Hi,
I was born in the United States with my parents (Mom; Japanese Nationality, Dad: Born in the United States), my mom never declared me to the Japanese government, and as of now, I am 21 years old and trying to figure out if I’m too late. I’m trying to maintain my US Citizenship while also trying to gain a Japanese nationality so I would no longer need a residency card. This would allow me to stay in the US or Japan longer without the need for a visa. From what I understand, a lot of other people born to Japanese parents don’t renounce their citizenship and don’t ask or say anything about their citizenship, and the Japanese government does not allow two citizenship but it is basically unenforced to only have one. Am I too late, or would I meet the qualifications to apply?
12 comments
I can’t comment about whether or not you are too late to get Japanese nationality or not, but just to clarify something you said, it’s not don’t ask don’t tell.
If you are born with dual nationality, Japan will ask you when you are older which nationality you will keep, then you tell them “Japanese”. They will ask you to do your best to renounce your other nationality and you say “yes OK sure” but then do nothing.
In the future if you are filling out any forms, for example to renew your passport, and it asks you whether you are a national of another country, you must say yes, but again that’s it. Just make sure you don’t lie.
Always enter and exit country A with passport A, and enter and exit country B with passport B. When entering and exiting another country C, just use whichever passport is more convenient
I think your mom would have had to apply for some paperwork for your citizenship within 3 months of your birth on foreign soil (article 3 of the nationality law). If she didn’t do that, it might be too late and you would have to naturalize for JP citizenship. Fortunately I think there is a faster or priority for JP naturalization in your case, but you may have to forfeit the US citizenship.
Yes too late. You had until your 18th birthday to petition.
Did she register your birth with the Japanese embassy? If she didn’t do it within the time limit, it’s not possible for you to gain Japanese citizenship by birth as far as I know. You are eligible for child of Japanese National visas however.
Talk to an immigration lawyer.
But yes I believe there will be many red flags.
Best bet is u can get a PR easier?
It’s largely unenforced RIGHT NOW.
Sometimes it is suddenly enforced, and prior are deported, never to be return. There have been numerous articles in the papers about such cases in recent years.
And it may become much better enforced if the political winds change.
So just know if you don’t follow procedure, you’ll probably be fine for at least a few years, but if you get screwed, it might be really really bad.
It’s never “too late” though.
Anyway wouldn’t take advice in something this life changingly important from the internet, lawyers exist.
No offense, but all of these people saying “you can claim you did your best” are full of it. The law is clear, you have to *actually* do what is possible, which means since it *is” possible for a US citizenship to give that up, they have to. If you go in saying “I tried”, they will reasonably want evidence, dates, names, etc.
Again people have had their nationality retroactively annulled and been deported for exactly this.
Ministry of Justice has the answer:
https://www.moj.go.jp/EN/MINJI/minji78.html#a06
As others have commented, 18 is the cut off. It used to be 20 (until April 1 2022, when the age of majority changed).
You have to choose a nationality in Japan at age 22. If you declared your nationality at birth, you can technically have “dual nationality.” However, since you’re basically at the cut off I’m guessing you will have a hard time applying, receiving, and keeping your Japanese nationality without renouncing US citizenship. I can’t say it’s impossible, but would seem pretty unlikely.
If you find you can’t get citizenship you should try to explore the Japanese descendent (child of Japanese national) visa since it has no restrictions on work, etc.
Hi. I’m also a hafu. Unfortunately I believe it’s too late for you to get a Japanese citizenship unless your mother registered your birth with the government like the other comments mention. As an alternative, you’ll have no problem getting a Child of Citizen visa. You can always reach out to your nearest Japanese embassy to confirm these details and questions you might have. I hope things work out in your favor.
P.s. I see a lot of wrong info on this thread about being dual. Even if you “declare Japanese nationality”, you do NOT have to renounce US citizenship. In fact, you really, really should not unless you’re prepared to cut ties permanently. Here is a great page to review on the US POV on JP-US dual citizenship: https://jp.usembassy.gov/services/dual-nationality/
Here are other tips specific to travel between JP and US:
(Source: my 25+ years of travel as a dual citizen)
– When you enter the US, use your US passport. This is all the US cares about. Even if you live in Japan and are going to the US for “tourism”, you MUST enter the US with your US passport.
– When you enter Japan, only show your JP passport at immigration. I have never, ever, gotten asked why I was in the US for the last year, etc. I have never shown or mentioned my US passport at JP immigration.
– When you fly from Japan to US, you will need to show both passports at check-in to confirm you don’t need ESTA. Don’t be nervous about this process, the airlines deal with this more than you think.
– When you renew your Japanese passport, be truthful on the forms about your US citizenship. You will be asked what you plan to do with your US citizenship. Say, “アメリカの国籍を放棄する予定です。”. And then you do nothing. They won’t followup. I’ve renewed my JP passport several times in my lifetime.
– One thing my mother did for me that makes JP-US travel particularly easy —- I have, on my JP passport, my Japanese last name and my American last name in parentheses. I’m not sure how other hafus have it, but it’s made my life easy because I always book airline tickets with my American name. Ex: Last name shows as “Nakamura (Smith)” on JP passport
You should be ask the Japanese Embassy or a Consulate in your area and they’ll give you a definite answer.
Talk to your embassy or consulate, you’re only going to get confused by bs on Reddit.
The cut off is when you’re below 18 years. At age 17, prior to arriving in Japan, I considered changing my nationality to Japanese via the embassy but changing my citizenship would result in a loss of my university scholarship hence I didn’t do it.
After living in Japan for 5 years I was able to apply for Japanese citizenship via the local immigration office. The process took a whole year though.