I’m currently living in Japan on a student visa. Originally I signed up for a year with my language school, but I’m thinking about graduating a term (3 months) earlier and changing my visa to a 90 days short-term stay during the last part of my year. (Reasons being that I reached my language goal of N2 and the classes are becoming much more geared toward people wanting to get into graduate school/work in Japan.)
I’m curious how things change once I lose my student status. I read that immigration will punch a hole through my zairyuu card, but I also have an apartment lease, a bank account with Japan Post, and have already paid for the year’s worth of health insurance. Are those all invalidated immediately? Do I need to de-register from everything before I switch to a tourist visa, or can that be done before I leave the country?
Another thought, though I’m not sure if it’s valid, is whether I can continue student activities outside of the language school to keep the student visa. My zairyuu card has a term of 1 year 3 months, and I would love to get tutoring focused more on speaking and generally filling in the holes in my learning. Or do language schools tend to report to immigration to invalidate visas after graduation?
Thank you for your advice.
5 comments
Pretty interested in this!
Pls hmu once someone explains it to you
When I did a semester exchange at a Japanese university on a 6 month visa, I stayed about 2 months after my term ended without changing my status of residence. You’re probably supposed to leave immediately after you’ve finished school, but in practice you’re unlikely to have anyone come after you as long as you leave before your status of residence formally expires.
You’ll get your health insurance paid back when you de-register. But they will only put it into a Japanese bank account, so you should keep that open. Shouldn’t change anything with your lease?
Also in my experience some people were able to just change their visa to a tourism visa and some were not without leaving the country first. It seemed as if it was depending on the city honestly. One friend was denied at first, but tried again in Osaka and was successful.
They usually require you to show them your flight back to your home country.
Edit: About that last part…wouldn’t do that for 3 whole months. The language school would be responsible for you, so they will probably discourage that
>Or do language schools tend to report to immigration to invalidate visas after graduation?
Legally, they have to. Student visas are bound to the school and a minimum attendance. If you just stop coming to school, they would also report that to immigration to get your visa reovked.
1. You can get up to a total of 24 months of student visa time from language schools, so you still have 9 months that you could technically fill out.
2. Your lease can continue to be paid outside of the country without a valid visa if you want (I did this over covid)
3. You don’t necessarily need to go back to your home country to renew a 90 day visa, you just need to leave the country (I also used to visa hop when I was between work and language school)
4. You will get your national health insurance payment returned to your Japanese bank account if you intend to discontinue it
5. If you want to stay longer, student visa or English teaching visas are both really good middle visas to fulfill whatever goal you want to. There are plenty of short course universities that you can get full rides at like Musashino or Meiji if you are going into international programs and what a way to work and do low level study with a long visa. Additionally, as demonized as English teaching is, it is a good way to get money and expand you connections in Japan.
Good luck!