Transition from SOFA to Spousal Visa

Does anyone know the process of surrendering your SOFA for Japanese Spousal Visa? Been living in Japan as a contractor on military bases for 5 years now and ready to transition into the Japanese IT sector. Most of the forms assume you live in the USA (Certificate of Eligibility for example). It seems like most of the requirements are dependent on my wife (Income, sponsorship, etc). I talked with the Legal folks on base and they could not help. The only assist with Japanese wanting to become US citizens, not the other way around. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Would like to mention that if I quit my job, I lose my SOFA status in 30 days. I rather not be in a limbo state without a visa and having to go back stateside. To recap, living in Japan on SOFA, how to convert to Spousal Visa?

5 comments
  1. Go to legal.

    Sorry, skipped past the fact thay you already did.

    If theres anything I know, EAS’ing in Japan was complicated that my husband ultimately decided on flying back to the states.

  2. Have your spouse contact the local immigration for information but when my father went through the same thing, he had to go there with my mother and apply for visa, and you would need to show them documents which I don’t remember all but one of them was to show that you are losing sofa status. After you apply and you get accepted, then you must register with city hall. You will get your visa card later in about 2 to 4 weeks.

    If you are going to get a license:

    After you do the above and have your foreign license, you can go ahead and transfer your drivers license if you wish to do so. You may need to look up the local license office for the documents you need there

  3. Some Googling appears to show you first need a document called 仮離脱証明書 from your Legal on base, in order to then apply for a 在留資格取得許可申請 at immigration.

  4. Is there a Japanese Consulate in the state you are originally from? If so, that’s where I would go to ask. If not then try to contact the one anyway.

    They will not know much about SOFA status itself, but they will be able to make sure you are good on the Japanese side as far as visas and such go. You could technically do this while in Japan but there may be more of a language barrier.

  5. This is an obvious sock account for privacy reasons. I was in a similar situation — came to Japan with an American spouse as a non-military SOFA worker, worked for a few years then needed to switch to a Japanese status of residence.

    You’re getting some mixed info, so wanted to help out:

    First, you do NOT need to take the driving test or written test to swap your license. It’s a direct transfer. I found this out by calling our nearest drivers license center — so if you want to confirm, call them up and they’ll tell you the same. It’s a similar process to the U.S. states that have the direct transfer.

    You’ll need a lot of paperwork, mainly to prove you lived in the U.S. for at least 6 mo. and had a license for at least 6 mo. in the U.S. before coming to Japan. For some reason, mine was easy — but the woman who did my spouse’s was on a power trip and fought us on the fact we went on a 6 week vacation overseas, with two weeks in Japan, a full year before my spouse moved to Japan to follow me. So, just be prepared for pushback.

    What we needed was:

    – SOFA license (they won’t take this from you, but I would also copy your CAC card before turning it in)

    – Passports that go back longer than your time in Japan (so, if you’ve renewed it here, bring your old one)

    – An old U.S. drivers license (especially if your state doesn’t show the date of issue); if you don’t have an old license with you, you can bring a record of your driving history from your state DMV

    – Translation of the license from JAF

    – SOFA separation letter (I had to translate this into Japanese)

    – Juminhyo

    – Zairyu card

    – Picture (but this will not be the picture on your license — learned this the hard way!)

    As far as switching from SOFA to a status of residence, you were given the correct information from another commenter that you need to apply to acquire a status of residence with the 在留資格取得許可申請. I was not applying for a spouse visa, so I don’t know exactly what will be needed for that — but part of what I needed was the FINAL, official SOFA separation letter, which you cannot get until you are formally separated from SOFA. You can begin the application process now, but you will not be formally approved for the Japanese status of residence until you submit this form. (When you apply, you’ll submit a letter that states you will lose SOFA after such and such date.) Of course, my non-SOFA documents were probably a lot different than what you will need to submit.

    As you can imagine, it’s a catch 22 — so you WILL be in Japan for a while without any sort of status. It is very nerve wracking. Because of this, I highly suggest using a lawyer; they will give you a nice letter to carry around that states you have a pending visa application with immigration as you’re transferring from SOFA to a Japanese status of residence.

    In our case, our applications were submitted to immigration on the 21st of Month A. We were losing SOFA status the last day of Month B. On the 19th of Month B, immigration sent a postcard to our lawyers saying that they needed the official SOFA separation letter to move forward with the application, which I submitted the day we lost status. Our lawyer received notification that our applications were approved on the 14th of Month C and we had our zairyu cards in hard on the 18th of Month C — meaning we went ~18 days without a legal status of residence.

    Because SOFA is such a unique thing, I cannot stress how much easier this will be with a lawyer to help out. Unless your spouse is very familiar with the process of switching from SOFA to spouse visa, I wouldn’t burden them with dealing with this.

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