Hey! This winter, I will be doing an unpaid internship on a tourist visa in Tokyo between late January and end of March (less than 90 days). After this, I will be studying at a university in Tokyo on a student visa starting in April. I wanted to ask if it was possible for me to change my stay from a tourist visa to a student visa while in Japan, or if there is an efficient way of doing this. I am from the United States, so I really do not want to fly from Japan to the United States and back due to financial reasons.
5 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
—
**Tourist Visa to Student Visa in Japan?**
Hey! This winter, I will be doing an unpaid internship on a tourist visa in Tokyo between late January and end of March (less than 90 days). After this, I will be studying at a university in Tokyo on a student visa starting in April. I wanted to ask if it was possible for me to change my stay from a tourist visa to a student visa while in Japan, or if there is an efficient way of doing this. I am from the United States, so I really do not want to fly from Japan to the United States and back due to financial reasons.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I mean, if flying is needed you can also take a weekend in Seoul or smth and re-enter on the student visa.
~~Other thing: is that internship on tourist visa really allowed? because iirc, it shouldn’t…~~
>I will be doing an unpaid internship on a tourist visa
Just to clarify: You are receiving absolutely *nothing* from this company? No housing, no food, no transport allowance/reimbursement?
Because if you are receiving any of those things, or anything else that could be considered “remuneration” the tourist visa is not the correct visa, and you might risk getting deported and banned from reentering the country.
>I wanted to ask if it was possible for me to change my stay from a tourist visa to a student visa while in Japan
Unfortunately there is not. In order to get your student visa you take the COE to an embassy to get the actual visa. And most embassies will only process visas for citizens or legal residents of the country they’re in. So your only real option is to return home.
I’m no expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but I’ve recently applied for a student visa to study abroad in Japan (I’m from Germany) – Here’s some info that might be important to know for you:
* Even if you receive your COE early, the earliest you can apply for the visa is 90 days before your planned arrival in Japan on said visa.
* As far as I’m aware you have to apply for your student visa in your home country or a country that you have some kind of residence permit for. Especially the “I’ll fly to Seoul, apply for my visa there and then return to Japan” route is not working anymore!
So, as much as I understand that you want to avoid the cost, I’m afraid that you’ll have to return to the US to apply for your visa there.
>I will be doing an unpaid internship on a tourist visa in Tokyo between late January and end of March (less than 90 days).
You should be using a cultural activities status for this, not a tourist status.
As cultural activities is a proper status you would be able to request a change of status at the end of it.