Our Story: Same-sex Couple Moving to Japan

TL;DR: We’re a same-sex couple in our early 30s from Canada who moved to Japan and got residency when only one of us had a job here. We sold our house, cars, and lots of our stuff. We shipped the rest on a big ol’ boat.

In collaboration with the r/movingtojapan mod team, we’d like you give you the chance to ask us anything about our journey!

\—–

Hi folks! Some of you may remember me as the person that asked about moving to Japan with my wife, back in the beginning of this year. We have now been living in Japan for about three and a half months and would like to share what we can of our journey and answer any questions people might have. This is a long one, so feel free to skip the next four paragraphs if you want to jump straight to the gay bits.

We are both Canadian, in our early thirties. Born in and lived in Canada our whole lives until now. I have worked in tech for 13 years, and was accepted to a Software Engineering Manager role at a large company. I don’t have a college degree. My wife has worked in finance for 10 years, but did not have a job lined up when we arrived. She has an honours bachelor’s in accounting and is a CPA. We figured that after a few weeks, maybe a couple months reaching out to big international companies, she’d find something. This was the biggest mistake we made.

Back in Canada, we owned a house and two cars. We also had two cats. We sold the house, we sold almost all the big stuff in the house, stored some other stuff at my wife’s parents’ places, including our beloved pinball machines. The rest, we packed up and shipped overseas. My advice here: you need so much less of the stuff you keep in your house than you realize. We shipped over some unique dishes, art, instruments (violin, electronic piano, bass guitar, electric guitar), video games, books, clothes that we didn’t immediately need, and whatever other random stuff we just didn’t want to let go of. It took about 3 months for our stuff to get to our new place in Tokyo, and amazingly, none of it was destroyed!

As for the house: we sold it. That was a whole thing, because the sale date was while we were in Canada, but the closing date was once we were in Japan. I can go into details if anyone needs them, but it will be anecdotal based on our situation, and should not be considered sound financial advice. We also sold the cars, which was a bit heartbreaking for me. I loved my WRX.

The cats have been living with our good friend, who takes and sends us daily update pictures of them. I miss them like hell, and as I’ll be traveling to the States for a business trip in January, I’m planning on swinging by Canada on my way home to bring one of them with me. If anyone is curious, Air Canada lets you travel with a pet in the cabin, as long as they can fit under the seat.

Now for the part people are probably most interested in:

# How is my wife able to stay in Japan without a job!?

I came to Japan on a Highly Skilled Professional (i)(b) visa. That’s the one you get for being an engineer with 70 points. As we were still in Covid border closure time, we applied for a 3-month visitor’s visa under humanitarian reasons for my wife, alongside the application for my visa. Both were granted in a week.

Once we were in Japan, I had registered my address with the local ward office, and the sale of our house closed, we started the process to apply for a change of residency status for my wife. The lawyers were not super hopeful, but they were willing to work their hardest. My hat is off to them; they kicked ass. In short, we applied for Designated Activities in order to let my wife stay with me here as we uplifted and sold everything and have nothing to go back to.

A week after the application, the lawyers contacted us: immigration was asking why the names on our marriage certificates differed from our passports. In my case, it was easy: I had two family names at birth, but dropped one in preparation for simplicity. I had all the documentation to support it. In my wife’s case, it was the Curse of the Middle Name. Canadian passports often don’t have middle names, but her provincial ID did. We submitted every piece of ID we could for her, including utility bills with both of our names on them, and attested she is one and the same person.

Three days later, we got another message from immigration. “Did you two live together before moving to Japan?”. Obviously we did, but as evidence, we submitted the title transfer when we bought our house four years prior, the title transfer from the sale of our house, both of our IDs showing that address, and another attestation.

Then, there was silence.

As many people reading this subreddit may know, you can’t ask immigration for progress/status updates. It’s just not a thing.

So we waited.

Two months passed. By this point, there is a week left on my wife’s original visa. We get an email from the lawyers: our application has been approved! We have to send in my wife’s passport and some other papers for immigration to grant her the visa and residency. The lawyers are stunned. This means that for the next year, my wife can stay with me and not have to worry too much about renewal or getting kicked out.

A few days later, we get another email from the lawyers. The passport has arrived, and with it, a shiny new (nearly) five-year Designated Activities visa and residency status – it’s a bit shorter so it lines up with mine. They’re flabbergasted. We’re stunned.

In what may be a first in Japan, a foreign same-sex couple have been granted a five-year residency status. We’re over the moon! My wife has realized that accounting just isn’t going to happen, and she’s now going through a code bootcamp and aiming to get a development job. I have complete faith she can do it. When the time comes, we’ll be trying to figure out how best to get her permission to work here, but for now, we’re just going to enjoy life.

Plus, we just got our driver’s licenses transferred! Tokyo, beware 😉