Outward foreign direct investment is one of the most important driving forces to promote currency internationalization. By using the bilateral direct investment data between Japan and its partners in 1998~2016, this paper constructs a dynamic spatial Durbin model to analyze the effect of Japan’s outward direct investment on yen internationalization. We find that the increase of Japan’s outward direct investment has direct effect on yen internationalization, while the spatial effect is not obvious. In order to promote currency internationalization positively, we need to pay more attention to the behavior of outward foreign direct investment and the global geographic distribution of investment. It is also necessary to invest to host countries continuously for currency internationalization.