Hi guys!
I’m currently waiting for my work visa but according to my company it’s taking longer than normal..
For some background I just graduated in May and my company submitted the work visa application end of April and we still haven’t heard anything back.
Does switching from a student visa to a work visa normally take this long? When I looked it up before it said it only takes about 2 weeks 🙁
What have everyone’s experience been with switching visas and immigration lately?
Is it possible I was rejected for some reason?
Thank you!
9 comments
My work involves overseeing visa applications for clients, and from our experience immigration does seem to be backed up, where processing times for all visas are taking longer than what we usually know.
My own personal visa also took longer than the usual estimate, but I still got mine in the end (last week or so). I wouldn’t lose hope yet. If you get rejected they’ll let you know, but successful applications are also taking longer.
I’m in a similar boat — I’m applying for a status of residence change and my company told me that processing can take 1.5-2 months due to an influx of visa applications.
I just renewed my visa in Saitama office. Took 5 weeks.
Before covid it was just 10 days to 2 weeks.
During covid, my switch from work visa to spouse visa took 13 days.
This year, I submitted my documents for renewal on May 15th and got my postcard today (June 9th). I’m in Shizuoka though, so I think it can vary.
my recent one took a little more than a month
My change of status (work to spouse) took around 3 months, and this was in 2021. If you applied at the end of April you may still have up to a few weeks to wait if you’re unlucky.
On the other hand, my renewal last December (2022) took less than 2 weeks.
Got mine 2 weeks ago or something .
You better be sweating. It smells like a “deny” stamp on those papers son
I waited about 3 weeks, received a request for additional documents, submitted those documents, and have been waiting since then. Perhaps they’re backed up? But I seem to recall that the renewal process always took longer than two weeks, so this might be normal. It’s hard not to stress so I know how you feel :). All we can do is wait.
Oof. Sorry to hear that. I hope you can get the answer sooner. Btw, was in your position just 2-3 weeks ago. My current office started to process my visa application (在留資格変更許可申請 submitted to the Shinagawa Immigration) on Mid April and i got my visa on the 4th week of May. But yeah, according to the scrivener’s comment, it was pretty backed up.