Now this is a bit misleading me. Can a person obtain citizenship after only being there for 5 years, or does a person have to live there for 15 years before getting citizenship?
I see no mention in needing Japanese permanent residency at all when checking the websites, and this confuses me.
Now I say 15 years assuming someone obtains a regular work visa (10 consecutive years).
If someone could either answer or redirect me to a place that answers this question, that would help a lot.
5 years seems too good to be true for someone to just get a visa and just live there for 5 years for citizenship, yet it takes 10 years for permanent residency. If someone could help clear up this confusion, that would be much appreciated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/16n3nfb/citizenship_question/
6 comments
Remember that you have to give up your citizenship. You can’t have both
Remember that you can’t have two citizenship
It’s only five consecutive years, but three of those years have to be on a non-student visa.
You must also give up your original citizenship as other have said.
Overall much, MUCH easier than getting PR.
And I also noticed that 5 years is only possible if you are a “domicile”, 10 years is for “residence”. This essentially means I need to make Japan my primary home and legal address to count as a “Domicile”. Whereas “Residence” would mean my “Domicile” would still be in my home country.
It’s important to be aware that visiting home becomes a lot more difficult if you give up your citizenship. Particularly if you have aging parents that may need assistance.
Citizenship is something you think about after you lived here a while, I don’t see any indication that you have.
Your status here (work, salary, visa, criminality, marital status etc) will be taken into account and you will have to satisfy the 法務局 (Japanese Legal Affairs Bureau) 100% in Japanese, in face to face interviews that you are worthy of getting citizenship and what your reasons are for wanting it.
> 5 years seems too good to be true
Because it is. You can apply after living here for 5 years *continuously* on another visa, but there is ***much much more*** to it than that.