his death. She had only 500,000 yen in savings of her own. Her brother lived far away and was hard to reach. "It's Dad's money. Can't it be used for Dad's funeral?" It can. But not all of it: up to a set amount, through a set procedure. This article is about doing that procedure in two days.

"I tried to withdraw the funeral costs from Dad's account and it had been stopped." This is one of the very first things people bring to an inheritance consultation. A bank freezes the account as soon as it learns that the account holder has died. It is not triggered by a notice from the municipal office, but by something like a call from the family, an obituary in the newspaper, or a branch employee hearing about it. Once frozen, deposits, withdrawals and direct debits all stop, and in principle the account cannot be touched until the estate has been divided and documents from all the heirs are in hand.

It is frozen because the savings become "jointly owned" by all the heirs. A 2016 Supreme Court decision settled that savings are subject to division of the estate, and as a result one heir cannot withdraw just their own statutory share on their own. If a bank pays out at the request of one heir, problems can arise later with the other heirs, so banks ask for the consent of everyone.

To fill that gap, the "provisional payment system for savings" (預貯金の仮払い制度) began in July 2019. Even before the estate is divided, an heir can on their own withdraw, per financial institution, "the savings × 1/3 × their own statutory share," up to 1,500,000 yen. With 12,000,000 yen in savings and the heirs being a wife and two children (each child's statutory share being 1/4), one child can withdraw 12,000,000 yen × 1/3 × 1/4 = 1,000,000 yen. If there are accounts at several financial institutions, the 1,500,000 yen limit applies at each. If more than 1,500,000 yen is needed, there is also the route of applying to the family court for a provisional payment.

An example of the limit (savings of 12,000,000 yen; the heirs are a wife and two children, with statutory shares of 1/2 for the wife and 1/4 for each child). The whole savings: 12,000,000 yen. The base for provisional payment (1/3): 4,000,000 yen. What each can withdraw alone: the wife 1,500,000 yen (the limit), each child 1,000,000 yen. The wife's calculated amount is 2,000,000 yen, but the limit is 1,500,000 yen per financial institution. What is withdrawn is adjusted in the division of the estate.

Whatever an heir receives as a provisional payment is treated as that heir having received part of the estate early, and it is adjusted in the later division of the estate. It does not become "what I got first is separate." If it went towards funeral costs, keep the receipts, and the heirs work out in the division how the funeral costs are to be treated (who bore them).

What you must not do is withdraw money with the cash card before the account is frozen. It is technically possible, but from the other heirs' point of view it means "you used the estate without permission," and it is the biggest cause of disputes in dividing the estate. Further, if someone who is thinking of renouncing the inheritance withdraws money and uses it for themselves, it may be treated as the "simple acceptance" (単純承認) described in the article on renunciation, and they may no longer be able to renounce. Even if you withdraw money for funeral costs, keeping a record of the amount and the use and telling the other heirs is what will protect you later.

For closing the account (or changing the name on it), you submit documents to each financial institution: its own inheritance procedure request form, the full set of the deceased's family registers from birth to death (many institutions accept the legal heir information chart (法定相続情報一覧図) instead), the certificates of seal registration of all the heirs, the estate division agreement or the will, and the passbook and cash card. From submitting at the counter to payment takes about two weeks to a month as a guide. The more institutions, the more work, so the standard approach is to get the chart first and then go round.

If you do not know where the accounts are, look through passbooks, cash cards and mail (statements of balance, dividend notices). Japan Post Bank can check for existing accounts at its savings administration centres nationwide, and other banks also respond to enquiries from heirs. For online banks, use the smartphone apps and the e-mail inbox as clues. In the article on the overall inheritance procedure I wrote about "getting a grip on debts," and savings are the same: if you divide the estate without knowing, an account found later means redoing the agreement.

The calculation from the case. The father had two accounts: 9,000,000 yen at Bank A and 3,000,000 yen at Bank B. The heirs were his wife (the mother) and two children (the woman and her brother). The woman's statutory share was 1/4. The provisional payment limit is "savings × 1/3 × statutory share": at Bank A, 9,000,000 × 1/3 × 1/4 = 750,000 yen; at Bank B, 3,000,000 × 1/3 × 1/4 = 250,000 yen. Together 1,000,000 yen. That does not reach 1,500,000 yen, but the limit is 1,500,000 yen per bank, so 1,000,000 yen across the two banks was what the woman alone could withdraw. That was 800,000 yen short of 1,800,000 yen.

The shortfall was covered by the mother's provisional payment. The mother's statutory share was 1/2, so 1,500,000 yen at Bank A (9,000,000 × 1/3 × 1/2 = 1,500,000 yen, exactly the limit) and 500,000 yen at Bank B. The mother was in a care home, but the woman went to the counter with a power of attorney and withdrew 800,000 yen from Bank A as the mother's share. The next day she went round the two banks and paid the funeral company 1,800,000 yen: her own 1,000,000 yen and the mother's 800,000 yen. What the banks needed was the father's continuous family registers from birth to death, the family registers of all the heirs (mother, woman and brother), the woman's and the mother's certificates of seal registration, identity documents, and the mother's power of attorney. Checking the documents at the counter took an hour at each bank, but it was done in time in two days.

This family's provisional payments (the father's savings: 9,000,000 yen at Bank A and 3,000,000 yen at Bank B, balances on the day he died). Bank A limit (9,000,000 yen × 1/3 × share): the woman (statutory share 1/4) 750,000 yen, the mother (statutory share 1/2) 1,500,000 yen, total 2,250,000 yen. Bank B limit (3,000,000 yen × 1/3 × share): the woman 250,000 yen, the mother 500,000 yen, total 750,000 yen. Total of the limits: the woman 1,000,000 yen, the mother 2,000,000 yen, together 3,000,000 yen. Actually withdrawn: the woman 1,000,000 yen (750,000 from A and 250,000 from B), the mother 800,000 yen (from A only), together 1,800,000 yen (the funeral costs).

Even for a provisional payment, "one certificate showing the death" is not enough of a family register. The amount you can withdraw depends on the statutory share, and the statutory share depends on who the heirs are, so the bank traces the father's family registers from birth to death to check that there are no other heirs. The Japanese Bankers Association also explains that it asks for the deceased's registers to be continuous from birth to death, in order to "confirm the fact of death" and "confirm the statutory heirs." On the afternoon of the day she phoned me, the woman used the nationwide issuing service for family registers (広域交付) at the city office of her registered domicile and obtained her father's registers back to his birth. Tracing back to birth also showed, then and there, that her father had no children from an earlier marriage. If there had been, the woman's statutory share would no longer have been 1/4, and the limit calculation would have had to start again.

What you can expect to be checked at the provisional payment counter: who the heirs are and what the balance was on the day of death. The person receiving the payment submits to the bank the deceased's continuous family registers from birth to death, the family registers of all the heirs and their own certificate of seal registration. The bank confirms the heirs and the statutory shares from the registers and pays out the balance on the day of death × 1/3 × the statutory share, up to 1,500,000 yen per financial institution (not per branch or per account). The documents required can differ between institutions. Many institutions accept the legal heir information chart in place of the bundle of family registers.

There was one thing I stopped her doing. At first the woman said, "I know the PIN of Dad's cash card; I should have withdrawn the money before it was stopped." Withdrawing before it stops is technically possible, but from her brother's point of view it would mean "she used it without permission," and if her brother had been thinking of renouncing, she herself might no longer have been able to renounce. Provisional payment is a system for withdrawing money legitimately without the other heirs' consent. The same 1,800,000 yen withdrawn as a provisional payment is settled in the division as "received early"; withdrawn with the card, it becomes a suspicion of "misappropriation."

I checked one more thing at the counter. The base for calculating the limit is the balance at the point when inheritance began (the day the father died). In the father's account at Bank A, the electricity bill and a credit card payment had been debited in the three days between his death and the bank being told, and the passbook balance had fallen by about 120,000 yen. Even so, the calculation uses the 9,000,000 yen on the day he died. Conversely, money paid in after the death does not increase the limit. If the counter explains things on the basis of "the current balance," check whether it should not be calculated on the balance on the day of death. Time deposits also go into the base as their balance on the day of death.

Where judgement tends to differ is in how the 1,500,000 yen limit is counted. The limit is "per financial institution," not per branch or per account. Even if there is an ordinary account and a time deposit at different branches of the same bank, the total from that bank is 1,500,000 yen. In this family, the mother's calculated amount at Bank A was exactly 1,500,000 yen, so she had reached the limit. If more is needed, there is the route of applying to the family court for a provisional disposition for provisional division of savings; this has no uniform limit on the amount, and the court decides by looking at the need. But it presupposes that you have applied for conciliation or adjudication of the division of the estate, and it is not a procedure usable within a few days. For urgent money such as paying for a funeral, the realistic order was to manage with the banks' provisional payment and have the heirs cover any shortfall between themselves.

Freezing is inconvenient, but it is also a mechanism that protects the property of all the heirs. Secure immediate funds through the provisional payment system, then gather the chart and the agreement and close the rest in one go. That is the basic form of inheriting savings.

On the day of the call, the woman said, "But it's Dad's money." From the moment of death, Dad's money becomes the money of all the heirs, and that is why it stops. The provisional payment system sets the range that one person can legitimately withdraw from that "money of everyone." I put the example of the limit calculation in this article's table so that when I take a call like that, I can answer on the spot: "You can have 1,000,000 yen, and your mother 2,000,000 yen."

Written by: 長澤 湊（licensed real-estate transaction specialist, administrative scrivener, assistant surveyor）　Content checked on: 2026-10-24

This article is a general explanation of Japanese rules and procedures, not advice on an individual case. Figures and rules are as of the date shown. For your own situation, consult a lawyer, judicial scrivener, tax accountant or administrative scrivener in Japan.

Official sources

The rules and figures in this article can be checked against the following official pages (in Japanese).

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