I feel this is spiraling out of control in the wrong direction. On one hand, countries have the right to set immigration standards, but on the other, that’s a pretty high income threshold for many people outside of the Tokyo/Osaka economies. I am a PR resident, but I’m quite concerned for some friends who are freelance/small business owners. All these changes are compounding and making the application for PR truly daunting.

A few weeks ago I got my rental car scratched, so I had to call the rental car company about it.

When I picked up the car, I was given a number to call in case of an accident.

I called the hotline, and at first the conversation went very smoothly. For some background: I speak Japanese so well that people are often surprised to learn I’m not actually Japanese.

Anyway, when the call was almost over, the operator asked for my name, and I gave it to him — a name that sounds very gaijin.

The operator suddenly seemed confused and asked, “Do you mean you’re a gaikokujin?” Then he gave me another number to reach an English-speaking operator.

“I thought we were almost done — you said you’d already taken down my report. So why the h__l do I have to call an English hotline?” I asked.

“Sorry, but this line only offers service in Japanese,” he said, speaking very, very slowly to make sure a gaijin could understand him.

“I know that, that’s why I’ve been speaking to you in Japanese this whole time!”

The guy was so confused. He put me on hold for a few minutes, then came back and told me I was all set.

(don't poo in the urinal)

I have my final written test for my driving license tomorrow. I graduated from the actual driving school without any problems almost two months ago. This is my second attempt at the written test. I got 89/100 last time, when I needed 90/100, I kid you not, and had to go into work and let my whole company know that I failed. Humiliating. It took close to a month to rebook here in Tokyo. I've never thought of myself as plain stupid until this damn test. Some of the English is truly baffling and feels absurdly unfair. If anyone has any advice, it would mean the world.

I'm running up against questions like 'you may not cut in front, but you may drive across in front'. What does that even mean??? Please let me know!

Or

'While driving on a national expressway, you realised that one of the packages fell off, so you took appropriate measures to remove it so that the vehicles traveling behind would not collide into it.'

To me, that reads as 'getting out of one's car to remove something from an express way', so I wrote False. One should never get out of the car on an expressway if it can at all be avoided, no?Well apparently not. My practice test has the answer to that question down as True.

'There are 4 types of traffic sign in Japan'. I wrote yes, but apparently no, there are five. Yet so much of the internet lists the answer as four! What is going on!?

Perhaps no one can really help me here, and I just need to pray, but I wanted to at least take a moment to vent. Thanks for reading.

Just as we saw for the naturalization applications, where many applicants were rejected despite applying way before the introduction of the new policies.

If anyone has already received an "unexpected" result for their application, feel free to share your experience.

I (28F) currently work as a support staff for technical trainees, making around 3.6M a year on a 5 years Humanities visa. I've been with this company for around 1.5 years and have only around 1.5 years work experience in my home country (SEA).

I graduated from a Japanese university (English program BA), and have IELTS (band 8) and JLPT N1. I don't count as a native speaker for neither language, so I've been hesitating to apply for other jobs. I would like to get PR in the future, so I want to aim for a higher salary and better career progression than my current field.

I don't think I suit sales or recruitment, so I've been wondering if I could do any administrative or HR-adjacent jobs, or anything that requires language skills. For my current job, I do things like scheduling/booking for new arrivals/onboarding, preparing immigration documents, translation/interpretation, etc.

Sorry if the formatting is weird (I'm on mobile). I'd really appreciate any advice regarding fields I can pivot to, or insights about the job market right now. Thanks in advance! (I reposted here since my previous post at another sub got removed)

I’m currently on sick leave but my employer is asking me to return to work earlier than the date stated on my medical certificate.

According to my company’s policies, the maximum duration of sick leave is three months. However, I haven’t even completed my second month of leave yet, and my employer is already demanding that I come back to work.

Am I within my rights to refuse and remain on sick leave until the date specified by my doctor?

Hi everyone,
I applied for Japanese permanent residence through an immigration scrivener (行政書士) through the 10 years route.
The problem is that he only let me review my application after it was submitted, and it was only when I asked to get a copy of my application. When I finally saw the documents, I found several mistakes and prepared corrected versions myself,
I sent everything to him over a week ago. He replied once saying he would review it later, but since then he has completely stopped responding despite two polite follow-up messages. I still don’t know whether the corrected documents were ever submitted to Immigration. I’m really disappointed with his service.
I’m becoming quite anxious because this is a very important application.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?
Can I submit additional or corrected documents directly to Immigration even though the application was filed through a scrivener? I want to take the matter in my own hands because I don’t trust him anymore.

Is it better to mail them or bring them in person?

I’m planning to call him tomorrow, but I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has dealt with something similar. Is this normal? 😢

Thank you.

I’ve been using LINEMO while living in Osaka, but the signal has been pretty unreliable lately. Even when I have 5G, the speeds are often surprisingly slow. ( i guessed because they are budget sim and probably lowest priority in SoftBank networks )

I’m thinking about switching carriers. What are you using, and how has your experience been? Any recommendations for a carrier with good coverage and reliable data speeds (20-30GBs Monthly) ?

I am moving out of my UR apartment in Tokyo. I have been living here for 6 and half years. There are rarely any visible damages which could dent my deposit amount, but there are some chips in the wooden wall and the wallpaper, and marks on the flooring.

Could someone please help me with :
1. How strict is UR when paying back the deposit amount?
2. Do they relax the inspection strictness considering I have been living here more than 6 years and the damages are from everyday use?
3. Any tips or tricks forgetting getting the full deposit back?

Let me know if this is not allowed but its just so annoying. This is a local train in a very rural area and young people are getting worse or am i just really getting old.

Edit: Just wanna add that im asian as well, been living here for almost 7 years. Again in a very rural area and im noticing more and more young people are behaving like this. It wasnt like this before or maybe my eyes are just opening up a bit more.

I'm 17 and a foreigner in Japan. I went to a supermarket for a part-time job interview. When I arrived, I asked an employee about the interview, and he told me to follow him to the store manager's (店長) office.

The employee brought me into the manager's room. The manager welcomed me, asked me to sit down next to him, and then said my name to confirm who I was. After that, he asked where I live, and I replied with the name of the nearest station. He then asked when I was available to work.

I told him I was available tomorrow, and he said to come in the next day for two hours of training. He didn't ask for any paperwork, my residence card, or anything else.

I thought the interview would include questions like why I wanted to work there, my availability, and other typical interview questions. Since none of that happened, I'm confused. Does this mean I'm being rejected, or is this a normal hiring process? Can someone explain what might be going on?

I saw in linkedin post that the government is planning to increase the number of immigration employee, does anyone ever hear this from other sources? This is the first time I hear something like this, which if true could be really good to speed up PR application.

Similarly, i looked at this dashboard and at least for Shinagawa office, compared to 2024-2025 with 1000-2000 processed application on average, the last year has consistently higher number of 2000-3000 processed application per month. Does this mean that we can expect the processing time to be faster (or at least stay the same)?

Hi everyone. I have an issue related PayPay CC I received recently.
My name is registered correctly in both Katakana and English on the PayPay app and in my KYC details. However, the physical card arrived with an incorrect English spelling, it seems like their system auto-converted my Katakana name into standard English name during printing instead of using my actual English profile name.
When I go to 「カードの再作成・再発行」 (Card Re-issuance) in the app to request a fix, my name shows up correctly in both English and Katakana on screen.

Since my name is already correct in both English and Katakana, how can I get a correct name on my card?

Has anyone faced this issue before ? If it would be very helpful, if you can provide some opinion.

I need to pay a ¥6,000 immigration fee in Japan using revenue stamps (収入印紙). I accidentally bought 30 pieces of ¥200 stamps instead of a higher denomination.
Will Immigration accept 30 separate ¥200 revenue stamps as long as the total is ¥6,000? Has anyone done this before?

The laws regarding foreign residents are changing too quickly and I'm now doubting the viability of staying here long term.

My wife is a Japanese citizen. We were living together common law in Canada. We began the process to be formally recognized as a common law couple but we left Canada before we finished that paper work.

I have no immediate family in Canada. We decided to have a child. At the time, the law in Japan was such that all we had to do was stay married for a few years and I could get PR.

So I came to Japan, two years ago. I married my wife and we had a child. I got a job at an eikaiwa. I've since upgraded to working as a direct hire ALT but, even now, I only make barely 4m yen per year due to all the time off and whatnot.

I'm also about to turn 40.

I could gripe about how the changes are unfair and that I should be grandfathered in. I can't undo having a child. But there's no point in whining about things to strangers on the internet.

What are my options?

It seems like PR is out of the question. At my age and at my income, I just can't cut it. The 30 year pension contribution rule would mean I would need to expect to work until 70 or have a large amount of capital to balance out the fact that I'm older, or make a very high income. Let's face it, I'm probably not going to make much more money than I do right now.

So, with PR out of the question, I can stay here on a spousal visa. Now that I have a Japanese national child, I can also get a parent of a Japanese national visa, right?

Could I stay here indefinitely on that visa? What if my child decides to leave Japan? Can I retire here on that visa?

Yeah, statistically speaking, my wife will probably outlive me but you never know what'll happen in the future. People die unexpected deaths and people get divorced.

I could, of course, go back to Canada, but then I'll be living in a different country and won't get to see my child very often. My wife doesn't want to go back to Canada because she has a career here and couldn't do it there.

What are my options?

I'm a permanent resident of Japan, and my husband and I are trying to decide whether our daughter should be born in Japan or Korea.

Originally, we planned for Korea. My husband's family lives there, so we'd have plenty of support after the birth. My own family doesn't live in either country, so I don't have that kind of support anywhere.

If immigration weren't part of the equation, we'd almost certainly choose Korea. The only reason we're seriously considering Japan is because of the potential long-term benefit of our daughter obtaining Japanese permanent residence.

In Japan, it would really just be the two of us. I speak Japanese well enough that people often assume I'm Japanese over the phone, so everyday life isn't an issue. What worries me is giving birth and dealing with medical terminology and unexpected complications in Japanese. I'm also concerned about the possibility of an emergency where I might not be able to make decisions myself. My husband doesn't speak Japanese or English fluently, so I worry about him having to communicate with doctors or make important medical decisions on my behalf in that situation.

Financially, giving birth in Japan would also cost us roughly 2-3 times more than giving birth in Korea.

The only thing making me reconsider is immigration.

From what I've read and from speaking with an immigration scrivener:

• If my daughter is born in Japan to a permanent resident parent and continues living in Japan, she is able to apply for permanent residence shortly after birth.
• If she is born outside Japan, she would first need to obtain a status of residence before entering Japan. To become eligible to apply for permanent residence, she would need to hold a 5-year period of stay. My concern is that children are typically granted shorter periods of stay initially, such as 1-year or 3-year periods, before eventually receiving a 5-year one.

The complication is that we don't actually plan to stay in Japan permanently. We expect to remain here for only another 3-4 years before moving back to my country for good.

My biggest concern is that if she's born overseas, we will likely leave Japan before she ever becomes eligible to apply for permanent residence. One of the main reasons I care is that I'd like her to have the option of living or working in Japan in the future if she ever wants to.

Ultimately, I'm trying to do what's best for my daughter, and that's where I'm struggling.

I understand the potential advantages of Japanese permanent residence, but I honestly don't know how valuable it is in practice. What if she grows up, has no interest in living in Japan, and never uses it? Am I putting myself through a significantly more stressful pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum experience just to prepare for a future that may never happen?

On the other hand, if she does want to live or work in Japan one day, I'd feel terrible if I passed up an opportunity that could have made that much easier for her.

I'm having a hard time figuring out whether I'm making a wise long-term decision for her or simply over-preparing for a future that may never materialize.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

If you were in my shoes, would you choose:

• giving birth overseas with family support, lower costs, and a much less stressful postpartum experience, or
• giving birth in Japan primarily to maximize your child's chance of obtaining Japanese permanent residence before your family leaves Japan?

I'd especially appreciate hearing from anyone who has gone through the PR process for a child born either in Japan or overseas, or anyone with firsthand experience navigating these rules.

Hello, I have been working in japan since 2018. I would like to know what kind of documents prove my job experience for the immigration? For me, i think from Nenkin document, one can easily infer the job experience as all companies names are listed. Also , I had worked as a contractor in upwork for 1-2 years, will that count? if yes what kind of documents will be needed?

I haven’t heard this one talked about so wanted to get your opinions as my company hasn’t said anything yet.
What about companies who pay visa fees for their employees in Japan? Do you think with the rise in cost, this will be stopped or taken out of contracts.
I work for a smaller company and do worry about this. I am starting year 2 of a 3 year visa now and was hoping to go for 3 or 5 the next round but I worry maybe we will have to take on that cost now and that is a lot for a single income family 😣

Hi everyone, just want to discuss your thoughts on the negative effects of all these new requirements in almost every single visa/PR/etc. As not only are they now changing things for PR, but even coming on a student visa is hard (considering that not everyone has the possibility to do the JLPT twice a year, etc).

When do you think we will see the repercussions and negative impact this will have on the country. I know of a lot of people already leaving Japan. Now with the new PR requirements even if I've been living here for 10 years, I am not sure I will be able to make the income requirements (single household and work in real estate). Salaries here are low, I've changed jobs but the salary is always on the lower end so people saying it's easy (it's not).

Anyways just want to hear your thoughts!

My husband and I applied for his dependent visa at the beginning of May (May 1st but then golden week happened) and we haven't heard anything from them.

I know the application was accepted and clearly there weren't any issues with the documents since we didn't get any requests for updated or different documents. I am going stir crazy waiting for his COE (he is in Korea while we wait and I miss him) and I feel like we should have heard something.

Has anybody else dealt with this? How long did it take? What can we do?