Hi everyone – hope you are keeping safe!
I read online that there is to be a 3-month extension for visa holders as well as temporary visitors whose dates expire in the next few months. But I was wondering if anyone knows about having to register for the extension or submit a form of some sort?
If it’s an auto-extension without paperwork, that is fabulous. But I know Japan is a document-heavy nation so I don’t want to miss something here.
Thanks for your help!
16 comments
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It’s an auto-extension as stated on the website. The reasoning is that they want less people at the immigration offices.
/edit: seems that you still need to come by, but you have the 3 month extension after your original expiry date to apply for the extension. When showing up you need to bring proof/reason (of cancelled flight etc.).
http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001316300.pdf
So they will accept your application to extend your stay for 3 months after your stay ends. What’s not clear to me is what happens if you leave after your stay ends but without filing the paperwork to extend.
To be safe I would extend your stay before leaving, but you don’t have to do it now. Even if your extension is rejected, presumably you can leave the country without breaking any laws.
The 3 month-extension is automatic, but you still need to apply for it. it’s an extension to file the paperwork, but it allows you to stay as you wait. Since you were already granted an extension, I advise **calling** immigration. You don’t want to wind up in an trouble on your way out and not be able to come back (if you plan to).
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Call your local immigration office, just to be sure. I went there on April 6th, my husband’s visa expired on April 7th. He still had to fill form and submit all required documents, incl. a document for reason why he needed an extension. He got 90 days extension with “preparation for departure” stamp.
The top comments in here are completely wrong and going to lead people into serious trouble, they should really be removed. /u/inchenzo /u/hedgehogssss
The extension is *not* automatic as I’ve had confirmed to me by: the US embassy in Tokyo, the US consulate in Fukuoka, and a Japanese immigration lawyer.
You need to apply for the extension with proof you were unable to leave the country (canceled ticket). You have 3 months after your initial expiry date to submit this proof and application.
For the people who keep saying it’s automatic; THEY ARE COMPLETELY WRONG. I went to immigration in Osaka and filled the paperwork. They said I had to have a reason to stay. For example, cancelled plane tickets.
u/lagamnug I think there’s a major confusion happening with the advice being given here. People are saying “it’s automatic, don’t worry about it,” or “it’s not automatic and you need to apply.”
They’re both speaking as if the extension applies to the period of stay in Japan, *but that’s not the case.* It’s referring to *the period over which you are allowed to apply for an extension of your visa/visitor permit;* in order to alleviate congestion they’ve automatically given every foreign national in Japan three months beyond the expiration of their permits to apply for that extension.
Which means the people who are saying it’s not automatic are mostly right, and the people saying it’s not to worry are missing a lot of details.
If you talk to immigration it sounds like you need to phrase your question properly for them to be able to understand exactly what your situation is, and the confusion about how to do that might be what is contributing to the various answers people are getting. But I’m just guessing. I don’t want to assume anything about what people are doing.
Anyway, here’s the document itself:
http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001316300.pdf
The line in question for visitor permit holders:
“ Foreign nationals whose expiration date for the period of stay is in May or June are also newly covered, and applications from foreign nationals whose expiration date for the period of stay is March or April will also be accepted for a period of three months from the expiration date of the period of stay. In addition, those who are staying with the status of residence of “Temporary Visitor” have also been included.”
I called the Japanese immigration number provided on the US embassy website, they said you have to show proof you can’t get back to your home country to get the extension. Sure there are flights to the US, but most are then cancelled each day (just look at the departures on [flightradar24.com](https://flightradar24.com) out of Tokyo and you can see the cancelled US flights) and American Airlines won’t even re-book my ticket. With US and other citizens blocked from entering, obviously flights are way less now,if at all running. Guess I’ll go to the office and try my luck.
Has anyone had success without a cancelled flight to show? I am a US citizen, currently on a tourist visa. I had no flight out upon arrival to Japan.
I’m in Kyoto, so it seems I’ll need to go to Osaka to apply, and may be rejected due to no flight, if I’m understanding things correctly.
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Sharing my experience:
Went to the Osaka immigration office today (May 7) at around 9:30 am. Spent about an hour/ hour and a half there. The room was pretty full, but things moved at a decent pace and I didn’t feel like I should’ve rushed to get there much earlier or anything.
I’m a US citizen and I didn’t have a cancelled flight to show. I was quite nervous about this… but in the end, they didn’t ask me anything! I had included a typed-out letter that outlined a few reasons why I was requesting the extension, and, as others had recommended, I printed out some screenshots of recent flight cancellations from flightradar. No clue if they even looked at these additional documents.
I brought a 4,000 yen stamp from the post office, although it seems like you can get this at the immigration office itself if needed. I also brought a photo, which they didn’t take, FYI.
Of course the situation may be very different elsewhere… or depending on the person you get. But I was pleasantly surprised with how smoothly it went for me. Hope others are also as lucky!
Wanted to add that we went to the Shinagawa office, the one and only, and the experience wasn’t bad at all. Honestly better than what I read about it normally. It was a lot more stressful than going to Tachikawa or Kanagawa, but the staff actually spoke English, or at least enough English to support the parts I couldn’t in Japanese.
I learned several things about the process too:
– At Tachikawa, we were a little unprepared which was unfortunate as the experience was rather easy.
– Kanagawa (Yokohama main office), we had everything with the knowledge we could get what we needed like stamps and whatnot on site. Turns out that if you’re staying in Tokyo, you can’t utilize Kanagawa for this! Something I’ll definitely remember for next time I need to do immigration.
Shinagawa is war, or at least that’s what I’d expect if Covid wasn’t around:
– The process was a lot more formalized than the other 2. You get there and get a card with a time on it and a line letter to enter. We arrived around 08:30 and received a card for 09:45 in line A. A is in the front, but honestly it doesn’t seem to matter much which line you get.
– You don’t need to line up forever like normal. You can if you want for the 09:00 slot if you get there early enough, but with the 09:45 slot and over an hour to spare, we went and did our own thing. There isn’t much around the offices of course, but we got to enjoy the sun on the piers while drinking a few drinks from the nearby Lawson. I didn’t want to venture far since I had no idea what to expect with the 09:45 aspect yet.
– Found that the lines refresh every 15 minutes. We got in line, 2m between each person, at 09:30. Given the card we got, I don’t think it mattered, but we were #3 in line. You all go in at the same time, so no brownie points (or Lawson points? I seem to have used a lot of those haha).
– We had route a letter in pretty strong Japanese thanks to a friend of mine in Saitama. We also had our previously written forms for visa extension. We had to redo them specifically at Shinagawa, not at Kanagawa, damn. We were given a timeslot for the T desk, which is basically a makeshift B desk for Temporary Visitors from what I can tell. Don’t know if it’ll be around after Covid, but it was very convenient.
– We had #522, but since we had to redo our paperwork, we didn’t get to the counter until #528. A しつれですが later, I was able to get the next appointment, and I was definitely not the only one in this boat. They had to backlog about 5 groups. I wish they took the original paperwork so this didn’t happen, but oh well.
– Floor 2 ain’t great. Seats have a seat in between each with an ‘x’ so that’s fine. At 09:45, it wasn’t terribly crowded, honestly very manageable. As time went on, that changed. At some point, distancing basically fell apart. I would not suggest going to Shinagawa if you’re paranoid about catching the virus. There was a woman coughing in her mask 3 rows behind us before we moved to the corner where you can look out into the 1st floor. Ugh…
– Once we finally were in our appointment (mind, this was maybe 15 min after we got into the 2nd floor, not bad at all imo. We spent much more time with this at Tachikawa), it was fairly simple. We had our original itinerary with our cancelled flight, a document from ANA of our cancelled flight (benefit of ANA here since it had both English and Japanese on it defacto), our new forms, and 4k yen stamps we got from the post office. Had to explain where we were since it wasn’t a hotel, had to sign some places, etc. They took our passports, so obviously don’t leave haha.
– We sat down, got called up again, put our stamp on the official payment paper (I never get tired of this in Japan, these things look better than my college degree. Pay for something using the machine at Family Mart, you’ll see!), and were told to wait in the side room.
– This can feel stressful, but seems to be more of a formality. You’ve already paid with the stamp, so they’ve accepted the Visa Extension application, but it sort of feels like when you wait for a panel interview (of which if you can avoid those, I’d recommend it. Very stressful). We eventually got called into the room, got our passports with our spiffy extensions, a paper with links of how to prevent the spread, and were done.
All in all, we left at about 11:15/11:30. I was so happy to be done and have the extension I didn’t look at the time, but by the time we got to Akihabara, it was 11:50, so those times seem like a good enough assumption. New visa ends on 9/11. Given we are from NYC, we are probably NOT going to be here for the full length, but the stress is gone and we can relax.
Hope this helps anyone who is in Tokyo and goes to Shinagawa for this.
Hey, I know it’s been a month since you posted and I’m not even sure if I’m still allowed to comment but just wanna give an update since this thread really helped me and my bf a lot!
We were originally planning to wait past the initial visa expiry to apply for extension, but a Japanese friend (she’s kinda like my sensei) had been bugging us to go since she really thought the application would be denied given that there are flights to US operating out of Tokyo anyway. We’re in Kansai btw.
So we did go 2 days before visa expiration (last week of March). We brought a LOT of documents with us (cancelled plane tickets, new plane ticket, cancelled / suspended flights posted on the airline site, letter of intent, bank statement, US travel advisory). We went to an immigration office in Kansai and the assessing officer was rather surprised that we had brought along a lot of papers. He didn’t even bother perusing through any of them; he just asked for the new plane ticket and so we gave him that.
We got our number and waited for 40 minutes for the staff to process it, and with bated breath, we waited. Surprisingly enough, they didn’t ask us anything. When it was our turn, they just handed my bf some sheet where he could state his reasons for staying and they also didn’t bother reading after. They asked for the 4000 yen stamp and we got the 90-day extension sticker on his passport after. Take note that he was given 90 days from the date we applied, so I don’t know how that’ll work if people apply past their initial visa expiry date.
The visa extension memo they posted at the entrance was the first one they had issued (dated April 3) where it was explicitly stated that the extension would also apply to “temporary visitors”.
Hope this helps you or anyone still confused about the whole thing. 🙂
Thank you for everyone’s contributions to this topic. I am currently in the Kobe Immigration Office and was approved for an additional 90 day extension for my temporary visa status. (I followed everyone’s footsteps from this thread!) I hold a US passport but prepared all the documents prior to arrival and it went smoothly! Here’s a list of what is required:
– Passport
– Extension Application
– Extension Statement
– Original flight itinerary
– Cancelled flight email
– Attached bank statement (showing proof that we have sufficient funds to stay in Japan)
– 4k yen stamp (paid after the approval)