## TL;DR
Pay your taxes on time. No matter how strong the rest of your application is, you have to fulfill their checkbox exercise. Will have to wait 1 year now.
I got a lot of info from this sub and I thought some of you would appreciate a detailed description of a 永住権 (PR) application to get a better sense of the process, so here is n+1 to failed PR applications. My application is point based, so not 10 years in Japan.
Edit: I’m on a 3 year Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa (not HSP).
If you’re not interested in knowing the details of a point-based PR application, feel free to skip this post.
## Introduction
Last week I received the letter that stated:
（要件）永住許可を適当と認めるに足りる相当の理由があると認められません。
（理由）あなたのこれまでの在留実績からみて、出入国管理及び難民認定法第22条第2項本文の要件に適合すると認められません。
DeepL translated:
(Requirement) There are no reasonable grounds to find a permanent residence permit appropriate.
(Reason) In view of your past record of stay in Japan, you do not meet the requirements of the main clause of Article 22, Paragraph 2 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.
This doesn’t say anything and you have to go to the immigration office in person to hear the real reason. Turned out that the reason was my late 住民税 (residence tax) payment, as it was 2 months late (actually 1 month and a few days). More details below.
## Application background
– Graduated Masters at top national university in Japan
– Had 70 points when starting to work
– Submitted my PR application 3 years later. By this time I had >80 points. Worked 2.5 years at my first company, changed jobs and worked half a year at the new company when I applied.
– Submitted by myself (no lawyer/scrivener)
– All documents in Japanese, including the reason (point 3 of application). Had Japanese friends check all my stuff.
– N2 certificate (not at the time I had 70 points)
– Japanese guarantor
– Recommendation letter (3 pages) from my Japanese professor that supervised my Master thesis stating I have positively impacted Japan and will continue to do so.
– Certificate of an award of a Japanese research event (top-10)
## Timeline
– 2021.11.04: Submitted PR application
– 2022.01.15 – more documents (1): Received a letter asking for more documents
– More salary slips of my 1st company (recommendation: submit all monthly salary slips of the past 3 years if 70 points)
– Statement of current company of expected salary (yearly salary in contract not good enough) of period 2021.11〜2022.10
– 2022.01.31: Sent more documents (1)
– 2022.02.28 – more documents (2):
– More payslips
– Proof I paid 住民税・residence tax 2019. I submitted salary statement showing I paid 特別徴収・special tax (meaning automatically subtracted)
– Proof I paid residence tax 2021 in a timely matter. Submitted 普通徴収・normal tax (I submitted my receipts of paying at combinis up until my application date)
– Realized I paid my 4th quarter too late (deadline 2022.01), directly paid this one, but didn’t send it, hoping that paying on-time up till my application submission was enough.
– 2022.03.08: Sent more documents (2)
– 2022.03.11 – more documents (3):
– Again expected salary statement, but now for period 2022.03〜2023.02
– Residence tax 2021 4th quarter (should have been paid 2022.01)
– Realized I am very likely facked
– Added a full page apology letter
– 2022.03.31: Sent more documents (3)
– 2022.05.28: Missed delivery (unlike the request for extra documents, this one has to be signed). Received a package that day, so I thought it was about that and ignored it.
– 2022.06.23: Had my guarantor call the immigration and they resend my application result letter
– 2022.06.27: Went to immigration office with a Japanese friend to hear the reason of rejection (this is only possible after 20 days of receiving your rejection letter, which had passed since 05.28)
So, excluding missing the delivery, the whole application took about 8 months from submission to result.
## Missed payment
Because I switched jobs, I got sent 4 residence tax payment slips. The deadline of each is 2 or 3 months apart. I could send it to my company and then they would handle the rest, but I was confident I could go 4 times to the combini to pay. This was a mistake. Not sure why I didn’t just pay all 4 of them at once, but somehow I had in my mind that paying it like your utility bills every month was a better idea…
Up until the application I paid everything on time, but for the 2022.01 payment, I just completely forgot it. Missed my agenda notification as well. Stupid me.
I asked my company to withdraw my residence tax from my salary for the next fiscal year to prevent this from happening again.
## Rejection reason
Even though I understand decent Japanese, I wanted to make sure I understood it 100%, so I asked my Japanese friend to join.
In the Shinagawa office, you go to the 2nd floor and then to sign P consultation counter (this has changed from D5 on 2022.02.21), this is almost the same area where you pick-up your renewed residence card. Not many people were here, so it was fast. Was called, asked to hear the reason, waited a bit longer and then my friend and I were led to a room behind the counter where 1 immigration officer tells us the reason. You’re allowed to ask questions after this. This person had like 3 pages of information, but we were never shown what was on this.
【永住権不許可理由推測】：住民税滞納遅れ1回 (約2カ月)
Reason of rejection: 1 late payment (2 months late) of my residence tax.
## Other questions
Q: Now I have enough points, can I directly re-apply?
A: There has to be time between your last late payment and your PR application. For a 70 points application, this is 3 years, and for a 80 points application, that is 1 year. Basically no late payment for the duration that you are required to have 70/80 points.
I was recommended to apply again 2023.06 (after paying the 1st installment of the new tax year)
Q: Anything wrong with my “Reason for Application” (document 3)?
A: Nothing in particularly
Q: Should I write about my previous failed PR application in my reason in my next application?
A: Both is ok
Q: Would it be better to improve other aspects of my application?
A: Nothing in particularly. You can submit the same documents as now, but official documents should not be older than 3 months. For the recommendation letter, etc, change the date.
## Conclusion
I know I’m to blame for my late tax payment and therefore it’s my own fault. Still, it’s very frustrating that 1 small (in my eyes) mistake nullifies your whole PR application after I spent so much time on preparing everything. The only consolation I have is that documented everything excessively, so re-applying will take much less time. Might consider a scrivener that only accepts payment on successful application.
Hope this will help some of you. What did I learn? Pay your taxes on time and there is no leeway in Japanese bureaucracy.
31 comments
So, with the tax payments, is it okay with no late payments in the past three years (assuming 70+ point application)? E.g. late payments before that period will not affect it?
EDIT: I thought you have to submit five years of tax documents. Is this not the case?
Oh my god because of 1 delayed pament , you comitted a serious crime 🥹😂
I swear Japanese government just cares about money that’s it.
When I was going for PR, I found out that I had been under-reporting my income for years (I worked part-time at two companies. One submitted information to my city and to me. The other only gave it to me and I didn’t know that.) I had to pay the difference and catch up, so that put two years before I could apply. Then I succeeded.
It’s a pain, I know. You are aware now, and soon you’ll be the envy of all those who can’t get theirs.
What’s the fall off period for late tax payments in the past? And is it the same when you’re applying after 10 years residence, not through the points system?
I’ve been thinking about apply recently, is there a way I can check that all my payments have been on time or that I have outstanding payments?
The government punishes you for even a small miss.
They could be more flexible
welp, guess I’m never getting PR…
[deleted]
I have also been denied just now.
The same law quoted in the letter (same reason).
In my case it was a spouse of the Japanese route.
I haven’t gone to immigration yet to hear the exact reason but I have a very strong suspicion on what the reason is – they have requested additional documents and wanted me to provide my wife’s pension payment record – which she hasn’t been paying for and I haven’t realized that under Japanese law I have joint responsibility for the payment…
Long story short I have paid up the last 2 years in lump sum just now, anyone here knows how long you need to wait before they can consider the application under spousal route?
I know the spousal route has 1 year residency requirement – would applying next year be OK or do I need to wait 2 years before applying?
>Submitted by myself (no lawyer/scrivener)
Bit off-topic, but did you never consider paying something and doing it through a lawyer/legal firm?
I *could* do it myself when the time comes but I don’t see the point. Even if I have to pay someone like 100,000 yen, it seems worth it (especially if it’s for PR and theoretically you should only have to do it once or (maybe twice if something changes?) in your lifetime here).
Sounds like your paperwork itself was in check, you just fell down on the late residence tax payment but still. It must be a real pain in the arse doing it all yourself.
Thank you for the clarity in which you documented this. This was so much easier to read than the usual wall of text that accompanies these PR story posts.
Hmm now Im curious.
I moved in November of last year and updated my company but something fell through and they paid my residence tax to to my old ward.
About 3 weeks ago they realized this mistake and asked me to re send my updated juminhou to them ASAP.
That fixed everything but now I wonder if this fuck up reflects on ME rather than the company. I havent gotten any direct notifications from any tax office, its all been by internal company email.
It could indeed be just the taxes, which is rather harsh. But being asked for additional documents three times might have also put you under extra scrutiny (I.e. a scrivener maybe could have snuck you past the goal). Reapplying should be straight forward though, so your time was definitely not wasted.
Man, I feel like they’ve got a lot more strict recently. I had so many outstanding parking tickets when I successfully applied in 2016.
TLDR: UNINTERRUPTED PAYMENTS is the way to go, be it nenkin/tax/etc. Don’t wait for the mail, go directly to their respective offices.
I had something similar happened to me the first time I got denied. The solution the immigration officer told me, is that when I change jobs, I shouldn’t wait for the nenkin to come by mail. Just go directly to the nenkin office and request the hagaki directly. They will give you enough for a few months. You pay that until you get back on shakai hoken.
I was also told that even if I pay the nenkin that came from mail in time, it would still be considered a late payment for PR purposes. They wanted UNINTERRUPTED nenkin/shakai hoken payments for two years straight.
I follow that and got my PR early this year (coming from a long term resident visa). I was enrolled in shakai hoken, lost my job in 2020, paid nenkin directly (as I stated above) and kokumin until I got a new job and enrolled once again on shakai hoken. Applied October 2021 and got it January 2022.
Don’t know if this is relevant, but I’m in Aichi, Nagoya.
Edit.
Just now I realized you meant resident tax. Lol. Sorry! But I think it’s best that when you switch jobs to go directly on the city hall and get the remaining slips. I still believe they want to see uninterrupted payments, be tax or nenkin. Waiting for those things to come by mail seems like a bad idea to me
I have a relative here that I keep telling him to prioritize paying your taxes. No matter what you make, make sure you pay your taxes & pension.
Not surprising really. Thanks for the write-up.
I think I just fucked up this year’s residence tax as I transferred jobs this year.. The tax slip came in 3rd week of June and I gave that to my company to deduct it from my salary. The deadline of June payment will by paid by this month and next month.. Will this also affect my PR application?
I have just applied for permanent residency. I used a scrivener. In my case, I’m not going the HSP route. I’ve lived in Japan over ten years.
Last year in my consultation with the scrivener, I admitted that I could only prove one year and a bit of on-time residence tax payment (completely my fault; not making any excuses for not having paid it on time in the past). The scrivener at that point said that I would definitely be rejected and there was no point to even try. However, she did tell me that I needed two years’ of on-time res. tax payment and told me to contact her again this year if I were still interested, which is what I did.
During our consultation this time, I reminded her that in the past I didn’t have a clean record of on-time payments, but now had two years of on-time payment as she had suggested I needed. During the consult, she then reconfirmed if two years on time was enough with one of her colleagues in the office. The colleague confirmed that this was indeed correct. I suppose Ill find out how correct this is in a few months. Fingers crossed.
You look at it and see a system that is too picky.
I look at it and see a system that has made it **far** easier to get PR than it used to be.
Thank you for the very detailed post in the middle time of frustration. Let’s follow the law to the letter
Ah great. Now you have me worried.
I became a sole proprietor this year. Sent in the form to have my nenkin taken out for the whole year from my bank account in late April. Still hasn’t processed, so I just went and paid May and June last week. So, now, either I’m late or I just overpaid and the whole chunk is going to get taken out AND I’ll still be late. Fantastic.
I just had a consultation recently regarding PR, and was told that your tax payment record has to be clean. I mentioned that I had changed jobs a couple of times and was out of the country for an extended period, so even though I think my tax situation is fine, and I’ve paid my bills to the extent of my knowledge, he told me if there’s any glitch with the tax stuff, it’s going to be a major issue and I likely won’t get PR. I asked about character references, and he said they’re not necessary, but you can always submit them. He was a lot more adamant about tax and pension records. I even asked if there was some sort of way, in the case that there was a tax problem, for me to rectify that problem, pay whatever money anyone wants, before applying, and he said no.
Reading all those comments makes me pretty discouraged from applying for PR. It seems that just a small delay of your payments is enough reason to have your application rejected… I wonder if a parking ticket I got last year could also affect it (even though I paid it in time)…
Key takeaways for future PR applicants:
* no matter how fancy your background is, it has 0 influence over missed/late payments (either to nenkin/tax office).
* when switching jobs, make sure your tax-withheld is reflected on your last/first slips, otherwise go investigate with the tax/ward office
>Will have to wait 1 year now.
It is much worse than that for you. Now that you have been rejected they are going to be extra hard on you and will expect you to have EVERYTHING in order next time. If you forget anything they won’t tell you, they will just reject you again. If your household income is below 5 million (single) or 7 million (combined married) they will reject you for not having enough money to support yourself. Literally everything will be under a microscope.
Meanwhile there’s YouTubers that go nothing but rate anime that get PR handed to them
Very detailed post which I’m sure will be helpful to many people. Thanks for posting!
Just want to share my experience. I used a professional firm for my PR application, and was never asked to submit any more documents after the initial submission. Similar to OP, applied for the point based application although was on a 5 year Engineer/Specialist visa (which was also my first visa). By just looking at the timeline, I feel it was definitely worth going with a professional firm as the total time from application to getting my PR was 4 months. OP was still sending additional documents to the authorities by this point.
Ok now I’m scared.
I’m about to apply this month. Everything seems to be alright but I missed my car tax once back in 2017 (paid it in November 2017 and there was no penalty or anything).
Should I wait for another year to apply pr (to pass 5 years tax history threshold) or am I okay to summit it?
This post gives me all anxiety in my current process. My situation is a bit similar to OP:
* Have HSP Visa
* 2.5 years on 1st company, 9 months on 2nd company then apply for PR
* changed job on October 15th
* My 1st company said they will change my resident tax from 特別徴収 to 普通徴収 after my last working day, which is October 14th
* I did not receive the tax payment slip until December, then I went to tax office in December. I received payment slip for 普通徴収 from them
* I handed over the tax slip 普通徴収分 to my current company’s labor division so they can change it to tax-withheld (特別徴収).
* Because of this, there is no 住民税 tax-withheld in my November and December 2021 salary slip, then it starts again in my January’s salary slip.
Now I’m super worried it will affect my process
I paid one payment literally 5 minutes late at the kombini around a year ago lol. Not planning to apply for another couple of years so not freaking out, but damn, I bet they’d pick up on that.