Hello all,
A friend and I are talking about potentially doing a gap year in Japan and as we’re both hugely into the 90s Japanese car scene we would love to buy some cars at the start of the year, tour the country in them and sell them on again when we’re done, however everywhere I’ve read says you can’t buy cars in Japan on a tourist visa, or without a permanent residence etc and it sounds like it’s not an easy feat even as someone living in Japan. Is there a way around this or what would be the best way for us to go about buying cars for our gap year? Would it be better to just apply for a work visa for the year?
TIA
2 comments
How are you planing on registering a car if you don’t have an address to register it to? How are you going to pay for insurance? Maintenance? Parking? Plus 90s cars are hugely popular even in Japan and can get quite pricey, you had better have a crap load of money saved up to cover living expenses on top of car expenses. You can’t work on a tourist visa, and how are you going to get a work visa without a job offer? As fun as this sounds, I think this is a pipe dream.
You cannot register a car without a status of residence. So no, you can’t buy a car, tour around, and then export it.
Also: You ***cannot*** stay in Japan for a year on a tourist visa, so your plan kinda fails right out of the gate.
Also-Also: Exporting cars (and then importing them into whatever country they’ll end up in) is a non-trivial legal task. You can’t just drive the car up to a ship, then drive it off at the other end. You’re looking at tons of paperwork, export fees, and bureaucracy just on the Japanese end.
Based on your posting history you’re in the UK, so you’re looking at a decent amount of fees/paperwork on the home end as well: https://aaajapan.com/information/car-import-rules-from-japan/u.k