Hi, thanks for considering my question. I read on other posts here that a COE is not required for the J-find Visa, as this page for the Visa mentions only sending certain documents in the event of not submitting a COE. It’s under “Necessary documents,” 1. Future creation individual, (3) Certificate of Eligibility, where it states “(if you submit the Certificate of Eligibility, you do not need to submit (4) to (8) below).”
[https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page22e\_001037.html](https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page22e_001037.html)
Additionally, the Japanese version of the page uses wording that seems to imply that presenting a COE merely makes the application process “easy,” (calling it “smoothly process\[ing\]” in English, instead).
As such, people have posted about their receiving the J-find Visa without a COE, and sometimes having to go over the wording on the website to their consulates before receiving it. It is apparently a new visa that is not completely understood yet.
I emailed my local consulate in midwestern USA to ask for clarification on this, and they linked another page to me before asking me to contact the Immigration Information Center in Japan for help with the J-Find Visa instead. This is the page: [https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/status/designatedactivities51.html](https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/status/designatedactivities51.html)
Even before contacting the Immigration center, this page seems to list a COE application as a required part of the whole application alongside the documents that the first link says are unnecessary in the event of presenting a COE.
Might anyone have further insight into this situation? Is it possible that the COE requirement has changed since the Visa was initially made available?
by 2err-is-human