applying for PR as a japanese spouse

5 comments

1. If you are married to a Japanese national the application process is easy.

   The reason can literally be anything plausible – I literally wrote “I want to get a loan to buy a house.” The work history part should be self explanatory (just list out your jobs since you came to Japan).

   Note: make sure you have paid all your taxes, insurance and pension on time. Also make sure you’ve made over 3 MM JPY per year minimum for each of the past few years (more if you are supporting your spouse and children). Finally, get your spouse’s tax and pension documents. Even though they aren’t required, they’ll still ask for them (if your spouse, or someone else, is supporting you, then they are required but otherwise they technically are not but immigration will ask anyway).

2. * Reason: to reside with my spouse.
   * A lawyer is not usually necessary unless there is something unusual with your application or you want them to go the immigration and apply as your proxy.
   * Can be several months. Best to apply in good time. If your period of residence expires during the application process then they will renew it up to the date of the start of the PR and you’ll have to pay for the stamps for both the old and new applications. (Don’t do as one chap I saw who when receiving his PR tried to get out of paying the extension of stay stamp because “it was your fault that the papers weren’t processed before it expired”.)

3. Via the spouse of Japanese national path it’s pretty simple as you don’t need to provide the 理由書 like the 10 year residency, 1-3 year HSP, and Long-term resident paths do.

   So as long as you have the capacity to make a checklist (based around the required documents listens here: https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/procedures/zairyu_eijyu01.html) and gather the documents on said checklist then you don’t need a professional.

   Professionals are only needed for people who cannot follow a checklist, or have difficult cases, (for example via the spouse of Japanese national, say your supporting spouse has missed pensions payments, or if say you had a speeding violation etc)

4. I received my PR after about 7 months since the application was submitted. It was relatively painless and they only sent a letter back at the 6 month mark asking for more tax payments records. Exactly 1 week after I reposted the supplementary documents, I got the postcard in the mail asking for payment to get the PR card.

   My wife and I did all the documentation and preparation ourselves. When we researched online it just seemed that gathering all the forms would be quite complex. But there were advisors at the Osaka immigration office which walked us thru the process and which specific forms to request. They must have the same in Tokyo.

   In the end it just felt like a big ol’scavenger hunt as we bounced around to various tax, pension, and ward offices to collect whatever form was on the list. That took the longest for us. If you do miss anything or if they want more detail, they’ll send you a note like they did for me. It’s just that you have exactly 2 weeks to submit from the date of that letter. The penalty for missing that deadline was abandonment of your PR application. So try not to take any long trips by the 6-8 month mark just in case.

   For reference, I was 3 years in on a 5 year HSP visa, while married to a national for over 10 years. For the reason, I just said I wanted to develop my department at work and settle in Japan with my family. We had actually forgotten to write the reason and literally hand wrote a single A4 sheet just before submission. They didn’t bat an eye at my crappy handwriting or poorly formed kanji either.

5. I hired an administrative scrivener to help me with my application and I think it was worth it. This agent wrote my letter and went to the immigration to hand my papers in for me. Going to immigration can take a whole day on itself, and I think its really worth it and would recommend it.