Going for Japanese citizenship right after 5 years of JET?

11 comments

1. I doubt it’s so simple as just applying

2. It’s up to the interpretation of whoever at the Ministry of Justice reviews your application, but, IMO, 5 years working on a temporary international exchange program with no hope for employment beyond the 5th year of the contract doesn’t meet the citizenship requirement of being financially stable.

   You need to prove post-JET stability so your chances of getting citizenship right out of JET are close to zero.

3. I believe you need to be ethnically Japanese in order to be a citizen.

4. Well I’m in a similar boat, Elec engineer, going to apply for JET 2023, will be looking for employment as engineer post JET tho, don’t really desire citizenship but more language proficiency ( will write up to n2 jLPT during jet) and look for a job in the month near end of contract, well that’s all if I’m a successful applicant

5. You won’t be able to apply until your five years is finished. And if you apply at that point, you’ll be unemployed and clearly not able to support yourself. I think it’s impossible to do this without getting a job after JET.

   With that in mind, you need to think about what job you’ll do. A fifth year JET salary is definitely on the high end for ALTs and other English language teachers in Japan, and it’s not clear that even that would totally satisfy the “financial stability” requirement for citizenship. Going from JET to something less remunerative (eg. most other non-specialised, Japanese-unnecessary jobs) will only make this harder.

   All this said, I think the best thing you could do if you’re really keen on this esoteric path is to talk to an immigration/citizenship lawyer. You could probably get all your questions answered very specifically with a pretty short consultation.

6. JET is not a longterm profession so you’re not likely to get citizenship off of that. And starting your own business will have other complications concerning your visa. See if you can get a consultation session with an immigration lawyer or something who can lay things out for you.

7. First of all, if you’re planning on working as an ALT after JET, they most likely won’t take your application seriously. ALTs are not real teachers. While some people who move to Japan do ALT work permanently, part of the premise of ALTs is to give Japanese students experience interacting with foreigners and foreign cultures. By becoming Japanese yourself, you are kind of flipping the premise of being an ALT on its head.

   If people could just become citizens after 5 years of JET, then the Japanese government would not fund the JET Program because it would have essentially created a loophole fast track to gaining citizenship.

   If your only objective is to stay in Japan, find other ALT work and learn a marketable skill in your free time (e.g. technician work, coding, engineering, law, becoming an actual teacher, etc). Then change fields and find employment. They will take your application much more seriously if that’s your background.

8. I met a guy once who became a Japanese citizen and was a JET before. He was married to a Japanese woman, had impeccably fluent Japanese, and actually became a licensed and permanently employed teacher in his city. So it may be possible but you’ve gotta have some Japanese and some job prospects

9. I looked into it before only briefly so please correct me if I’m wrong, but because you need to ditch your original citizenship in order to get Japanese citizenship, I’m of the impression that in terms of only procedures, its comparatively easy to obtain Japanese citizenship in regards to necessariy steps and requirements (compared to say the US), but that getting rid of your original US citizenship is the really difficult part (I don’t know about other countries, and this is only my partially informed thoughts so if I’m wrong someone fill me in)

10. Do you mean citizenship, or a permanent residency?

    [http://www.immigrationattorney.jp/index.php?Japanese%20Citizenship](http://www.immigrationattorney.jp/index.php?Japanese%20Citizenship)

    Here’s what I would do as a long-term plan.

    First, do your 5 years on JET, pay your taxes, insurance, save money, keep out of trouble. You want to get into farming. That’s super. You’re going to have to learn the ropes of farming in Japan, the legal requirements, sales, all that sort of stuff. In my opinion, the best way to do that is to find some sort of employment after JET to sustain yourself, and latch on to an established farm as an intern type of thing. They probably won’t hire you if you don’t have any qualifications, and it sound like you’ve been a hobby farmer so far, but you may be able to hitch a ride as an intern. You’ll probably need to further your education in horticulture to pursue this seriously. Express your desire to start your own farm and see if any actual farmers can teach you what you need to know. Take it step by step until you can branch out on your own.

    If your Japanese isn’t good enough to take all this on, that’s what you should be focusing on. At this point, citizenship is probably the least important obstacle you should be focusing on. Even IF you had citizenship, it wouldn’t automatically open any doors.

11. The people responding here have never applied for naturalization in Japan and clearly have no idea what they are talking about. I can tell you from experience, it is absolutely possible. Assuming that the person is single, there is a 5-year residence requirement and requirement to show evidence of being able to secure a livelihood in order to naturalize. Since the JET program ends at 5 years, for most people, it would be necessary to be working at another job (under the appropriate status of residence such as specialist in humanities) and show stable income at the time of application.