If I have a hobby that can make me money, but it’s totally unrelated to my job/work visa, how significant do my earnings need to be before I inform immigration or ask them for “*permission to engage in other activities*”?
And even then, how do they determine whether or not such permission is given?
Also, if my hobby requires a lot of expenses in the first place, and I monetise it mostly to offset those expenses (maybe a little extra profit) do they take the expenses into account?
**EG** 300,000 yen in expenses and 400,000 total income from the hobby. So 100,000 total profit, but 400,000 in total income. My assumption is that they would treat the 400,000 as more than incidental income and require a bunch of tax info at the end of the year. But please correct me on this!
I’d appreciate if anyone has knowledge or experience with this kind of thing. Thanks!
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Generally speaking you need to get permission from immigration *before* the activity starts by applying with a description of what the work will be, including hours, pay, and responsibilities. Most people use a contract or offer document from whoever will be employing them, if there is no employer it gets more complicated.
You need to get permission if the activity doesn’t already fall into your visa category. The widest one that most foreign workers fall under is the “specialist in humanities etc.” visa. If that’s your category, you may be okay since it covers nearly any part time job, entry level work, and entrepreneurial pursuits.
If the visa categories conflict, generally they check to see if the side gig would potentially negatively impact the activity you’ve been given permission to be in Japan to do. If the hours and responsibilities don’t conflict with your main job from your visa sponsor and they don’t sense anything shady going on, you’re likely to get permission.
For tax purposes, you can have a supplementary income (gross) of up to 200,000/year before it will be taxed, but you still technically have to report any and all income on your taxes, even if it won’t trigger tax liability. Your 400,000 would break that limit, and you would owe taxes on that amount.