I’ve started looking into applying for permanent residence, and have been searching different posts here, but I didn’t see anything specifically related to applying for permanent residence as a family that are all foreigners.
My wife and I are American, and we have had 4 kids born here since arriving in Japan, so 6 total. We are coming to the end of our 3rd 3-year visa, and will be reapplying soon. 3×3 is 9 years, so not 10 years, but close. I’m the only one with a work related visa (religious activities) and my wife and our four kids are all on dependent visas.
I thought I might as well submit a permanent residence application along with the regular renewal application since we plan on staying here long term, but had a few questions:
1. Is this just wishful thinking since we haven’t quite been here 10 years (and I don’t have a special skill, and am not married to a Japanese)?
2. If not wishful thinking, should I apply for just me, and then later if accepted, apply for the rest of my family?
3. If I should apply for the whole family, do I need 6 x 理由書, 6 x ~~戸籍謄本~~ 住民票, 6 x etc, or do they treat the applications of a family as a group where I would only need 6 basic applications per person, and then 1 of each of the additional documents?
Thank you in advance for any help and advice!
EDIT: I said we are on our 3rd, 3-year visa, so 3×3=9, but my wife and I have also been here twice for 3-months on tourist visas, plus a couple shorter trips each, so I would say we have been here around 9.6 years. Still not 10, but closer to 10 than 9. (I don’t even know if they would count tourist stays towards the 10 years, if the 10 years is still a limit.)
by grnqrtr