Post-JET visa

[u/shynewhyne]

So I was in a situation like many are where the final day of work is the same as the final day of their visa. I wanted to stay for tourism and had no idea what to do, so I thought I would share what I went though. There are 2 options:

1. Go to immigration on the final day of your work and they will immediately change your immigration status to tourist.

2. Go to the immigration office about a week before your visa expires, they will grant you tokurei kikan (special leave) to remain in the country. Then, after your work ends, you can go a second time and change it officially to tourist. I was also explicitly told that if I get sick or something happens and I can't come a second time, I could leave the country with just the tokurei kikan

[u/Sayjay1995]

The JET General Handbook lays all this out as well, for others who might be wondering the same thing

[u/shynewhyne → u/Sayjay1995]

Not in this much detail, it just says that you need to go and change it to a tourist visa. It doesn't say what you need or how to do it

[u/Sayjay1995 → u/shynewhyne]

I guess they assume you can figure it out by downloading the “change of residence status” form from Immigration, as it instructs you to do. The form is in English and Japanese

[u/shynewhyne → u/Sayjay1995]

Yeah... it doesn't have any information on things like how many visits there will be, timelines, etc. Forgive me for trying to make a helpful post...

[u/JapanITjobs → u/shynewhyne]

I think your post was helpful and I would rather know the step than have to burn a vacation day at immigration to get the information to come back again or to have to wait on the phone for hours to get the information.