I lived in Japan from 2015 – 2021 on a spouse visa. We moved to USA in early 2021 and my spouse visa expired in August 2021. We are planning to move back to Japan this year. Do I need to apply for a new visa(CoE etc) from scratch? I still have reentry slip in my passport from when we left in 2021 and I don’t see an expiration date on it. Would it be possible to travel to Japan as a tourist and then get my visa over there? Thank you!
3 comments
You should have applied for PR within that 5 year period stay in Japan, then you wouldn’t be in this situation?
You need to apply from scratch.
You wouldn’t be able to travel to Japan as a tourist right now.
You can apply for a 90 visa, go to Japan and then apply for your COE(takes about 6 weeks), leave to go back to the USA and get your visa(takes about a week), then you can enter Japan again as a resident.
Or you can have someone in Japan apply for the COE for you(takes about 6 weeks), have them post you the COE(mine has been stuck in customs for weeks), go to the nearest embassy to get your visa(takes about a week), then you can enter Japan again as a resident.
Japan no longer allows people to go from tourist visa to resident visa within Japan.