I’ve reached out to Immigration Services with questions, but they weren’t very helpful and recommended me to contact a separate division without providing any contact info. So I’m turning to the kind users of Reddit because I feel like I’m going down a rabbit hole trying to find answers!
I’m an American living in Japan and currently hold a 5-year Engineer/Specialist in humanities/International services visa. Recently I’ve started receiving money through foreign assets and now don’t need a full-time job to support my husband and I financially. I really want to travel more and explore Japan so I’m looking into changing to a part-time job. Does anyone know if there are any limitations with switching to a part time job? I’ve heard I need to make a certain amount of money or work a certain amount of hours in order to keep my visa, but I’m not sure if that is actually true. Also, my husband has a dependent visa so I’m wondering if me changing to a part time job would affect his visa. >\_\_< If anyone has personal experience I would love to hear it!
5 comments
>don’t need a full-time job to support my husband and I financially.
The thing is you need a full-time job from a company based in Japan to maintain your status of residence. As far as I know part-time jobs does not qualify for eng/humanities/intl visa. If you lose that status, so does your husband because they are your dependent.
There are no published hard requirements when it comes to hours or wages for the work you do, providing you’re on a status that allows you to do it. But you will have trouble come renewal time.
Your status of residence is meant to enable you to engage in a primary purpose that requires you be in Japan. If you’re living off foreign assets and investments and only working part time, it would be difficult to convince immigration that your primary purpose for being here is the work that you’ve been given permission to do.
Idk where people get their information but my scrivener told me hours worked doesn’t matter. Its if your income seems reasonable (generally around ¥300k per month to support your spouse looks good). By income I mean income made in Japan. They won’t consider any income sourced outside of Japan as stable or reliable. You can show proof of funds in US, but thats not as good as Japan sourced income.
There’s no rule saying you can’t be working part time, it’s just that the vast majority of people can’t live off of part-time income only.
If you ask immigration, I’m working in the same field as my visa last time but making x now. They will probably give you a more straight forward answer.
This looks like one of those cases where it’s really worth consulting an immigration lawyer. They might have advice on how to structure your assets, like buying property or investing locally, to demonstrate stability for immigration purposes.
I’m in a similar situation, transferring money from investments abroad for most of my expenses, but I have a spousal visa, so it’s less of an issue for me.
It’s only going to be a problem when you (or your husband) go to extend your visas. So if you have plenty of time, there shouldn’t be an issue.
When you switch to part time, simply inform immigration you changed jobs. They won’t bother or care until extension time—so until then you’re somewhat free to work part time or full time within your job category.
At extension time, make sure your Japanese income is sufficient (this is vague, and depends on location, and dependents), and at least one employer is willing to step up and essentially sponsor you.