Hi everyone,
I work as a company employee in Tokyo and have a working visa. I am married with the same nation. Right now doing research for handling dependent visa for her. But I’m confused at one point, some say she has to be in our homeland while doing the application and some say she has not to be.
While she is with me, can we make an application for dependent visa without returning to the homeland country and then coming back to Japan? I mean, can we do every process without leaving Japan?
Thanks for the replies in advance.
3 comments
Generally no. This used to be allowed unofficially, but they cracked down on it during summer of 2018. Except in very exceptional circumstances, they do not allow changing status from Temporary Visitor (tourist) to any status of residence (such as dependent).
You can try, immigration tends to be a lot more forgiving of marriages/dependents than they are of tourists who find a job. But as /u/sile1 says they started cracking down on a lot of the rules they had let slide in Aug ’18.
It’s not like it will cost you anything to put together the paperwork and go apply, if they tell you you can’t do it then she has to go home and you already have all the documentation ready for her COE so it’s not like the effort would be wasted.
i had a tourist visa and needed to switch to student… i went to south korea, applied, came back. i don’t know if that’s possible because of covid now tho