Is it possible to apply for konin todoke on another city office / ward office than where you’re currently staying at?
I read here that different offices have different requirements. Some friends I know told me they didn’t need to pass additional requirements, whereas in the ward I’m in, I was told to provide more than what I have right now.
For instance, I’m in Yokohama and I’m thinking of applying in Tokyo. For reference, I might move to Tokyo anyway in the near future if that helps.
5 comments
Are you or are you marrying a Japanese citizen?
If yes, it has to be where you live as it will create a new koseki.
If no, I don’t know how it works exactly but I’m pretty sure it would still has to be where you live anyway.
Anyway, I don’t really see how requirements would differ between locations.
I think it needs to be where you are registered as living. They’ll change the content of your juminhyo.
Only your ward/city office where you’re registered can issue your juminhyo, tax documents, etc. (not counting convenience store printing services). So they’d likely be the only ones that could receive your marriage registration application.
Even if you were theoretically able to register in another city, you’d still need to go back to your own city of residence to register it since the records between cities/wards don’t seem to be connected.
Yes you can do it anywhere. I did that. And it was suggested for us by a government employee. It doesn’t matter if Japanese citizen or not. But they might ask you why here and you can say because we like it here or give another good reason.
The way I did it: pick a city office with experience in international marriages and sign the papers there. You don’t have to live there or have plans to move there. People move al the time. It’s true that the Japanese spouse’s koseki will be created there, so pick one with easy access (as opposed to: top of mount Mitake or something).
It seems from other comments that you can do it anywhere, but I will say from my experience, I couldn’t confirm the same. I visited the Nakano ward office to confirm if we could do it there, and the lady brought out a book of laws to show me that even foreigners must have it registered where they are living. We gave up on that and submitted our Konintodoke where we lived. We’re both non Japanese.