Do you need a passport when changing jobs?

My passport just expired, but residence card/work visa is valid untill December 2024.

I have plans to go to Tokyo (where my country’s embassy is) on March, so I was thinking of renewing it at that time, because I live on the other side of Japan and going to Tokyo several times is expensive for me.

But I’m in talks with another company and it looks like I will be starting at that another company in mid January. There would be no change of work/visa/residence type as the job at the new company would be completely the same as the old job.

So I was checking what documents I would need for changing jobs and passport doesn’t come up anywhere, but I’d be glad to have some confirmation from people who have changed jobs before.

Thus, should I hurry and go to Tokyo now or would it be okay to go as planned previously?

Thank you for your input.

2 comments
  1. You don’t need your passport, though it would be generally wise to renew asap.

    You just need to inform immigration of the change.

  2. AFAIK you can’t start the renewal process of your current working visa (SoR) until there are only 3 months left on it. Renew your passport now or before the next time you need to travel internationally. I was once without valid passport for almost a year 🙂

    A valid passport is not strictly required for any Visa related work other than a name change.

    And lastly, for a job change that doesn’t need any legwork on the SoR side, no you don’t need anything but inform the immigration of the job change. That you can do over the internet/mail. Or well, at the counter…

    BTW when you change jobs like this, your SoR will be re-evaluated and it acts as a renewal. At least that’s how it worked for me once.

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