Hello. I’m an ALT who’s been working in Japan for 4 years. Apologies in advance if I don’t use the correct words for things here– my husband’s more familiar than I am with the situation but I’m trying to see if there’s anything I can contribute to solving the dilemma at hand.
My husband’s previous workplace from our home country (US) has been begging him to do remote jobs from Japan, and they’ve even said they have no problem helping with whatever tax stuff Japan needs done (as he would need to be taxed here since the work will be done here). In fact, the company regularly hires Japanese citizens remotely for work. It’s very hard to turn down their offer as he made very good money in that job, they’re willing to let him work on his own schedule during the day, and we live in a fairly rural part of Japan that’s been harder to find work in.
The problem is that my husband is a dependent on my visa, and he is only approved for working up to 28 hours a week (he already has the special approval and stamp, from a different small job he did here previously). However, this old job of his requires a ton of overtime, and he often used to work 90-100 hours per week. There’s no way to do the job within 28 hours.
This company has no “presence” in Japan, so I do not think he could get a work visa here for doing it.
Is there any other visa option for a case like this? Could he get approval from immigration for more than 28 hours? I see there could be a catch-22 where he isn’t exactly my “dependent” financially but at the same time he can’t be anything but a dependent because the company doesn’t “exist” in Japan for him to have a work visa. Not sure if I’m making sense here with this dilemma but I hope I am to someone!
He’s actually considering establishing a KK that the US company would hire or contract (I don’t know the terminology), but that is a very long process and requires money to start. He’s trying to avoid a sole proprietorship as well (due to a few reasons I won’t get into unless asked for sake of brevity).
If this is better for the finance subreddit, please let us know. I felt it was more visa-related than finance-related so thought we would ask here first.
Thanks, all!
Edit: Just adding a little more info. The job is on a freelance basis. They hire him 5-6 months out of the year and the income is more than enough to live on without working more than that. I’m not sure if the GEO options mentioned below work for sporadic work like this, or do they only sponsor visas if it’s a full-time, constant job? I’m not really sure how work visas go down for freelancers.
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There are companies that hire specifically for this purpose, look them up. Basically they will hire your husband and be the official employer in your country, and handle all the basic HR and payroll. Some can even apply for work permits if needed. There is a fee for their services, which your husbands company will have to pay and of course his salary is paid to them.
If your husbands’ company is so keen to help him, then they’ll likely be willing to put out the cash for a GEO. (I’ve talked about them in the past, feel free to scroll back into my post history. But don’t ask me for reccs, I don’t feel comfortable giving up the name of the one I used because it was small and wasn’t great anyways)
The GEO will act as his employer of record in Japan, pay him, do his payroll/HR, and can even sponsor his full working visa. He will essentially be a contractor back to his US company, but will fill working rights and benefits in Japan.
Edit: if he works through a GEO, he can go full time, too. He’d get insurance, pension, taxes handled, and no income restrictions like the dependent visa kinda has (not officially, but if you work the 28 hours and make more than your sponsor, immigration will get curious)
If you are looking at GEOs, I can recommend Deel. They’re fantastic. I’ve hired people through them and have been hired through them myself, working for a US company with no corporate presence in Japan (yet). Deel handles all the pension, healthcare, visa, vacations, medical checkups, even expenses and stuff, depending on how the US office wants to handle it.
Can anyone recommend a good remote job from the US I’m on spousal visa and can work I just try to look and everything is a scam
this has been discussed some, so search over at [JapanFinance.](r/JapanFinance)
If he becomes and “employee” here (as defined by japanese labor law), he and the employing company will need an EoR. The EoR will then do the ‘normal’ things here–taxes, pension, healthcare.
If he is a contractor (like a 1099 type of work in the US), that can be done without an EoR. With this he’ll be on his own for squaring away national & residence taxes, pension, and healthcare.