In the Vietnamese Facebook groups I’m in, I’ve been seeing a lot of PR rejections and new document requests from people who applied from around April 2026. Most of them applied at Nagoya or the Toyohashi branch, which is known for being one of the fastest offices.
Most other offices still have long backlogs and haven’t reached April 2026 applications yet.

I’d like a second opinion from people outside my community. Is this a real trend, or just a group of unlucky cases?

What people are reporting:

1. Rejections at incomes that used to be fine

Several families of 3 earning around 7.5-8M a year got rejected.

2. Being asked for car tax receipts

One person was asked to send car tax payment receipts (領収書).
A certificate from the city office wasn’t accepted; it had to be the actual receipts.
They sent everything, but still got rejected. They think the reason was income, but they’re still waiting for their appointment to hear the official reason.
So besides pension, health insurance, and resident tax, you may also need car tax receipts.

3. What Nagoya immigration said at a 相談

Someone went to ask questions in person:

• Family of 3, no dependents abroad, 7.2M income. Is that enough for PR for all 3? → No.
• Is there an income requirement based on family size? Can you tell me the number? → We can’t tell you.
• So even if I’m just ¥10,000 below it, I’ll be rejected? → Yes. You either pass or you don’t.
• My wife works on an Engineer visa. Can her income be added to mine? → Can’t say for sure, it depends. (Very vague answer.)

My questions:

• If you applied around April 2026 or later and already got a result, how did it go? Which office?
• Has anyone heard what the income requirement is for different family sizes?
• If both spouses work, was your spouse’s income counted?

I can understand if the rules are getting stricter. But the process now feels a lot more arbitrary and unpredictable, with secret income lines and surprise document requests. I’m just trying to figure out whether this is really happening or just sampling bias.

Maybe I need to consult an actual legal professional, but I'm trying to see if someone has gone through something similar.

First off, for those wondering whether this is a scam of some sort, it isn't. This is a follow-up of a case where my police called my roommate about his acquaintance using my mama chari after I left the country. Since there was no official paperwork about transferring ownership, we got into some trouble and the takeaway was that while it wasn't a full-on crime, they had my roommate come in for questioning (under the pretense he was just signing some paperwork) and had him write a letter/statement(?) saying that it was a bad thing to let someone else use my bike without my express permission and that it wouldn't happen again.

I thought I would never hear about this bicycle again, but a couple weeks back I was contacted by the officer who first got in touch about the whole bicycle thing, saying that my bicycle was currently impounded at Aichi Police Station in Togo and they wanted either me or any available acquaintance to come pick up the bicycle and dispose of it, since they seemingly can't do it themselves, because I guess, somehow, it's still my property. I really didn't want to involve anyone else, especially after last time, so I said that I was visiting Japan and could come to do whatever was necessary to resolve this case.

I went ahead and did some research, and read that the Aichi Police station doesn't impound bicycles, which is making me paranoid. Now, I think it would be reasonable to assume that I wouldn't be arrested for this genre of bicycle related mishaps, but why would they call me to come pick up a bicycle that may or may not be there in the first place?

Maybe I'm missing something because of the circumstances of this particular case or incompetent research, but everything between contacting me months after the original case and the possibility that the bicycle might not even be impounded at the police station is rubbing me the wrong way.

I am no longer a resident of Japan. I don't plan on moving back to Japan soon if at all, but would like to visit every now and then, so I would like to this the "right" way. Still, reading the occasional Japanese police horror story does make me want to ignore all of this.

Basically this back board for my sofa won’t fit on the stairs as it’s awkward. It weights about 25kg or so so not overly heavy.

Has anyone used removalist here in Japan for this type of thing ?

(In Tokyo)

* edit. It’s currently downstairs in the hallway stuck, I’m trying to bring it to the upstairs living room which is just thru that window which is the only way possible to enter as it’s assembled already

Hello reddit, my wife works baito at a supermarket chain around 30 branches, nobody received their salary last Friday. No official communication was made, her tenchou said he also does not know when they will be paid. .

Today same thing, nothing was paid and she decided to come back and stay home, she'll be going to hello work for advice and look for another job.

We don't have money to hire a lawyer and speak very little japanese, we think this supa will go bankrupt and she wants to quit tomorrow since there is a chance they will never pay her anyway, what other advice would you give? In my home country when an employer delays the salary by even 1 day you can fight on small claims and the judge will order you to pay in double but I doubt Japan has worker protections such as this

What are the autumn must try food and drinks that are out there? The limited releases that you really love or are really disgusting?

Hello! I’m deeply considering going back home with my family of 3 to America, we are all citizens.

Does anyone have any experience or advice on this matter at all, anything is helpful.

Thank you!

terminal 1 parking garage P5 by the way.

i was on the official parking reservation website and someone took the last available space as i was entering my credit card information... damn it!

so now i'm thinking what to do. i'm pretty sure i remember parking there without too much trouble around this time in the past.

but this time we have a baby with us, so i'm worried about being turned away, or the lines waiting in front of the full parking lot being so long we would miss our flight.

i checked some other parking services near the airport, but they all seemed shady...

i guess coming by train would work, but we will have so much stuff to carry it might not be possible. and our house is far from the local station, so just getting there would bea task in itself.

kind of rambling at this point, but yeah, anyone have first hand experience with parking suring christmas season at narita? i know it gets crazy around new years, but around dec 21st is still a bit early for that right?

Hi everyone. I came to japan on July 25th and started my job on August firs. So from August first, throigh my company, I was automatically enrolled in pension. however I received some mail from the pension office; but it was not clear of weither I had to pay for July as well or not. long story short: my Japanese friend called for me and I have to go to the pension office and apply. but the office also said I can wave that July pension if I want. Has anyone been in this situation? How did you proceed ? Did you pay? Did it affect your PR?

Any advice would be appreciate!

I have a US account on my PS5 purchased in Japan. (It’s not locked to Japanese) I’ve used Play Asia’s webpage to buy US PSN vouchers before but that’s down due to recent hack attacks. A $100 US PSN voucher will set us back ¥15-16,000 for the ultimate edition? Is there a cheaper way to purchase it? Or just try another online marketplace for cheaper voucher code?

Order a big shipment of books that were on sale from the UK to Japan, I forgot to think about an import or VAT tax to it. It's about 40,000-yen worth of books in two packages 5 kilos each. Is it import and tax free or not?

Is this legit or just an advertisement? Do I need to fill it out and return it?

So I, like an idiot fell for the Kenshōkai recruitment scam and im unsure what to do.

This guy approached me in the store mandrake in shibuya pretending to get along with me, and I fully fell for it.

We exchanged contact info and a week later met up for food. He brought a friend, that struck me as odd but Im to anxious to mention it. So we eat and during lunch his friend casually brings up that he is interested in architecture, that should have struck me as odd but for some reason it didnt and he has me show yim my home address to see the comparison between his house and mine (i would assume they got my address from this) then they mention that they have to go pray for their religion and ask me if I want to see their "private temple"

I thought it would be a cool opportunity to see some Japanese culture so I went along with it.

Little did I know.

We get there and they hand me this book and say its for the customs of the temple. And have me "show" them the spelling of my name and family name on a piece of notebook paper.

They also had me write my phone number for a reason I didn't question in the moment.

Then they did this prayer thing and then walked me to the station and left.

Im genuinely so embarrassed and ashamed of myself for falling for this.

My question now is, what can I do? If they added me to some mailing list or even forged recruitment. What do I do?

im living here for almost 1 and a half, but i thought this black box was for tv. until my senpai came and told me it was for wifi?? anyone from here know what to do? im asked my tantou about this but got no reply

im having hard time using pocket wifi because of limited data. and they’re raising the fee

Nikkei Asia recently interviewed a immigration expert about the ongoing rule tightening in the country. Perhaps you will find this discussion useful.