Do I have to notify immigration and my workplace that I got married?

Hello everyone. I’m doing nyuseki next week and I’m wondering if I have to notify any of those in case of changing my marriage status. I have a work visa from my employer, planning to switch to a spouse visa at the end of the year. Should I report my marriage immediately or it’s not necessary at all?

9 comments
  1. If you want to claim your spouse as a dependant for tax, health insurance, and pension then yes you inform your employer.

  2. I can only report my own anecdotal experience, which was I was on a working visa, got married, then a couple of years later wandered along to immigration to convert to a spouse visa, which was the first they’d heard of my nuptials, and that was totally not a problem. This was about 10 years ago.

  3. To your employer, certainly. I don’t know about your company, but many have monetary gifts for employees who get married, and/or special vacations.

  4. I don’t see a reason to *not* tell your employer. Even if it’s not a legal/business thing, they might arrange or be more understanding of you being a ‘family’ person. For example, when my wife got married her boss clearly stated they’d be more lenient with time-off decisions or her denying working overtime.

    On the side of immigration: If you’re not planning to quit your job, and you have a >1year visa, it might be more advantageous to keep your current visa. Most spouse visa holders get a 1 year term, and those can make PR hard. You can always switch to a spouse visa whenever you want, of course, in the case of being fired or whatnot.

  5. FYI, when you marry here, if your spouse is Japanese, your family will not automatically change. It must still match your passport, so if you want to take a Japanese family name, you need to change the name on your passport. There is no time limit to do this and often can be done when you next renew your passport. Your spouse has 6 months to change their name if they want to.

    Getting married often gets you money and time off so it can be worth letting HR know. There is a possibility if you are a woman, questions about children will be asked – this is not legal for your employer to do, so you do not need and should not answer.

  6. *”I’m doing nyuseki next week “*

    Another technicality: foreigners never do nyuseki (入籍). we dont have koseki and we can not join any either.

    if you marry a national your only change is getting “husband/wife” added to your juminhyo (*and only if either spouse is the head of the setai, if not you are just co-habitant)

    for the national spouse, its called a bunseki (分籍) where he/she leaves the parents koseki and establish a new one. you get to be added to your spouse entry, but the koseki will have only 1 member.

  7. Typically yes. You also need to inform the apartment owner in many cases if your contract was just for you

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