My situation:
I’m on a Engineer/ Specialist in Humanities/ Int’l Services visa (5 year expiring in 2025) but I’ve just lost my job (退職勧奨/encourage for early retirement as a result of position closing).
I’m already looking for the job and will visit Hello Work office this week (formal termination date is tomorrow). I’m aware my need to inform immigration within 90 days of the change in my status. My concern is that the job market is quite tight and considering what happens if my job search goes beyond 3 months.
Will I be asked to leave the country if I can’t secure the next job in that time? Even if my visa is still good for another two years?
I guess I can just change to spouse visa, as I’m married, but is this really a necessary step?
Any practical advice would be welcome!
6 comments
Just change to the spouse visa now. In 2 years you’ll be 2/3 of the way to qualifying for PR and then never have to worry about this stuff ever again 🤷♂️
>I’m aware my need to inform immigration within 90 days
It’s actually within 14 days that you have to notify them. The 90 days is the point at which immigration reserves itself the right to revoke your visa at their discretion.
Realistically, if you are actively job searching, nobody will bother you.
I’d try to move over to Spouse visa if I was you anyway, it’s not that hard of a process and it offers you tons more freedom and an easier pathway to Permanent Residence if you want that.
When I lost my job due to covid related effect and closure of my branch I went to hello work same week. Go ASAP, especially if you can get unemployment pay, the earlier you go the more you can get in theory if you’re actively searching for a long time jobs. Also notify immigration of job change. This is just what I hear from others, but if you have proof you are actively searching which hello work asks for anyway if you get unemployment pay then you can get extensions but I dunno the details, better to ask there.
If you are really worried just change visas its quite easy to to file that paperwork.
14 days to inform immigration (it’s all online, trivial)
90 days grace time to find and start a new job
[according to this sub] easily another 90 days if you can show to immigration that you are actively searching for a job
if you have children in nursery or kindergarten, grace time varies by ward, check yours.
It’s good that you have a lot of time left on visa, because if visa expired soon you’d be in trouble, but it doesn’t entitle you to stay here for 2 years while not working.
*I guess I can just change to spouse visa, as I’m married, but is this really a necessary step?*
Yes,like do it yesterday. Unless you foresee a divorce etc., having spouse (to Japanese national) status is the next best thing to PR. No work types restrictions, fast track to PR.
As other have said, it is 14 days not 90 days.
Go register yourself with Hellowork and [start apply for your unemployment benefits](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/000678122.pdf) if you are eligible.
Report to immigration within 14 days that you have left your job (can be done online).
Go to immigration and put in an application for change to spouse status if you want to do a job not covered under your visa category, or just want to do whatever for a bit.
If you’ve been married for three years + living in Japan for at least one, go ahead and submit a PR application at the same time. You can do this without being on spouse status, by the way. It doesn’t count as a renewal, though; you have to maintain a valid residence status while waiting for the application to be processed.
You can wait on the last step until you find a new job, if you feel like having a job makes you a better candidate for PR. That’ll depend on your household income, etc.