It’s very difficult to find any information on how to get a long term tourist visa in Japan. So whilst this post isn’t dog related I wanted to document my experience in how to get this coveted visa! We wanted to move to Japan for a long time. However, as we retired at a young age, we aren’t eligible for any of the standard visas. So we wanted to explore what long term options were available to allow them to stay in Japan longer term.
We are both British Nationals which allows us to enter Japan on a Temporary Visitor visa for 90 days. As British Nationals this can be extended for a further 90 days. However, the maximum you can stay is 180 days out of every 365 days . So what other option is there?
Designated Activities : Long Stay for Sightseeing and Recreation
After a lot of research, we stumbled across the Designated Activities : Long Stay for Sightseeing and Recreation visa. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website has a lot of useful information on their website. It’s not so easy to qualify and certainly won’t be for everyone. However, if you do meet the requirements it’s a great option. The requirements you must meet to get this visa are;
- Must have at least ¥30,000,000 in savings between you and your spouse (if travelling together)
- Must be at least 18 years old
- Hold private medical travel insurance which covers death, injury, illness during your stay
This visa allows you to stay for a period of 6 months. But it can also be extended for another 6 months as long as you apply before the expiry of your current visa. This gives a total of 12 months. Coupled with any time on your temporary visa and a potential 2 month allowance for processing (see below) you can get over 18 months if you time it right.
Our Experience
We originally intended to apply for this visa before arriving in Japan, however, in order to do so you should hold a long term visa in the country you are applying. The first time we did this we were in Thailand on tourist visas so we couldn’t do this. I’ve since been told that British Nationals (and potentially some other nationalities) can apply for this visa as a tourist in Bangkok now so we’ll maybe try that in the future. However, given what we found out after applying whilst in Japan, you get more time by applying within Japan.
We entered Japan on 20th January 2023 on the 90 day Temporary Visitor visa. It took a couple of weeks to settle in and we headed to the Tokyo Immigration Office in Shinagawa on 30th January. We received our Residence Card on 24th February, so it took less than 2 months in total.
Depending on where you stay in Japan will depend on which immigration office you go to. We chose the office in Shinagawa. It’s about a 25 minute walk from Shinagawa station and this is what we did each time. However, there is a bus, number 99, which drops off directly outside the immigration office.
Each time we’ve been, we went in the afternoon. Reading online says to avoid long waits you should go before it opens, but we never had any long waits in the afternoon (other than collecting the residence cards).
As a brief overview the steps we had to follow were;
- Apply for Certificate of Eligibility
- Submit application for Change of Residence Status
- Pick up Residence card (which is confirmation of the visa)
Certificate of Eligibility Requirements
The first step to get the Long Term Tourist Visa in Japan is to apply for a Certificate of Eligibility. This is basically to prove that you satisfy the conditions required for the visa you are applying for. Therefore, the documents we had to provide were;
- Copy of passport
- Proof of savings of ¥30,000,000 (6 months bank statements)
- Proof of medical insurance that covered our period of stay
- Schedule of stay to confirm what we planned to do during our stay
- Application form for Certificate of Eligibility
- Passport photo (available to booths in the immigration office)
It does state you should provide your marriage certificate also, however the first time we didn’t provide this and weren’t asked for it. I’m not sure if this is because we each qualified in our own right so weren’t reliant on the other to apply. The other times, we have provided it just to be complete. We provided one copy of the bank statements and medical insurance since everything was held jointly.
Certificate of Eligibility Application Step 1
We took the documents upstairs to the first floor to counter T (brown counter to the far left after going up the escalator). You need to take a queue number from the machine. The first time we arrived about 2pm. Here they check through all of the documents which took about 30 minutes.
Some things to consider. If you’ve had substantial payments in or out of your account during the 6 months, they will ask you to provide proof of what it’s from. Perhaps a property sale/purchase agreement. They’ll also ask for the full details of the insurance to show what it includes. Not just an overview.
We recommend to print out all documents in advance at a conbini. There is a Family Mart downstairs you can print out documents but the queues can be big. It’s an idea to store all documents on a cloud so you can easily access & print if needed.
We didn’t have the money in the bank for the full 6 months the first time we applied but with confirmation of property sale documents, we still got approval.
By the time we finished printing and got our stamp, it was already 4:15pm and T counter was closed (it closes at 4pm). However, as we’d already started, they allowed us to submit the extra documents. He quickly checked the documents, stamped a piece of paper and told us to go to counter E downstairs to submit them for approval. Counter E is to the right of the main information counter on the ground floor which you will easily see when you enter immigration.
Certificate of Eligibility Application Step 2
When we arrived at the counter it was also already closed (they close at 4:30 and it was 4:32) so we were disappointed we were so close. However, we approached the lady at the counter and explained it took us a bit of time to get to the counter and she thankfully allowed us to get a ticket to wait to submit! The great thing about the immigration here is we found everyone really does want to help and are so friendly.
We waited about 10 minutes before we were called and submitted the papers. She took them away to check and we sat back down. After a few more minutes she came back and said everything was fine and gave us a receipt for the application.
The first time we applied for COE we had to receive the result by post, but now you can opt to receive the result by e-mail. This is very useful if you are staying in an Air BnB, hotel or are on the move. As it can take up to 3 months for approval. We left the immigration office at about 5pm.
To receive the COE result by e-mail you need to register for an account. They give you a QR code to register which generates a log in. You will then complete a form with your e-mail address on.
Whilst it had taken 3 hours, it really didn’t feel like that long at all. Everyone was super friendly and helpful and we were just really pleased we didn’t miss the cutoff and had completed the first step.
Certificate of Eligibility Approval
We got a phone call on 17th February from immigration to tell us that the result of the Certificate of Eligibility application had been returned to them due to sender unknown. This was when we could only receive the result by post. It was due to us putting our friends address but our name. This shouldn’t happen now you receive the result by e-mail.
We were super shocked that the result was back already since they told us 3 months. We believe it’s because there’s not many applications for this type of visa so processing is quicker than say an employment visa that loads of people apply for.
The approval was actually dated 3rd February. So it only actually took 3 days for approval which I’m sure is some kind of record! It was only because of the mix up with the postal address it took longer.
We were asked if we wanted to apply for the Status of Residence change. Of course we said yes so he gave us the required forms. We decided not to apply there and then as we felt that we’d like to use a bit more of our Temporary Visitor visa before applying to get as much time as possible in Japan.
Submit Application for Change of Residence Status
The second step to apply for the Long Term Tourist Visa in Japan is to change your residence status. You can find the application form here. You need to submit;
- Application form
- Certificate of Eligibility (print out of e-mail approval)
- Passport photo
- Copy of passport
On 7th March we headed to immigration. We took our documents upstairs to Counter T. They took the documents and asked us to wait whilst they checked them over which took about 15 minutes. The process was slightly different the first time we did it. But now, once they confirmed at counter T everything was fine, they give you a confirmation and go to Counter B5 to submit.
Counter B5 is the orange counter to the left at the top of the escalator. There wasn’t a big queue so took less than 5 minutes to submit. She checked through the documents again and took our passports. They then give you a postcard we were told to write our address on.
The passports had a stamp that extended our Temporary Visitor visa for 2 months in the event the approval was not given before it expired. Therefore, in order to make the most of your time, I recommend to apply for the change of status towards the end of your 90 day Temporary Visitor Visa. As this can give you an extra 2 months stay. Just be careful because COE is only valid for 3 months from approval. So plan carefully.
Visa Approval!
On March 17th we opened our post box to the lovely site of the postcard informing us that our visa had been approved! We hadn’t been as happy as how we felt that evening. Finally we knew we’d be able to stay in Japan long term.
The post card told us that we needed to go back to immigration to get the visa between 16th and 30th March. Every time we’ve done this you only get 2 weeks to pick up the residence card. It also listed the documents we would need to bring with us;
- Passport
- Revenue stamp – this has now increased to ¥6,000 each
- Application receipt
- The postcard confirming approval
We had a few things to do that week so we went to immigration on Friday 24th March. We arrived at 1:30pm and first went to the 711 to buy our revenue stamps. There’s a separate queue just for stamps so it made it easy. Note they only accept cash. After we got our stamps we headed upstairs to counter A1 as mentioned on the postcard. This is well sign posted and is upstairs and to the right of the escalator.
Getting the Visa
The queue was small so we were hopeful this would be a quick visit. We handed over our postcard, passport, receipt and stamps. After sticking the stamp onto another form we signed to confirm we had made payment. Then we were given a ticket, number 677, time stamped 13:38 and told to wait by counter A4, which was right next to A1. When we looked at the screen it was on number 404 and said estimated waiting time 180 minutes! Oh man!
It was really hot, even though the weather was miserable outside and it was super busy with no spare seats. So we decided to head to the nearby Lawson and grab some snacks. When we got back we checked the numbers and they were only up to 455 so we knew we had a long wait ahead. In hindsight we should have gone back into Shinagawa, but we found a seat on the ground floor where it was cooler and just camped out there. To be honest the time went quite quickly.
At Last!
At 4pm most of the counters close. I guess they accept applications until 4pm and as long as you get in by then you are guaranteed a result as people were still submitting right until the end. One of us kept popping upstairs to check the numbers, and after 4pm they started to go up a lot more quickly. We finally got to 676 at 4:25pm but then they moved on to 687. Oh no!!! We watched as it went all the way up to 735 and finally our number was called, 677 at 4:50pm. A total of 192 minutes, so it wasn’t a bad estimation.
We were handed back our passports after they checked to confirm it was us as well as our residence cards. In the passport, there’s a piece of paper stapled that he said you must keep in your passport at all times. It basically says what you are allowed to do on your visa (basically only sightseeing and no working). The 2 month extension stamp was also voided. However, there was no actual visa or any stamp in the passport. It seems the residence card is the main thing that you need.
We were super happy that we managed to get this visa at it seems it’s not very common at all. But we felt that the process was very simple as long as you follow all the guidelines.
Visa Extension
As our 6 months came to an end we didn’t want our time in Japan to end. So we applied for a visa extension. On the website it states that a 6 month extension can be provided if you apply for it before the expiry of your current visa. Our visa was due to expire on 24th September so we went back to Shinagawa immigration on 6th September. We didn’t want to leave it too late in case of any unexpected surprises so gave ourselves a couple of weeks grace.
We arrived at immigration around 12pm and headed to counter T. 12pm is pretty much when everyone goes on lunch so there was only 1 person working on the counter. As there was only 1 person working the queue it took about an hour before we could hand over our documents. Even though there were only 3 people in front of us. It would have been much quicker if a) we got a number straight away and b) had we not arrived over lunch. Once it hit 1pm more staff came back from lunch to help and the queue moved much quicker. Top tip : don’t arrive just before lunch!
Submitting Visa Extension Paperwork
Once our number was called we handed to them the documents we had brought;
- Visa extension application form
- Original passport & photocopy
- Original residence card & photocopy
- Copy of 6 months bank statements showing at least ¥30,000,000
- Copy of medical insurance policy document
- Passport photo
They took them off us and checked over them which took about 15 minutes. Then they called us to the counter. On the application form you have to state why you want to extend. We just put that we wanted to further explore Japan and listed some areas we wanted to visit. It does ask on the form if you have flights booked to leave. We did as plan to go back to Thailand for winter. So we put the dates of this on the application and provided flight booking confirmation. Whilst we asked for a 6 month extension we weren’t sure if we would get the full 6 months with us having said we were leaving in November.
Once we’d filled in the new form just like the first time he stamped a piece of paper, gave us all our documents and told us to go to counter B5.
2 month extension
At counter B5 there was no queue and she took our documents for a quick check through them. She then asked us to fill out our address on the postcard. She gave us a receipt and a piece of paper that said you are still able to stay in Japan for up to 2 months from the expiry of your current visa if you have applied for an extension. This gives them 2 months to give you a result. However, if you don’t have a response by then you would need to leave (or call immigration for an update). This gave us leeway and actually gave us extra time in Japan. Our current visa expired 24th September so we knew we would have at least until 24th November worst case. Which was enough for our flight back to Thailand.
Extension Approval
The postcard of glee was stamped 3rd October so it took just under a month for approval. We were on a trip and only received it when we got back on 16th. Which was really lucky because the postcard gave us until 17th October to go and receive the extension. So on 17th we headed down to Shinagawa. We feel like we are pros now. We were told to bring the same documents as last time (revenue stamp each, passport, the application receipt & the postcard). The only difference was we were also told to bring our old residence cards and had to also resubmit new photos. Advice : don’t use the same photos.
The process to receive the visa was the same as the first time round (under visa approval heading). Only the queue wasn’t as long this time. We arrived at 13:24, got number 589 and wait time said 150 minutes. The numbers weren’t called in order and plenty of numbers way higher than ours received theirs long before us. At 15:18 our number was called so it was about 20 minutes less than expected.
Our passports and our old residence cards (with a hole in to show they were now invalid) were given back to us.
Thankfully we received another full 6 months not just until our flight in November. So that means we could officially stay until April 2024. What a result!
I still don’t really understand why the cards aren’t ready when they’ve already approved them. It doesn’t make sense to have such a long wait. But hey, if it means I get to stay longer I’ll happily wait a few hours!
Reapplying for another visa
At the end of the year we wanted to stay longer. So we applied for another designated activities : long term sightseeing & recreation visa. I’ve created a separate post about this here detailing the requirements.
Conclusion
Hopefully this helps if you’re planning to get a Long Term Tourist Visa in Japan. Why don’t you just leave the country and come back in for another 90 days? Personally, we want to spend more than 6months a year here, which is the official amount of time permitted on a Temporary Visitor visa. Whilst there are many reports of people flying to Korea and back often, we don’t want to run the risk of being rejected upon arrival.
Especially having Wylie, it’s just not worth the risk. Knowing that you are 100% legal is certainly worth the few trips to immigration for us. You are also allowed to leave and come back in as often as you like during the 6 month period.
Knowing the visa can easily be extended in country also is perfect for us. We have now done this process 3 times. So it seems as long as you keep meeting the criteria for the visa, there is no limit on the number of times you can get it. Check out my other post on this process if you are interested to know what you need to do to apply for a second time.
If you time things right, you can get around 18 months each time. We messed up a bit and missed out on the second extension. But the whole process is easy, albeit a bit time consuming, so no issue.
If by any chance you will be coming with your pet, don’t forget to check out some of these pet friendly places in Japan. You can also check out my Amazon store (affiliate link) which has all the details all of my recommended products I use then travelling with a dog. You can check it out here.
Questions
We have spent a considerable amount of time researching this visa as well as going through the process multiple times in order to put this blog post together. We have made every effort to make sure the information contained is as accurate as possible based on our experience given the extreme lack of information available about this visa. However, we cannot be held responsible for any information which may not be up to date or if the process doesn’t work in the same manner for you.
Each persons circumstances and every application is different. This blog post is based on our own personal experience.
We also appreciate that many people have questions they wish to ask about their personal circumstances. Please feel free to leave a comment below so that others may also be able to give their ideas and feedback. We will answer questions here when we get free time, however we are often on the move so we only update here sporadically.
If you wish to ask us specific questions you want answering quickly, you can also drop us an email. In order to be able to spend the time answering your questions to the best of our ability, we do ask for a donation to be made below.
Any information we do provide is not professional advice as we are not immigration experts and we do not provide assistance with individual applications.
Woof woof, Wylie & his humans x
Hi there, thank you for providing information on this visa type. There isn’t a whole lot on the internet about it, so I’m glad that someone is posting about their experience so that others can learn from it!
I’m interested in applying for this Visa type and am capable of meeting all of the requirements. Towards the end of your post, you mentioned that you would be applying for this Visa type next time from Bangkok since you found out it’s possible. My understanding is that the COE has to be applied for whilst in Japan (so it would make applying for this Visa while in a different country more difficult unless you had a proxy to fill this out for you in Japan) – is that incorrect?
Hi, yes there’s such little information out there about it! When you read the list of requirements for the visa it states that if you apply with COE you don’t need to provide bank statements, schedule of stay & medical insurance. Which means that you can actually apply without the COE if you apply at your embassy outside of Japan. But to do this you must provide those items (things which you need to apply for the COE) and it’s likely it will take a bit longer than submitting with the COE.
I confirmed this understanding with the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok also. It’s therefore worth checking with the Embassy where you would apply from that they would allow the same. Usually you need a long term visa in the country you apply from but Thailand has an agreement for certain countries that allow them to apply without it (UK being one of them).
Wow, thank you so much for the detailed report! This is helpful information for anyone (like me) applying for this visa. Your response to the previous comment is also illuminating.
Did you conduct this process in English or Japanese?
Thank you! I hope your experience is as smooth as ours was. We did everything in English (with a little help from Google translate!)
Hi there, this visa gave me some hope after finding out that it is almost impossible for my Japanese spouse or myself to sponsor our parents to move to Japan with us on a dependent visa.
Can I ask whether you are staying in a short-term rental apartment or a serviced apartment? Hotels are definitely out of the question if they are coming over for 6-9 months but it also won’t be easy for them to live with us with kids around.
Glad that the post is useful for you 😊 actually we ended up buying our own place. But for the first month we stayed in an Air BnB which was a life saver. Obviously having a dog makes things a lot harder but I think without one there are plenty of options for serviced apartments/Air BnB’s that would be suitable good luck!
Oh wow, that’s awesome. Alright, will look around for the best accommodation option for my parents. Thanks for replying! 🙂
Good luck!
Yours is one of a very few that describes the process to obtain that visa, thanks.
A couple of questions if I might:
1. What is the policy in getting another such visa after the 6-month extension ends?
2. How much detail was required for describing your “planned activities?”
Thanks!
Hey,
Thanks for the positive feedback! In response to your questions;
1. From what I have been told, to get another one you have to do the same process from scratch with the COE etc. When we do it next year I will update the blog 🙂
2. We didn’t put that much detail in terms of planned activities, we kept it quite simple and split between various cities eg Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka etc then just listed some tourist attractions in each place.
Hope that helps!
Thanks for the quick response!
Do you know whether any gap is required between visas, or can you essentially just move to Japan albeit as a full-time tourist?
Thanks!
As far as I am aware you can apply straight away which is what we are planning to do. I spoke to one person who said he had managed to do that but until we do it for ourselves I couldn’t say 100%!
Hi, thanks very much for all the information on your site. I am a bit confused and concerned that you still had to submit the bank records, insurance and schedule of activities as they say on the MOFA site that if you have a COE those are not necessary ? Are they essential in all cases when applying for a COE ? The way I understood,or hoped 🙂 it worked was that those were not necessary if a Japanese friend/ contact person did the application.
I am in Japan at present on a tourist visa; I asked a Japanese friend to do the COE for me – he called immigration to enquire about it, specifically what visa to enter on the COE application form; when he told them, they said there is no such thing 🙂 and anyway I would have to return to my home country as I cannot change my tourist visa to a long-stay visa ! without leaving Japan. Please give me your thoughts as I will struggle to do this alone and also to provide enough proof of funds unless I can include the value of my property in my country.
If you apply for the visa in your home country you don’t need COE but must submit the bank records, insurance etc.
If you apply in Japan you must first do COE. COE can’t be done by just a friend it has to be done by yourself, an immigration or your sponsor eg employer. The purpose of COE is to confirm you meet the requirements for the visa you are applying for. Therefore you must submit all relevant documents eg bank proof and insurance in order to get COE
If you don’t have bank proof then you don’t meet the requirements for the visa and therefore wouldn’t get a COE. After all, the requirements for the visa are pretty clear so if you don’t qualify for it I’m not sure how you would expect to get a COE.
Property value doesn’t count because the purpose of this visa is to prove you have sufficient funds to support your time in Japan without the need for support from Japanese authorities. They may have set that limit relatively high but they’ve set it for a reason. A property won’t count because you can’t easily cash it in and spend it to find your life here.
So unfortunately it doesn’t seem that this visa is going to be for you.
PS there’s no need to go back to your home country. Once you have COE you can submit change of visa at immigration and they change from tourist visa to this one in country, no need to leave. This is what we did.
Hello, thank you very much for writing this article, there is indeed not a lot of information about this type of visa, so thank you!
The requirement says to have “Documents such as a bankbook to prove that the applicant’s savings are more than 30 million Japanese yen along…” and you mentioned a property value doesn’t count because it’s illiquid.
Do you know if they also consider a combination of investments in stocks, mutual funds, or physical gold? These are relatively liquid or easy to cash in.
Our bank statements showed mutual funds and stocks and they accepted that, although we qualified with the cash we had. I’m pretty sure they do accept but couldn’t say 100%.
Good to know 🙂 thank you so much for your reply.
I consulted a Japanese immigration lawyer, and they told me the funds must be in cash. I asked about money market funds, and they thought it was probably alright but were clearly not familiar with the concept.
Yeah I think even immigration lawyers aren’t sure because so few people apply for this visa. It’s better to just go to immigration yourself (if you can) as ultimately they are the ones that make the decision and the only ones who know 100% what they will and won’t accept.
The requirements do just say savings, it doesn’t specify cash so I personally think mutual funds would be OK and we did include ours in our application along with the cash to bulk it up but we qualified with cash alone so not sure if they took them into account.
Interesting, thank you for the response.
I applied for this visa after following your guide (was super helpful! thanks!). Not much info anywhere else.
Unfortunately I was rejected with the reason being that stock is not acceptable for the 30mil limit… Although only one of my stock accounts was flagged as not acceptable, so I am not sure what the difference is from that account compared to my other stock accounts… I received a letter telling me to make up the difference with some other evidence or withdraw my application.
Oh that really sucks! It seems strange they wouldn’t allow stocks since you’re more likely to hold onto them than just spend it. But I guess they look at it in that you might not be able to liquidate quickly if you need access to it. Was there any big difference between the account they didn’t accept and the ones that they did in terms of liquidity?
Is the certificate of eligibility form you mention the one here? https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/status/designatedactivities10.html?hl=en
If so, which sections did you fill out? I don’t see any mention of designated activities – long stay sightseeing.
Thank you!
Yes that’s right. You choose option 10, others, so then 27 and 32 😊
Not sure I see all those options.
I am looking at this COE file “930004059.xlsx”, could you specify the row number to choose options 10,27,32? Thanks
Sorry we didn’t use the Excel file we just used the PDF and printed it out then filled in the relevant sections.
Hi, thanks for all your interesting articles. Regarding the long-term tourist visa, I applied for COE and my application was accepted; a week later immigration contacted me and asked me to withdraw my application as I am not from a visa waiver country, although on the actual application form for this visa it states that ‘ the applicant is a foreigner who . . . etc ‘ l am unable to find that stipulation on the internet. I would appreciate your opinion regarding this point ?
https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page22e_000738.html
“Nationals and Citizens of visa waiver countries or regions and who meet all of the following requirements:…”
Thank you, I read that first part as applying to individuals from visa waiver countries; then, as they repeat ‘ individuals 18 years and older ‘lower down I thought that that part below would apply to me hahaha. Strange that immigration didn’t know I was not eligible in the first place and as I mentioned there is no mention of visa waiver on the visa application form.
But as you mentioned this visa is quite unusual so even the authorities are not so aware of the rules or procedure 🙂
Thanks again Mike
What did you use for the medical insurance requirement? I’ve been using WorldNomads on my short term stays, but am curious how the long term people who can’t get on the national insurance plan are doing this and what their experiences are.
We use our annual medical insurance from Thailand. They won’t accept any national insurance coverage it has to be private insurance and you must show that it covers the full time that you are planning to be there for. We previously paid monthly for ours but had to pay for the full year in one go in order for it to be accepted.
Great info and glad I found your blog. I am in Japan now on a 90 day tourist visa, leaving in a few days to Thailand for 90 days. Would like to spend next year in Japan on the designated activities visa. I meet the financial requirements and can purchase a travel health insurance policy. You stated as a Brit you thought you could do all this in Bangkok at the Japanese embassy? Any idea if US citizens also can apply outside there home country? Like to learn a bit more before I take a trip down to Wireless road.
It seems like maybe it would be easier to just enter on a 90 day waiver and then do everything in Japan, giving someone maybe 15 months total? Also looking forward to see if you could renew this after for a consecutive year.
Finally, on the residence card, is this a normal zairyu card that would allow you to theoretically open a bank account and do other more official stuff that you cant do on a regular tourist visa?
Hi Greg, yes you should also be able to apply from Thailand as the information they sent to me was that if you are a member of an OECD country (US is a member) then the general requirements don’t apply (ie you don’t have to prove you are resident of Thailand so can apply on a tourist visa). You can apply through JVAC https://visa.vfsglobal.com/tha/en/jpn/attend-centre
Yes we felt that coming in on the 90 days and then applying in Japan was a good option as it potentially gives you that bit longer although we were a bit nervous since it was the first time we’d done it so we applied quite soon after we arrived to be on the safe side. Since we travel with our dog we also wanted a bit extra time just in case things didn’t go as planned. We submitted our application for extension on 6th September and waiting for the approval postcard to arrive. On the application we did put that we had a flight out of Japan in November so I’m not sure if we’ll only get approval until then or the full 6 months we asked for.
For residence card we got the standard residence card, but in order to open a bank account every bank we looked at wanted you to have a valid residence card for at least 6 months so it wasn’t possible to open a bank account with it. We’ve only used it otherise for exiting and re entering the country but it makes us feel more official than we ever did in Thailand!
Is it possible to string enough of these together consecutively to qualify for permanent residence?
I really don’t know. I’ve been told you can apply for more than one but I’m not sure how they’d view it you applied year after year. There’s nothing to say you can’t but ultimately it’s still a tourist visa so I don’t know. My personal thought would be that these wouldn’t qualify you for permanent residency no matter how many you did as you aren’t eligible for national health service so I doubt it would help towards permanent residence but that’s my personal opinion you’d need to check directly with immigration for the official answer.
As far as I am aware you need to be living there for 5 years before they tax you on overseas income. If you are living there and earning income there it’s a different story but on a tourist visa you can’t do that. I guess you’re classified as tax resident since you’re there over 183 days but you have no income there for them to tax you on.
However, it’s better that you speak to a tax accountant for your specific situation as everyone has different circumstances and the last thing you want is a big tax bill! Although since it’s a bit of a niche one it’s usually more difficult to find someone who has the correct answers!
Let us know what you find out 😀
Like I said, best off you speak to a tax advisor based no your own circumstances. We are just going off what we were told based on our circumstances. Which is that as a tourist who is not earning any income in Japan we do not need to pay taxes unless we live there for 5 years continuously then we would be taxed on worldwide income.
You can’t get a bank account in Japan on a tourist visa to bring money over. You can only take out cash or pay for things with overseas credit cards so the money isn’t technically being brought over. This is the case for short or long term tourists. If what you say is true then it would mean a tourist spending a week in Japan on a once in a lifetime trip but spending over the tax allowance would also be liable to tax on what they spend. I don’t think this is the case.
But, it’s always important that you get your own tax advice on your own situation so that you are comfortable with your own liability.
A simple Google search shows the following information also;
The scope of income taxes varies according to the type of residence.
Residents are taxed on their entire worldwide income, earned inside and outside Japan.
Non-permanent residents are taxed on their locally-sourced income. Their foreign-earned income is also taxed if paid within or remitted to Japan.
Non-residents are taxed only on their locally-sourced income, such as salary, wages, and other types of income.
The use of the individual’s untaxed foreign income or gains to pay the credit card company in respect of the relevant debt will be a taxable remittance.
The key word here is untaxed foreign income. Given Japan has tax treaty’s with most countries, it would be assumed that you will already be paying tax on your earned income in the country in which you earn in the income. Therefore, you wouldn’t be expected to pay tax again in Japan.
As I said before, it’s best you get your own tax advice based on your own circumstances rather than relying on a dog blog or Google.
Thanks for this post! For the health insurance requirement, did you apply for a 6 month or 1 year international traveling insurance before you knew whether you would be accepted? Isn’t it a bit hard to tell what time period you should be getting insurance for if there’s uncertainty around the visa dates themselves?
We have annual insurance anyway for medical expenses since being an expat we don’t have coverage so an annual policy is better suited for us anyway.
Were you able to submit documents in English, or did you need to have them translated to Japanese?
Thanks!
Hi Wylie’s pawrents (Big Hi to Wylie too!), thanks for providing such a detailed write-up on this type of long-stay tourist visa! There really isn’t much information out there and your article has provided a lot of answers I’ve been trying to find out. Just curious: did you manage to get the approval for your extension application and is it also for a 6-months period? Also, wondering if you will know: for each long-stay tourist visa with extension (i.e. 6 months + 6 months), how long must one stay outside of Japan before the long-stay tourist visa application can be repeated?
Hello!
We submitted our documents for extension on 6th September and waiting for our response still. We do leave Japan in November which we told them about so we aren’t sure if they’ll give us the full 6 months or not or whether the 2 months grace we get from applying for the extension.
As far as we are aware you can apply as you near the end of the current extension for the new visa but I’m not 100% sure since we haven’t done it yet.
Once we get any updates I will add to the post so check back regular!
Thanks for your response, looking forward to your update & more travel videos on Youtube!
Hi all, I’m happy to report that I was also to get a long term tourist visa. The process was almost exactly as described in this post. A few notes:
– (most important :p) The convenience store in the Shinagawa immigration is a FamilyMart now!
– I was able to use a travel insurance policy for the medical coverage. It covers illness and injury but not long term care. I do hold proper insurance in the US but was not required to present it during the application process.
– When I applied to change my residence status after receiving the CoE, they sent me to a different counter after checking in at T. I can’t remember the number, but I think it was either B5 or B3. I had to wait in line for a bit, but when I got to the front of the line I gave them my materials, filled out a postcard, and then was able to leave. I was not given a number or sent to another counter.
– The residence card I received on the third visit to the immigration center has a period of stay of one year rather than the 6 months I expected. I have no idea how this happened but I’m not complaining!
Thank you so much to Wylie and family for providing such valuable information. It would have been far more challenging to navigate the process without this post. ありがとう！
Thanks so much for the update! That is so amazing that they gave you 1 year straight away! On the application did you ask for 6 months or a year or did you leave that bit blank?
Actually it was a Family Mart when we were there too I must’ve made a mistake in my original post!
Good news on the travel insurance being accepted too. We needed to have the medical insurance anyway as we don’t have coverage back home since we haven’t lived in the UK for over 10 years. But it’s good to hear normal travel insurance is accepted as that makes it cheaper and easier!
I’m so pleased you got a year! We applied for our extension last month and hoping to hear back soon. We did put on the application we were leaving in November as will be spending the winter elsewhere but I’m still hoping they’ll give us 6 months so we can come back and then start the new application when we come back 🤞🏼
When I filled out the form, I said that I planned to leave after six months. Actually, I was worried that it might be a problem if I said I intended to stay longer. When they asked me verbally I think I said something like, “Maybe a six months, maybe a year, I really like it here.” So really I unfortunately have no idea why I was given a year right off the bat.
Best of luck with the extension and your onward travels!
Yeah we were worried to put on we wanted longer! That’s so amazing you got a year! We just went to immigration as we got the approval postcard so spent the past 2 hours waiting and got approval for further 6 months ❤️
Congratulations to you and Henry!
That’s great news, thanks for the update! And thanks to Henry for updating his experience too! Sharing this bit of info I read regarding driving in Japan with a International Driving Permit (IDP), just in case anyone isn’t aware: https://www.police.pref.chiba.jp/english/International_license.html
Cheers!
Thank you, this is useful! We got Japanese driving licences based on our UK ones. Although we did have to prove we’d been in the UK for at least 3 months after passing our test (over 20 years ago!). They would only accept original documents so even though we had degree certificate we only had a copy so they wouldn’t accept. In the end they went through our passports noting dates of entry/exit to each country. As there was 3 months where we weren’t stamped in a country they assumed this meant we’d been in the UK (we hadn’t actually I’d just used a second passport to travel during that time) so they accepted that. However, my hubby had only used the one passport so his didn’t show he’d been in the UK they still gave him a Japanese licence but he has to use Wakaba (beginners) stickers on the car for 1 year. This didn’t have any negative effect though, we’ve rented cars etc on it and it didn’t cost any more.
Regarding the IDP I mentioned in my comment above, in a nutshell, if you are registered under their “Basic Resident Register”, which I assume is the case for long-stay tourist visa, if you exit Japan for less than 3 months and return to Japan, your next IDP is not valid – which means you are not allowed to drive in Japan for 1 year from the return date, unless you have their Japanese driving licence. The link above have diagrams that explain very clearly.
@cheryl: IDP is valid for 1 year from issuance though, so mine was issued on Sep 2023 and will be valid for driving in Japan until Sep 2024, regardless of my visa and travel situation?
Henry, what travel insurance did you use? How long was the term?
Berkshire Hathaway luxury care with a 1 year term. It was very affordable — I think around $130.
From when was your first 6 months dated? Was it when you submitted the change of residence application? Or was it automatically at the end of your first 3 months?
It was from the date we picked up the residence card
I’m in the midst of the process so far, but here’s what has worked:
– I just got the CoE approved, 24 days after applying at the Shinagawa office
– Went at 11am on a Wednesday and it took like 1.5 hours for this step of the process. I had all the documents prepared thanks to this blog — the form from the website was up-to-date, so I didn’t have to print it out like mentioned here
– Used Genki travel insurance (has flexible cancellation for 14 days and month-to-month payment)
– Stocks: I submitted a printout of my US brokerage account showing the required assets, but they did not accept this. I had a japanese speaker with me to talk about this. He said stocks were not acceptable because they can go up or down (I didn’t point out that the Japanese yen was far more volatile than my stocks….). The official gave me a self-addressed envelope and said use it to submit further proof of the required assets in a bank account as cash, not stocks. He said transferring cash now was fine, and it didn’t need to be 6 months. So, I just wired the money to my bank, print out that statement, and sent it in using the envelope the next day
– You can now sign up to get notified of the CoE approval by email (lady at the counter told us about this). So after sending in the extra proof, I heard about he approved CoE 23 days later via email. Apparently, the CoE site is what I can show in the next step
So, on to the next step. Hopefully, it will be snafu free.
Thanks for the update Rob!
Great news on the COE approval.
It’s good to know they accept monthly payment on the travel insurance also. We used to pay monthly for ours but on the policy document it then didn’t have an end date on it so we didn’t think they would accept it. Does your policy document show how long it’s valid for even if you pay monthly?
Thanks for clarifying the point on the stocks also. I guess it kinda makes sense. I wonder if they apply the same logic to mutual funds, I would assume so. But also on that note, I wonder what would be the case if you had significantly more in stocks than the required ¥30m. I guess the same logic would apply. But also, with cash you could simply just spend it the next day, buy a house or something, which is probably more likely than the value of stocks going down so much (and as you rightly say the ¥ currently being more volatile than stocks!). Anyway, it’s good to clarify that they don’t accept stocks.
That’s also great news about hearing about the COE by e-mail too, it hopefully quickens up the process by a couple of days and all that anxious waiting!
Have you managed to complete the next step yet to change your visa status to the designated activities one? Let us know how you got on 🙂
For Genki, yeah it does show a policy end date. Per your blog, I printed out the full policy document — like 40 pages, and I shrank the layout down to have 4 pages per page.
I showed them far more stocks than the ¥30m. I’m guessing that’s why they were pretty chill about me transferring the cash to my bank the next day and showing the print out of that bank statement (rather than 6 months of bank statements with the cash). I didn’t catch this, but my Japanese speaker said they insinuated that they were sure I could do something to get the cash into a bank account and that would be fine.
I’d like to think that this was a case where the bureaucracy made a reasonable judgement that I wouldn’t be a burden on the state and flexed the rules a little.
Ok, here’s how the change of status step went:
Got the email that said CoE was approved. Printed out the form for change of status and filled all that out along with the documents mentioned in the blog above (I highly recommend taking a photo of the final filled out forms you submit for the CoE in the first step– the forms are almost identical and it was hard to remember how I filled out the CoE forms with the corrections they asked for in the first step).
Went on a Friday at around 11:30 am. Went to the same form check counter that I went to in the first visit. There was no waiting in front of me when I got the number ticket. It took about 5 minutes for them to call me and 1 minute to look over the documents right there. Unfortunately, the person said I needed to print out the email that said my CoE was approved. This is despite the fact that the email said you can just show your phone. So, it took about 30 minutes to go to the Lawson downstairs and figure out how to print out an email on their machine from my iPhone. Save yourself the trouble and also print out this email
I then went back to the document check and flagged down the same lady (she said I didn’t need a new number). She took about 30 seconds to look at the printout and every thing else, and she handed me a piece of paper with a stamp that said to go counter B5. This was confusing at first because it was a long line that said “High Skill Visa.” I waited for about 30 minutes in this line and handed over the document package. It took about 1 minute for the person to look over everything. He had me write my return address on a postcard. And that was it. I asked about the line being called High Skill Visa, and they said the same department also handles this Designated Activities visa (Tokutei Visa), that’s why it was this line.
The whole thing could have been done in 30 mins if I had the print out of the CoE approval email, I reckon. Print everything out if you’re not sure I guess would be my advice.
13 days later, I got my postcard in the mail saying the Visa was approved and to come within the next two weeks to do the final step. So, I’ll do that in a few days
Hi! I’m currently starting my plans to apply for the Visa. I’ve been doing some research on health insurance plans/insurance companies, which is required for the application. Just wondering if you have any good recommendations? Thanks!
Perhaps a silly question but if one is attempting to get this visa with their spouse (who does not qualify on their own), do they need to fill out and print out two copies of everything? For example: CoE, Visa application, bank statements, marriage certificate, etc..
I’ve also seen mixed comments on whether one needs 30M Yen or 60M Yen if the couple is staying together the entire time – is there a definitive answer to this?
You have to print separate application forms, COE but only 1 copy of bank statements, medical policies, marriage certificate etc of applying together at the same time. If you are applying separately or are travelling separately then you will need 1 copy of everything for each person. If you travel together, enter together then you only need to hit the ¥30m requirement but if you enter separately, then you are classed as 2 separate applications so need to have ¥30m each.
I Thank you for the detailed post. My husband and I have been thinking about how we can apply for this visa without going back to the US. We have contacted several lawyers in Japan and all except one said this visa needs to be done at our home country and one said it might be possible. I do have several questions
1. Did you get a Japan phone number and is that how they are able to call you when they couldn’t deliver the COA approval?
2. Did your itenirary have a lot of different places in Japan? You mentioned that you bought a house, can that city suffice as where you want to go?
3. If we do not have friends in Japan to use as permanent address, what do you think would work? We will stay in an Airbnb.
4. Can one leave and re enter Japan with this visa?
5. Are there any Japan tax liabilities?
6. Is it ok to have a copy of the marriage certificate instead of the original?
Please do post an update on when you apply for this again a year after.
Thanks again!
Hi,
We also consulted a couple of lawyers and they didn’t really seem to know much about it so in the end we thought it was better to just do it ourselves and make our own way through the process as it seemed pointless spending money on a lawyer that clearly wasn’t so sure. It’s certainly possible to do in the country as we have proven (and others commenting). In response to your questions;
1. Did you get a Japan phone number and is that how they are able to call you when they couldn’t deliver the COA approval? Yes we had a Japanese phone number as soon as we landed. We used Mobal which was delivered to the UK before we arrived in Japan so we had access the moment we landed. If you want voice calls and a Japanese number you will need a physical sim delivered or you can pick up in Japan – https://www.mobal.com/japan-sim-card/?source=3486
2. Did your itenirary have a lot of different places in Japan? You mentioned that you bought a house, can that city suffice as where you want to go? We listed about 10 different places on our itinerary but they were quite generic and when we renewed we didn’t have to prove anywhere we had been.
3. If we do not have friends in Japan to use as permanent address, what do you think would work? We will stay in an Airbnb. If you plan to stay in the same Air BnB then you can ask the owner if you can use their address for mail. If not, I’m not sure what else other than perhaps befriending the local izakaya owner or something and using their address?
4. Can one leave and re enter Japan with this visa? Yes we have done this multiple times. You just need to fill in a form before you leave to confirm you will be coming back.
5. Are there any Japan tax liabilities? This will depend on your circumstances and best to speak to a tax advisor on this as it varies a lot depending on your income and source of it.
6. Is it ok to have a copy of the marriage certificate instead of the original? We didn’t actually submit our marriage certificate as we forgot (even though it’s asked). I assume a copy will be sufficient as they keep all of the documents you submit.
Hope this helps and good luck!
Thanks so much for putting this together! This is all very helpful. We’re looking to start apply for the COE soon, and in hopes of not making any mistakes, I’m wondering if the application form number 16 near the bottom of this page is the correct one to use?
https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/procedures/16-1-1.html?hl=en
If it is, I don’t think I see a specific option in the form for “Long-term stayers for the purpose of sightseeing”, in which case, I take it you just select number “10, others”?
Hi, yes this seems to be the correct form and you are right in choosing option 10 and then just writing long term sightseeing 🙂 Good luck!
Since your 6-month extension ends in April, have you applied for another visa yet? Or, do you need to wait until it ends first?
Thanks!
We are heading back to Japan this week and plan to head to immigration the day after we arrive to apply for a new COE. Hopefully this arrives before the current visa expires so we can then apply for a new one 🤞🏼
I will update on here and also do a new post on the process once we’ve done it 🙏
Nice. Very curious how they feel about repeating this visa over and over
I’ve spoken to one person who has done this before and he told me that as long as you continue to qualify they are totally fine with it. I hope he is right 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🙏🙏🙏
Hi! Found your blog with all this helpful information today, just wanted to thank you for writing and responding to all these people’s questions! (which some were also mine).
In the stocks talk to meet the COE I got curious if they would accept bonds instead (as they are mostly fixed value), it’s very specific though I guess I’ll find out when I apply.
Looking forward to your next application too 👌
Good luck with your application. I would expect that they would accept bonds because they have a maturity date so it would suggest that as long as the maturity was in 6 months+ they should accept. That’s my view any way but let us know how it goes!
My wife and I got our COE over email yesterday after 4 weeks since application — we have been eagerly and anxiously awaiting this result as our visa-exempt status is expiring on Tuesday next week. We went to the Osaka Immigration Regional Office to apply for Change of Visa same day. I had to wait for 2 hours for my visa application to be processed and to receive a receipt. Overall this post has been the main source of information and insights for my successful and smooth application process. Thank you so much.
Again, must definitely ask to receive your COE online which would help avoid the anxiety and slowness of waiting for the mail.
Thanks for letting us know the current waiting times! I hope ours arrives in a similar time for our renewal. We had planned to go yesterday to submit the papers for the COE but when we arrived into Japan one of our bags didn’t make it. And guess which bag all the papers I had prepared were in!!!! Thankfully it’s been delivered now so will be heading to submit on Monday. It’s going to be an anxious few weeks waiting 🙏🙏🙏
wow, amazing preparation. You should have plenty of time to get your electronic COE though. You also dont need a permanent address to get the physical COE in the mail so you could freely travel while waiting.
Hi nah! During your COE application, did you submit a copy of your marriage certificate or must you show them your original marriage certificate? Thanks.
We didn’t actually submit the marriage certificate at all, we forgot. But we each qualified individually so I think that’s why they didn’t ask us for it. We did plan to submit it for the second application but would only submit a copy not show the original.
we tried to show our marriage status via our most recent US tax return form but they didn’t accept it. Fortunately we were able to find our copy of marriage certificate back home and print it out. They only accepted the copy with an official stamp.
I guess I better bring my original marriage certificate – just in case. Thanks to both for your quick responses!
Hi Nah and Wylie,
We just went to Osaka immigration to apply for the COE. Before accepting our application, we were informed that we needed to leave Japan and apply for the long term visa in our country. Did either of you experience that? We have not gotten our approval yet.
Thanks!
Hey
We’ve heard this many times that you need to leave and apply in home country but we’ve never had to. Same with most others who’ve commented on this post.
We’ve simply just gone back to immigration with our COE and applied for the change of status and all has been done without leaving Japan.
Maybe it’s different rules at Osaka but if I remember rightly someone else in the comments got theirs done at Osaka also. If I were you I would just go back once you have the COE approval and do the application for change of status.
Hi Wylie, what date did you use for the date of entry on the CoE application? I used the date we were originally planning to leave on our visa exempt entry. Thanks for your quick reply.
The date of entry is the date you entered Japan for your current stay.
same, if you get your COE approval (sign up for email recipient to receive it instantly, much faster than by mail) before your visa exempt expires, you could go to Immigration and submit Visa Change of Status then you could just wait for the Change of Status to be approved, and dont have to leave Japan even if you visa exempt expires.
My visa exempt was set to expired 3 days before I got COE approval in the email so the weeks leading to that date (I would have to buy flight ticket to leave Japan before my visa exempt expiration if I dont have COE approval) were full of anxiety for me.
Thank you. This has put us more at ease.
Thank you so much for this wealth of information, it’s super helpful! Were you able to renew your second visa from inside Japan? 🙂 thank you!
Unfortunately it’s not possible to renew it inside Japan. You have 2 options;
1. Apply for COE before the end of your extension. If you receive it before the visa expires you must take the COE to an Embassy overseas to apply for the new visa.
2. You leave Japan before the visa expires and re enter on a new 90 days tourist visa. Then apply for the COE on your return in the same way as the original visa.
This is what we were told at Shinagawa. We will be trying option 2 shortly 🙏
Ah yes, apologies, I didn’t write it correctly, my fault! I was referring to your second application for the Visa, not a renewal (sorry, English is not my first language). I hope the process will go smoothly and quickly! Thank you again 🙂
Yes I think we mean the same thing 🙂 We applied for the first visa in Japan and then we extended it for 6 months in Japan. But when we went to apply for new COE so we could renew/reapply we were told we had the 2 options but both meant we have to leave Japan. Had we known this we would have tried to enter this time on a tourist visa instead of with the residence card. However it means we get a trip to visit our friend in Korea for a few days. Just hope they let us back in on the 90 day tourist visa after having already spent 9 months here on the designated activities. Fingers crossed!
Ps the application form we used online was out of date so we had to get an updated form from information. I believe the form I’ve linked now is the correct up to date one (thanks to one of our commenters for the correct link). When we asked for the updated form we were asked what we wanted it for. When we explained the first guy didn’t even know about designated activities for long term sightseeing. The second guy (English speaking) said we could 100% not get it for a second time. When we explained the desk upstairs (counter T) said we could, he shrugged and said oh well, if they agreed, good luck.
So still seems the general information is not well known about this visa, even amongst the immigration staff!
Hello,
I currently hold the same visa , only expiry on dec 2024. I have a few questions:
If the visa has not expired, how can I re-enter on a new 90-day tourist visa (option 2)?
Do I need to return the residence card? What happens if I am overseas when the residence card expires?
I’m grateful to have found this post. It’s really difficult to find forums discussing this visa.”
Hi John, I got my visa last month. The immigration office (Osaka) told me and also has a poster explained that I could freely leave Japan and return, as long as my visa/residence card has not expired.
Hi John, I got my visa last month. The immigration office (Osaka) told me and also has a poster explained that I could freely leave Japan and return, as long as my visa/residence card has not expired.
Hi
I’m not entirely sure. We left on the day our residence card expired. On departure we filled in a form to say we weren’t coming back and agreeing that when we return we would need to apply for a new visa. We handed over our residence cards and they stamped a hole in it.
We came back with 90 day tourist visa no problem after 5 days outside of Japan.
If it expires whilst you are out of the country I guess that means you can come back as a tourist but I personally think it’s better when you leave to tell them you aren’t coming back on that one so it’s definitely closed from their end leaving no worries about coming back.
Hi! Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It’s so helpful as I also plan to apply the visa for long-term stay. Just a question about the following requirement:
– “Proof of savings of ¥30,000,000” required
Do I need to convert my saving to Japanese yen? Or I just need to show the equivalent amount in my local currency?
Hi, you don’t need to convert it to ¥, just show the equivalent in your local currency (which at the moment is probably quite low!) when we first looked at this visa the amount converted to around £200,000 but it’s now only £155,000!
Hello,
sorry for the late reply.
Thank you for the reply and i get the full picture of it.
anyway fyi , i did my extension of 6months in osaka and i was able to get the new card on the same day.
i not sure if i was luckily or maybe that how they does for this extension of the visa.
Does that mean you got a sooner end date as a result (your current visa and the extension overlap more)?
Hi John, if your visa only expires in December 2024 why did you apply for the extension already? That’s good news you got the extension on the same day as we had to submit the application with all the documents then wait for the outcome before going back to get the new card. Maybe they do it differently in Osaka as we did ours in Shinagawa.
Just did the extension in Shinagawa today. Arrived at like 130pm on Thursday. Took about an hour at the office all in after making a few mistakes.
– didn’t go straight to counter T because the person at the top of the escalator was directing us to the Lon counter B line. Ignore this and go to T. T will then check and approve the docs and send you to B5 (which had no line, unlike regular counter B)
– I also downloaded old forms and had to fill it out again at T. Make sure the current form has a spot for photos. The one I first got on google didn’t
I think it would have taken 30 minutes all in without these mistakes
Thanks for the update! There always seems to be something that catches you out that causes a delay! Last time for us it was going just before lunch break and then not getting a ticket number at counter T 🤦🏼♀️
Just got the post card. So 3 weeks from doing the renewal visit. Will go back just before my current visa ends to get the renewed resident card
Thanks for the update again, it’s good to know they are still efficient on the approvals. Just be careful on the date you go for the card as if I remember rightly there’s a 2 week window on the postcard that you can go to collect the card. Although I’m not sure what happens if you don’t go in that time.
For the extension did you get the option to receive the result by email like you can now for COE?
We are still waiting for the COE approval for the second time round. Currently on day 10 🤞🏼
Are there any tax implications for staying in Japan for a year with this visa?
as far as I understand you become tax resident after living here for 5 years. But it obviously depends on your personal circumstances, where you earn your money, what tax you pay on it, whether that country has a tax treaty with Japan etc.
If you are concerned you are best to speak to a tax advisor but this visa is generally not well known so it often causes confusion, even with the ward offices eg we were originally given Japanese health insurance cards which were later revoked as they realised the residence card was still ultimately a tourist visa. But we also still get all the invites for free health checks etc 🤷🏼♀️
Hi! I am also planning to apply for the Visa. May I know how did you made your schedule of stay? Is that day by day? Someone told me week by week is possible. Would you be so kind to share your schedule of stay if possible? Many thanks!
well , my first visa (6 month) was expired on july 2024, so i extend 3 months before it expired which is around april 2024. the dec 2024 was the final date after extend for the last time. i am curious , so have apply for the new COE ? i will doing the same thing after my expired date of dec 2024.
Hi, we did ours month by month. I’m not comfortable sharing ours as it has details of our location etc but we were vet generic eg Month : June, Location : Tokyo, activities : General sightseeing, Disneyland, Shinjuku, Place of stay : our address.
If you look at the new blog post I just posted for our renewal, I have a picture on there of the titles we used.
Sorry I’m a bit confused. Why did you extend so early if you still had 3 months left?
Also, when you extended it, to confirm they gave you an additional 6 months from the date of original expiry, is that right? So in total you still got the full 12 months ie your first visa started Dec 2023 and expired Dec 2024?
As when we extended ours, they only gave us 6 months from the date we got the new resident cards after extension.
When your visa expires in December you need to leave the country regardless. You can either apply for COE before you leave and when that’s approved you take that to the Japanese embassy in your home country (or a country that will approve for non residents) to get a new visa. Or you leave Japan and hand over your residence card on departure and then come back in on another visitor visa and do the process the same as before in country. We opted for option 2 and going through the process now. You can see the updated post about this on the blog – https://wylietraveldog.com/renewing-a-long-term-tourist-visa-japan/
That really helps a lot. Thank you so much!
You’re welcome 🙂
Hi! Do you know if holders of this Visa are eligible to buy JR pass? Thx
Hi, no they aren’t eligible for it. Although there are some passes you can get as a foreigner. But not the main one. Although since the price has gone up I am not sure it’s cost effective any more anyway.
You are right. Thank you
Hi Wylie!
Thank you so much for putting this article together. SUPER HELPFUL! I think my wife and I are going to make the leap and apply for this.
Could you drop the updated link to the application in the comments? I’ve tried all the links here and they all bounce or go to the main immigration page (which is in Japanese).
I appreciate your help!
This is the link https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/procedures/16-1.html if it is Japanese you can simply choose to translate the page on your browser (as with all foreign pages Chrome has an option to translate).
But every time we’ve used an application form from online when we’ve got to immigration they said it was an old form. So I wouldn’t 100% rely on it and be prepared to do a new one when you get there.
Thank you!
I also see that maybe the application has been moved online but I don’t know if this visa qualifies?
https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/online/onlineshinsei.html?hl=en
You can’t do the application online when you are on a visitor visa already 😩 but you can receive the result of the COE via email.
When I looked before you need some kind of card reader to read your residence card to be able to apply for things online. From what I read from people who tried to do this way they said it was easier to just go to immigration.
Hi, our entire application process went smoothly thanks to your detailed blog. My husband and I applied for our COE at the Shinagawa office, arrived after lunch at 1:30pm and the whole process took about 1.5 hour. We received COE approval email after 14 days. A couple days later, we were back at Shinagawa – it was a Friday and the place was packed like sardines! Again, we reached after lunch at 1pm, a full tummy before the hard work 😬. Got ourselves a queue number at Counter T and after they checked our documents, we were sent to Counter B5 where they gave us a postcard to fill in our address – this time, we were done in 1 hour. 14 days later, we opened our mailbox to the beautiful sight of our postcard (instead of the usual junk flyers)! We’ll be back at Shinagawa soon to get our residence cards. Thank you so much! 🙂🙂
Great news, thanks for the updates. It’s useful to hear from everyone as to how long each stage is currently taking. We applied for our second COE last Tuesday so we should hopefully get the e-mail next week if your timelines are anything to go by. It’s a shame they don’t send the confirmation for the change of status approval by e-mail also, seems a bit strange they’ll do some electronically but not others. Picking up the residence cards was always the long wait for us, between 2-3 hours. I’m tempted to try early morning next time to see if it’s any quicker. Let us know how it goes for you!
Hi! Here’s my latest update: Back at Shinagawa a couple days back, got our revenue stamps and went up to 2nd floor to join the massive queue for Counter A1 at 130pm. After we pasted the revenue stamps on the forms, we waited what seems like eternity 😣before our queue number was called. Finally received our residence cards at 435pm!🥳This seems pretty aligned with your experiences so far – 3 hours wait time. The waiting felt like eternity coz we couldn’t use our mobile data – ours with Mobal (Softbank) wasn’t working – 2nd time it happened! And this seems to only happen on the 2nd floor 😑 Totally bizarre! I’ve read early mornings may be quicker, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort of waking up earlier, squeezing the trains with the peak hour office crowd, queuing at the immigration before they open etc. 🤷♀️ Anyhow, hopefully you have received news on your 2nd COE!
Great news, it’s such a relief to get those cards in your hands so worth the 3 hour wait for sure. I think next time we’ll probably head back into Shinagawa instead of hanging around in the sweat box. I can’t imagine how bad it will be in there now the weather has ramped up too. We have the same issue with reception on our phones too it almost never works. We are with Mobal too. But yeah we can never manage to make it in the morning either, the afternoons seem to suit us better too
We haven’t heard back about our COE yet, it will be 3 weeks on Tuesday coming so hopefully will be soon!
When we applied for our COE, the lady at the COE counter E asked us when we will like to have our COE. We found the question rather peculiar – isn’t it up to them whether they were going to approve? Anyway we told her “2 weeks from today?”. She took a look at the calendar, counted out the date 2 weeks later and told us to write that date on our COE forms. And true enough, our COE email approval came exactly in 2 weeks. Not sure if you or anyone has the same experience. Just sharing.
That’s interesting. They didn’t give us any timeframe it was only when we asked she said 2-3 months. But they also said that last time so we had hoped it would be as quick as last time but now we are 3 weeks and counting and still no result.
Hello! Thanks again for this wealth of information! Is there a validity period for the COE (eg. is a COE only valid for three months after issuance)? I’m just trying to figure out how much time I have before I need to move on to the next step after the COE is issued.
Thanks!!
Yes COE is valid for 3 months after it’s issued. After you receive it you apply for the change of status of residence. almost everyone you speak to (including immigration helpdesk) say you can’t change status in country and you must go back to your home country. But it is possible as you can see from the comments here the amount of people who have been successful. I guess there’s always just the chance you get the one officer who says no and if you leave it too close to the expiry of your visitor visa it could be an issue in terms of leaving in time etc.
Thanks! Yeah, it did seem a little confusing. Would this be the right form to use for the change of status of residence?
https://www.moj.go.jp/ONLINE/IMMIGRATION/16-2-1.pdf
If so, I assume you also choose here no. 14 on the second page?
Yes that’s right, although when we’ve used the form we printed from the website we’ve always had to redo as they say it’s an old one. So now we just get it from immigration itself to save wasting time having to do it again.
Got it. Thanks so much!
Hi Gene, we used this form for the change of status of residence, which has the part to affix your photo. We didn’t have any issue with this form when we did our submission.
https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930004088.pdf
Not sure why there are multiple change of status of residence forms on their MOJ website.
Thanks, I’ll link this one in the article!
You’re most welcome. You may want to link the COE application form too? We used this without any issue too.
https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930004058.pdf
Done! Thank you 🙂
We got the approval for our second COE today, which took 3.5 weeks in total! Strange to receive on a Saturday morning (7am) but I’m not complaining! Our post for the renewing process can be found here – https://wylietraveldog.com/renewing-a-long-term-tourist-visa-japan/
🥳 Fabulous news! What a great relief and an excellent way to kick off your weekend 😎
Yes it was! We went today and submitted the change of status which only took 45 minutes and that’s cos we got 1 super slow guy at counter B5. The lady at the next counter processed about 6 people in the same time as he processed us. So we would have been done within about 20 minutes in total had we got her! It seems much more streamlined now as we went straight from counter T to B5 where they did the postcard too. On our first trip we went to counter B1 and then waited in a numbered Q for B4. So it seems much more efficient now. So now the wait for the illustrious postcard!
Update, we got the wonderous postcard today in the mailbox, exactly 2 weeks after we submitted the change of status request. Exactly the same as the last posters experience! So happy 🙂
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Congrats! 2 weeks’ wait is really less excruciating isn’t it? Btw, did you apply for My Number Card? We just received the application forms, wondering if it’s worth the effort since it has a expiry date which seems to tie in with the expiry date of the visa. 🤔
Haha yes it’s awful but not as awful as the wait to collect the residence card 😂 we went today and the wait said 120 minutes but it took us 30 mins in the queue and then 3 hours to get the card. It was disgustingly hot and sweaty too 🥵
It was so annoying as it got to our number (591) and they called 590,594,595 and went all the way into the 700s before ours got called 😩
Now at the ward office getting our address put on. We got a my number card the first time but it only lasts the 6 months and we never used it. When we extended the ward office said no point to have since we are on tourist visa so we didn’t renew it and we aren’t going to bother to get it this time either.
Hi, a few more logistical questions from a curious reader: I’m seeing there are effectively two steps to applying for this visa once you’re already in japan: (1) applying for the CoE and (2) once the CoE is issued, change of residence status.
Q1: As far as I understand that step 1 is done in person at the immigration office, and that the CoE approval can be received via e-mail. Is this understanding correct?
Q2: Once the CoE approval e-mail comes in and you apply for the change of residence at immigration, is there again an option to receive the approval via e-mail? Asking since I may not have a “permanent” place of abode while in this phase of waiting for the visa. (i.e., might be moving around various AirBNBs, etc.).
Q3: Also, logistically, I’m assuming this requires one final trip to immigration to get some final documents / passport updates, is that right?
Thanks!
Hi,
Yes your understanding is correct.
1. This is correct
2. There is no option to receive the result by email. I’m not really sure why. You have to fill out a postcard with your address on. I’m not really sure what is the best option if you are between places. Our first time we put a friends address down but it got sent back to immigration as our names weren’t registered to his address.
3. Yes one final trip to immigration in person to collect the residence card 🙏
Thank you! I’ll make sure to inquire about their best recommendation for #2 once I’m applying for this visa early next year – but luckily I know some friends in Japan already that could help if necessary.
Just make sure you put their name on the postcard rather than yours so that it doesn’t get returned 🙏
Thanks for this detailed information. It’s super helpful!
I just applied for this visa in San Francisco, but was swiftly denied and told that I need a COE. The website seems to imply that you can apply without a COE (it says “if you submit the Certificate of Eligibility, you do not need to submit (4) to (6) below”). I tried that and included all of the necessary documents, but it obviously didn’t work. So either the website is misleading or I did something else wrong. I thought I would share that experience here in case it’s useful for anyone else to know.
Anyway, thanks again for your post. It’s great to know that the option to get this visa while in Japan exists and I think I’ll just take that approach.
Oh that’s strange as when we checked with the Japan embassy in Bangkok they confirmed that we could apply without the COE as long as we provided the extra documents. They just said it would take longer than if you had the COE.
But it’s easy enough to do once you are here and you end up getting a bit longer stay as you can take advantage of the time on the visitor visa first also.
I forgot to ask one important question: How is your Japanese? What level is required for going through the process in Japan?
Our Japanese is pretty much non existent, especially for these kind of things. There ar every few English speakers in immigration which I do find quite strange given they will primarily be dealing with foreigners. However, last time we were there they all had iPad translation so it made it much easier. There was also 1 lady out the back who spoke really good English and she helped when we had one tricky question.
Hello, I really enjoyed your article on getting a long-term tourist visa in Japan, Wylie!… You’ve simplified the application process, which is no small feat given how tricky it can be to find reliable guidance. Your passion for relocating to Japan is evident, and your reflections will resonate with anyone drawn to the Land of the Rising Sun. Navigating Dubai’s visa system can be confusing, but Regal Travel Agency can help. Their expert team makes it easier to get the visa you need. Your article is a fantastic resource – thanks for sharing your journey!
Thank you! We lived in Dubai for 5 years some time ago now. At that time everything visa wise was handled by our companies PRO, but it seems there’s lots more options for visa’s there now that you can do on your own.
Wylie,
Now that you’ve been in Japan for over a year on this + tourist visas, have you needed to file a Japanese tax return? The only reason I’m hesitant to follow in your pawprints is my potential exposure to becoming a “tax resident.” That would be problematic because of my passive income (stock sales / interest / dividends).
Thank you.
Yes, you need to speak to the local tax office in your ward to explain your circumstances and they will advise you on what you need to do. If you are paying tax on your passive income in the country where it is earned it’s unlikely you’ll need to pay any additional tax here in Japan. But it depends on a few different things so the tax office in your ward can advise you on your specific circumstances. They are very helpful and the only people that can advise you correctly as it’s quite a niche visa/circumstances it might take a few trips. My advice is not to take advice from the internet/blogs etc for tax advice as each persons circumstances are different and the tax office are the only ones that can give the official information.
OMG I wish I had read Spencer’s comment before today, but alas I didn’t and also tried applying in San Francisco.
For what is worth, I got a similar response saying I can’t apply without a COE. The email said:
“You cannot apply for the designated activities visa for 6 month stay in the US. The first step is you apply for your Certificate of Eligibility (COE) through Japanese immigration. You must obtain a COE first in order to apply for the designated activities longer-term sightseeing visa (6 months and 1 year). through the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco.”
I had called them before applying some time ago, and they seemed a bit clueless about this specific visa but indicated I could apply. Probably this visa being uncommon didn’t help.
Next I’ll follow your guide and apply from Japan. Thank you for the super detailed description of the process, it helps so much!
Ugh that really sucks, since it’s definitely possible. I guess they don’t want to do the extra work involved without the COE 🙁 Anyway, at least you know it can be done when in Japan, and doing it that way also gives you a bit longer stay as well so it does have it’s advantages!
Ah yeah, the extra time will be appreciated for sure!
I’m curious about printing in a Family Mart that you mentioned above, how does it work? Is it from a pen drive? Thank you!
There’s a few ways you can do it, you can use a USB for sure or you can download an app called Print Smash which links to your phone and then you can send the documents from your files on your phone. It’s best to convert the document to a PDF to do this though as printing from a photo/jpeg is a lot more expensive. It’s ¥10 per sheet.
It’s super useful you can do lots of stuff from the photocopier we even bought bicycle insurance from it (although for that we needed help from our Japanese friend as was all in Japanese) 😂
You should print everything before you get there. That family mart is busy and it’s a huge waste of time to figure it out when you are there
Yes that’s a very good point. The first time I tried to use it was in immigration and there was so much stress as there was a big queue, having to download the app when the signal in there is super bad and it’s not the easiest to work out at first 😂
So definitely print out everything you need in advance!
So, thought I would share my experience, see if anyone else has had something similar happen.
I went to regional immigration office not far outside of Tokyo just after lunch time. Had all the documentation and then some.
After looking things over a very nice lady asked my to fill out a change of residence form and not use the COE for I had filled out. She explained that it could take two months to get COE approved, but if I wanted just ask for change of residence and I would leave today with a residence card. I had to leave to get the 4000y revenue stamp, came back and signed that form then waited about an hour and left with a residence card good for six months which they said I could extend when it expires.
All seemed a lil too easy…
Wow that is really strange but I guess if you have the residence card and it’s issued by immigration then it has to be right. Which immigration office was that?
Chiba. I was kinda questioning it, but I was not about to argue with them!
I have heard anecdotally from someone that they received a long stay visa from same office quite easily, would think things would be fairly uniform but who knows. Thailand immigration offices seem to make up the rules on the spot depending where you are.
I will add I had all my paperwork in order and more than enough of the required funds, and probably over did it on the documentation of financials, also I dressed the part. I implore people when dealing with immigration anywhere, dress very nice, trust me they notice.
Wylie, just to clarify, when you extend at the 6 month mark do you have to resubmit all the documents or is it just a form that needs to be filled out and request a new residence card? Thanks again for all the info you have shared, very helpful!
That’s good info, we’ll have to try that next time. Do you live out that way or you just heard it was an easier office? We were told you had to go to one for your address but I guess if a visitor visa it’s a bit harder to determine?
I take it you’ve been in Thailand a while also then 😂 we experienced so many different offices there and as you say each one makes it up as they go! Not only that but each officer too 😂😂😂
And don’t get me started on the dress code! Thailand was the pits for this, especially the islands like Samui. However, even in Shinagawa I commented on this after our last visit. There were people in leather mini skirts, crop tops, guts hanging out (and that was just the guys 😉) one time we even saw a guy in full cycling Lycra gear including the cycling shoes! I don’t know what people are thinking at times. We always go dressed the part and always remain polite and friendly no matter how frustrating it may be. You aren’t going to help your cause when shouting and arguing with the agents which we’ve seen a lot too!
Congrats on getting it so easy, it’s a huge relief getting that card!
Congratulations on getting your visa and thank you for a great article. This will likely come in very handy for others, and me.
I’m also a UK national. Earlier this year I spent 180 days in Japan. I entered on a 90-day tourist visa and extended for another 90 days without leaving.
Before 180 days outside Japan pass I’d like to return for a short tip. You write in your article “the maximum you can stay is 180 days out of every 365 days”. I’ve searched but have not found this stated officially anywhere. Can you share a link to where you got this information? I ask because I’ve read conflicting things posted online.
See note 8 from MOFA – https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/short/novisa.html
(Note 8) For nationals of those countries with visa exemptions permitting stays of up to 6 months under the bilateral visa exemption arrangements, those who wish to stay in Japan for more than 90 days are required to apply for an extension of the period of stay to the Ministry of Justice (Regional Immigration Bureau) before the period of permitted stay is to expire.
As a UK National you enter on a 90 day temporary visitor visa under the bilateral visa exemption which means the maximum length of time you can stay is 180 days.
I have heard people who have come back within that timeframe and been allowed in but it really depends on the immigration agent on arrival and if they follow the rules (which Japanese are well known for being sticklers on) then they shouldn’t let you back in within that time. I also know of people who were really grilled (there’s one comment on this thread I think) when coming back in also.
It’s not something I’d personally want to risk, your best option would be to apply for an actual visa if you want to come back in within the 180 days and they can assess your situation and give approval in advance. Takes away the risk of paying for flights etc and then being denied entry on arrival.
Also, if you were denied entry, in the future every time you enter Japan you would need to disclose you’d been denied entry so would be much harder to come back in the future as well.
Thank you for your detailed reply and for sharing the link. I don’t see any mention of 180 or 365 days on that page. However, a Japanese friend has shared an article from a Japanese lawyer (in Japanese) that discusses the 180-day rule and states the “180-day rule has no legal basis” but the “180-day rule is a rule that is applied in the practice of immigration examinations”, which is in line with what you stated when you wrote that it really depends on the immigration agent on arrival.
I’ll share the link here, as others may find it helpful. https://visasupportnavi.net/news/3131/
Your suggestion to apply for an actual visa so they can assess my situation and give approval in advance makes a lot of sense, so I’ll try that.
Thanks again, Matthew
I just read the note relating to the UK as meaning you can stay up to 6 months ie 180 days due to the bilateral visa agreement. It doesn’t state per year though so I guess it is ambiguous as to whether it’s per year or per entry and I’ve not seen anything that specifically clarifies. Your best bet would be to write to the Embassy/immigration to confirm 100% from those that enforce the rules then at least if you have something from them in writing you can show that at the airport if there are any issues 🙏
Did you remain in Japan while your COE, change of residence status, etc applications were being processed? Do you know of any issue with leaving Japan during these periods? I’ll need to reapply for my visa soon but have short trip plans that will require me to leave the country interspersed through the next six months.
Thank you again for all that you’ve written on this topic! The comment section has only added to the value of the post. It’s now BY FAR the best knowledge repository for this visa.
Hey, yes we stayed in the country when anything was being processed. We were in the same boat that we had a trip planned not long after we submitted our change of status (like within a couple of weeks). We asked the question if we could leave and were told absolutely not. So once we submitted the application at counter B we went back to counter T to explain and told them our flight details. A really great lady came from the back who spoke perfect English and she guaranteed for us we would get the approval before our flight. It was very nerve wracking still though. But we were told that once it is submitted you can’t leave.
We had considered not submitting the change of status until we came back rather than submitting just before we left but we were unsure whether the COE was somehow linked to the visitor visa and we just didn’t want to take the risk. We think it would have been ok but couldn’t say for sure and didn’t want to risk it. In hindsight we should have just done that trip as a normal tourist and then applied for the COE when we came back from it. But we were also worried about whether there’d be questions asked coming back in on another tourist visa so we just wanted the certainty. If it was just us it wouldn’t be so bad but having Wylie in Japan we can’t really risk being denied entry!
To those who have successfully obtained this visa, what type of account did you keep your 30M+ yen? I’m trying to avoid the opportunity cost of just parking it in a savings account for at least six months.
Thanks.
Is there any guidance on how soon you can apply for the visa extension?
Could one:
(a) apply for the extension at the same time they’re applying for the change in residence status (after COE step)?
(b) as soon as the visa is granted?
(c) some time closer to the visa expiration itself? within what time period?
One of the commenters appeared to apply for the extension when they still had a lot of time left so it seems it’s possible.
We chose to leave it right to the end to maximise the time we got (since you get 2 months from the date of your application extension until it’s approved). As we weren’t sure whether the 6 month extension would be given from the date you were approved or from the date of the original expiration but we didn’t want to take the risk
Interesting, was the extension granted to you an additional 6 months on your original approval, on top of the extra 2 months they granted at extension time, or something else?
Our 6 month extension was given to us on the day of the approval. The dates of our approvals are in the original post (Our visa was due to expire on 24th September so we went back to Shinagawa immigration on 6th September) We were then given a 2 month extension (stamp on the residence card) so we could stay until 6th November)
When the approval comes you have a 2 week window in which to get your new residence card. It didn’t take the full 2 months for the approval (we had a 2 week window until 17th October to pick it up and we went on 17th October. Our cards/extension were issued on 17th October which gave us until 17th April for the extension)
If we had gone before the previous visa expired, my thought was that the extension would be given from the date of the approval when you pick up the new card. Hence we didn’t want to apply earlier. That’s not confirmed by the way, it’s just what we thought. Maybe someone else has tried to apply earlier and can confirm.
But our experience of applying close to the end of expiry was that the extension was given from the date you pick up the new card.
Gotcha, thanks! Interestingly, with the all of the approvals and extensions, you’d be able to stay longer than 12 months on that particular visa (more or less the delta would be their processing time, or up to a max of 2 months more).
Indeed, it would be interesting to hear other data points.
From my POV, it would be ideal to just apply for the 12 months at once or apply for the additional 6 months as soon as the original visa approval comes in – that way if I’m traveling across the country then I won’t have to make as many detours back to Tokyo…
I suppose I can ask at immigration once I’m applying for this (in February).
Yes that’s right. Given you get the 2 month extension when applying for the original visa also, you can work it so you get 16 months really.
It’ll be interesting to hear what they say when you ask.
My personal opinion is that I can’t see them giving the extension straight away else they would just give a 1 year straight off. The point of the extension is to confirm you still meet the requirements at that point in time and you haven’t haemorrhaged through the money. If they give at the same time/close to the original application your situation would still be the same. So I can’t personally see them approving an extension so quickly. But stranger things have happened!
One commenter did say they got a 1 year when they applied originally but wasn’t sure why or how as they had applied normally. So it’s worth a shot for sure!
Hi, on the application for residence card form available from this link https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930004088.pdf, which option should I select please?
Anyone else getting national pension notices with demands to pay? These guys are relentless!! Even on a long stay tourist visa they seem to be registering people for nenkin.
We haven’t had any notification for this. A quick check on the Nenkin website confirms those on long term sightseeing visas are excluded from coverage https://www.nenkin.go.jp/international/japanese-system/nationalpension/nationalpension.html
I am already in Japan and trying to get this visa, and my only concern is to get the cheapest insurance incase I end up leaving. I am trying to get a quote for Berkshire which seems the cheapest, and it is asking for flights etc, which do not apply to me since I am here already, and zip code. Do you think it might accept Japan zip code where I currently am and I seem to have to put a fake flight date, since I am here already. Any ideas how would that work, I most likely will not use the insurance just want it to be valid for the immigration
You should check the T&C’s of the insurance because most require you to be resident of the country you are applying for the insurance from, and that you have not yet started your trip. If this is the case then the insurance will be invalid. If you put in fake flight details you need to be careful because you need to show the full policy with your application, so if the flight details are listed as your arrival date and immigration know you arrived earlier, then they will know the insurance isn’t valid and possibly decline the application. The insurance will most likely also not give a refund since you lied on the application and the insurance wouldn’t be valid so it’s a bit of a waste of money despite being cheapest.
On the application itself, I’m not seeing “Specified visa: Designated activities (Long Stay for sightseeing and recreation)”. Did you just check the “others” box and write it in?
Thanks.
Yes, if you check the comments, this question has been answered a number of times already 🙏
Hey, so did they take the copies of everything when you first applied or do they review it and give it back to you? Like copy of marriage certificate and or the bank statements.
Thanks.
Did y’all handwrite your form or type it on your laptop then print it out? Trying to decide what’s easier for them
They keep everything you give them so take copies if you want them back.
We’ve always hand written ours
Hey, so I applied yesterday and everything went smoothly, they accepted my typed form. The only part I had trouble on was signing up for the COE answer via email. I don’t think the officer at the counter understood my Google Translate, but in the end he handed me a form in Japanese that I had to translate and it basically said to sign up here: https://www.ras-immi.moj.go.jp/WC01/WCAAS010/
Then I was given a paper in Japanese that said to put my name, application ID, etc (information from this website I just signed up on.) So I matched everything to the best of my ability to the application.
Is this what everyone else did to receive the results of the COE via email?
Yes that’s right
Thanks. Last thing, on the website I signed up FIRST MIDDLE LAST instead of LAST MIDDLE FIRST, should I update the website now to reflect my name to LAST MIDDLE FIRST? Don’t want to have any problems with COE email delivery.
Question for you (or everyone else), has anyone had any luck signing a lease in Tokyo with this visa?
Good question! We bought a place so not sure how it works for rental. Hopefully someone else will be able to answer 🙏
Does that mean you’re doing the visa a third time?
Yes we will be applying for third COE shortly. We didn’t apply for the extension on the second visa as we were out of Japan for a few months. So will do another COE in a while once we’ve sorted out our next travel plans.
Today I woke up to this email:
“After confirming that the following description of the Certificate of Eligibility is correct, please access the URL below to register the receipt.”
It took 7 days to get approved. Thanks for all the good information. 😀
That’s great it came through so quick. We will be applying for our third one soon so good to hear they are being approved quickly. Did you apply at Shinagawa?
Yup, Shinagawa office. Also you can get a lease with this visa! Landlord and the realtor will ask “what’s your source of income in Japan” and you just tell them you’re either: retired and or don’t work in Japan, and you’ll provide them your bank statements.
Awesome, that’s great news and good to share with other readers too, thank you 🙂
Just have to build up the energy to go down there again 😉 We’ve been utilising a couple of 90 day visitor visas’s as we’ve had a couple of trips outside of Japan but now is the right time to apply again. It’s a bit of a game trying to balance the 90 day visitor visa with the right timing for COE!
We will probably apply for COE just before we leave for our next trip out of Japan and then do change of status just before the COE expires.
Was it a normal realtor or foreigner oriented one? And was the place you got a normal unfurnished one with 2 year contract or something else?
It’s unfurnished in Akasaka, 2 year. I actually found this realtor on TikTok, wasn’t a big corporation or anything. He’s a normal realtor, and speaks enough English to communicate with me. Explained to him that I was almost guranteed to get this visa, and I sent him a screenshot of the email today and we’re moving forward. He was telling me how lucky I was because it’s apparently high moving season, and suggested I waited till mid/end April to go view. I can post him if Wylie is cool with it, don’t want it to seem like promo lol
Fine by me if it helps others. I have a feeling you got lucky with that agent as you hear even foreigners with full work visas etc struggle to find leases. So to get a 2 year lease essentially on a 6 month visa is great 🙏
I also got approved, now I’m trying to do the residence status form. Maybe I’m overthinking this, but what do you put down for “Status of residence” and “Desired status of residence” etc if this is your first time applying?
For current status of residence it would be temporary visitor and desired status designated activities
And next to it, for period of stay and date of expiration, I’m assuming that’s for the temporary visitor visa I’m on?
Thanks again brother!
Yup that’s right
Hello, thanks for all the good information on the blog!!
I got my COE approval email today. I’m from the US, currently on a 90 day visitor visa. I just have a couple of questions that maybe you could answer since you’ve been through it(?)
I’m trying to maximize the amount of time I have here too, so how long do I have to go and apply for the change of residence status once I’ve confirmed receipt of COE via email?
Since I’m from a visa exempt country, could I technically now go apply for an extension of my 90 day visa to 180 days? and then submit my residence change so it could be 1 year automatically when I get my residence card?
Or is that not how it works?
If I were to go now, would they just give me 6 months plus whatever time I have on my current visitor visa? 9 months total? If I don’t extend my 90 day to 180 day? Or do they just give you 6 months?
Thanks so much for the information. You’re the only up to date source I can find on this visa!!!
From my understanding, the COE is valid for 3 months from date of the email approval which would of course be after your 90 day has expired so really you should apply for the change of status before your 90 days runs out (can do on last day as you get 2 month extension, but once approval comes through you only have 2 weeks to collect the residence card so you don’t get the full 2 months generally).
I am not sure if you could apply for a 90 day extension whilst you already hold an approved COE as they may question why you aren’t applying for actual visa rather than extending the stay. I probably would have done the extension first then applied for the COE and done the change of status on the last couple of weeks of the 180 days and gotten the 2 month extension.
This kind of visa is seemingly a bit of trial for different variations. Unless someone has already done this particular scenario you won’t know until you try it.
Either way, the date you pick up the residence card, it’s 6 months from that date. You don’t get any extra added on for what you have left on your 90 days. 1 person commented that they got 1 year but didn’t know how and everyone else that’s commented only ever got 6 months. So I think that person just got super lucky. Every time we’ve applied we’ve asked for 1 year but only ever got 6 months and it’s from the date you pick up your card.
How long did it take everyone their first time for the residence postcard to be delivered via mail? I’m going on 17 days. No call from immigration if it got returned for some reason either.
Actually, Wylie, you wouldn’t happen to still have the phone number immigration called you from would you? (Shinagawa). Was it just the one on Google? I rather get in contact with them to make sure it wasn’t returned. Thanks so much.
Sorry I don’t have the number as it was a couple of years ago now. We have never tried to call up as read so many reports of it taking ages to get through, if you even can get through, so we just waited until we got the postcard. 17 days isn’t really that long so I would just be patient.
Our first card came within around 2 weeks (the exact dates I put in this post) but if I remember rightly, our second one took longer. Again, the exact dates are in the renewal post. I think there are a lot of variables in the time it takes, such as time of year you apply, how many others are applying, if your paperwork is straightforward or a bit more complex etc. So there’s no set timeline on how long it takes, and immigration does say it can take up to 2 months, so I think you just need to be a bit more patient, which is hard, especially with your first one!
So today we went to Shinagawa and we applied for our third COE. This was by far the smoothest experience, but there was still room for improvement!
We arrived at 10:52 with 1 person at the counter in front of us. Our number was called at 10:58 where we handed over our documents. We were called at 11:35 and confirmed everything was fine and given the slip to go to the COE counter to submit downstairs.
There we took a ticket at 11:35 and were called at 11:37 where we handed over documents.
By 11:55 we were done and out. So pretty much just an hour, our quickest time yet.
These things could have been a little bit smoother;
12. Date of entry : this has to be a date in the future. When we explained we would be applying for change of status here in Japan so wouldn’t be leaving she laughed and said yes I know it’s ok. But must put date in the future as if you are applying overseas 🤷🏼♀️
16. Place of application for visa. We put Shinagawa. At counter E we were told to put our home country, same reason as above.
17. Latest entry of Japan. We initially put our last full trip to and from dates. But we were told to put our entry date into Japan this time and leave the exit date blank.
32. We fill this in each time as applicant with our details. Each time at counter T they tell us to cross it out. But when we go to E to submit COE they always make us fill it out again 🤷🏼♀️ so next time I suggest leaving it blank for counter T and filling it in before arriving at counter E 😂
As we’d already registered for the online system, I had to find the log in ID which took me a while. I suggest you have this handy to save a few minutes here. This is so they can send you the approval by email.
As we’ve applied just before Golden Week I expect the approval will take a bit longer than usual. However we were surprised that it wasn’t so busy and we were done in the hour which is a record for us!
Anyone tried getting a drivers license on this? Allegedly you’re not supposed to use an international driving permit for more than 1 year
Seems like this visa is no exception??
Yes we got a driving licence on it
I assume you didn’t have to take the driving test cause you are UK? Is the expiration date of the license the same as your zairyu card? If so, seems like not worth the trouble to get??
Yes that’s right we didn’t take the test. We had to prove we had been in the UK for at least 3 months after we passed our test though. Given that was an awfully long time ago we didn’t have any papers (they will only accept originals so even though we had degree certificates the originals are in the UK so they wouldn’t accept).
In the end they went through our passport stamps and ‘worked out’ that there were at least 3 months unaccounted for in the passport which must have meant we’d been in the UK for that time (we hadn’t actually but that didn’t matter 😂) so best to take all old passports too.
Validity is 2 years from the date you get it and it’s valid until a month before/after your birthday in that year. So we applied April 2023 and it’s valid until September 2025 since our birthdays are later in the year. Even though we aren’t currently on the visa the licences are still valid. We aren’t sure whether we need a residence card to renew, we may try with proof of residence (we’ve read that is accepted) depending on when we get our new COE approval and change of status approvals.
hey Wylie, did you ever travel outside of Japan before your visa expired? if so, at immigration, did you fill in the re-entry form at immigration? have to go back to the States for a few days and don’t want to just go through the automated gates
Yes we did a few times. Before going through immigration there’s a form you fill in and you just put in that you will return within 1 year and the other half you fill in and hand over when you return
Has anyone received approval for COE while outside of Japan and then returned & entered on the 90 day visa then applied for change of status in Japan?
I’m wondering the same. My year is ending in roughly a month.. do y’all suggest I leave/surrender residency card, re-enter on a 90 day, then start the entire application process? Or should I apply for a COE first leave/surrender residency card and re-enter, then come back and file for change of residence status?
The least stressful will be to leave just at the end of the existing residence card and re enter on a new 90 days. You can then apply for COE in those 90 days which also gives you more time.
We have COE approval now but we are outside Japan and planning to come back on a 90 day visa. We didn’t register the confirmation of approval of COE so hoping it won’t cause any issues when we arrive back in Japan 🤞🏼
yo Wylie, great blog, thanks for all the information. this visa really is easy to get if you have the funds. just hoping they don’t change anything for us in 2026 with rumored tourist changes. wonder how the tier pricing will effect us since we all have residency cards.
anyways, thought I would share some knowledge and give back. saw some posts about getting a lease on this visa. you can. I sign my contract this week. very easy process. applied to two places, got accepted at my first choice. they just couldn’t believe someone with my income in my 20’s, but when they researched my visa they understood and didn’t question is further. anyways nice spot in minamiaoyama secured!
the process takes 2-3 weeks, at minimum. not gonna name drop on your blog, but if you google “tokyo apartments” the agency that I used starts with an “e” and has a “-“ in its name. (for anyone interested in renting.)
oh lol they also gave me an NHI card and made me apply for national pension at the local ward when I registered my address. tried to explain that I didn’t need to, but they insisted. got a mynumber card in the mail too.
again – thanks for all the info. much appreciated. only downside is going back every 6 months, would be so fire if it lasted a full year.
Thanks for the info.
When we got our first cards they also made us sign up for the pension and health but after a few weeks we got another letter saying we weren’t eligible so we had to return the cards and got a refund of the premium we paid.
We also got a my number card but never used it and second time round the lady at Ward office said there’s no point to apply so we didn’t bother getting it again.
got you, should note for others that the only thing the mynumber card came in handy for was passing bank verification. if you provide residency and or mynumber card, you can bypass the 6 month restriction. (meaning you don’t need to sign up with japan post/have employer identification.) 😎
Which bank did you open with? We tried a few times even with residency but they didn’t accept as wanted at least 6 months remaining on the residency card, even when we tried to apply on the same day we got it.
SMBC.
When we were looking we also found that most banks freeze your account once the residence card runs out so you need to go to them every time you renew which seems to be a bit of a pain to do every 6 months.
But if it’s needed to do a long term rental then I guess it’s worth it.
As a landlord myself I wouldn’t be comfortable with a tenant depositing cash into my account each month.
I recently tried to open a SMBC account in 2026 at a branch, got refused. They still say one must stay over 6mths in order to open a saving account, or with employer ref. Which means for the 6mth (1yr max) long stay visa, they told me one need to extend the visa once, and bring both old & new (extended) zairyu card together, then they might be able to help to open one.
I have zairyu card and Japanese driver license and My Num card.
And for SMBC Olive account which can be opened using web or app, for non Japanese citizen, they don’t accept My Num or driver license, but only zairyu card, and also require to be Japanese (and only Japanese, no other countries) tax resident.
I would worry that opening a bank account definitively establishes your center of living as japan, which means owe Japanese taxes
Yes I agree. We’ve also never really felt there’s been a time we really needed a Japanese account either really.
Japan Post also offers 6 months residency bank accounts, but they’re super limited in features. There’s a lot of 6 month cards out there believe it or not.
Question, this is my first time re-entering the country from US at Haneda with this visa. What line do I go to for immigration? The same as visitors or is there a special line with people for residency cards? I’m guessing I don’t need to do the customs form online either? Sorry if the question is dumb lol
When you arrive back there are signs for residence card holders. You need to go in this line and there’s a form you need to fill in too. You always need to complete the customs form (you can do it online in advance and get a QR which saves time though)
Forgot to include why I said all that: You need one if you decide to rent an apartment. An uncommon scenario that I was told by my agent is that if your landlord agrees to cash you could deposit it at their local bank through the ATM.
I got my COE approved and had my passport stamped for change of visa 1 month before my second visitor visa approves and they told me if the visa does not come by your end of visa you will automatically get 2 extra months and I am now in the second month. Do they offer a second extension, I have about 25 days left from the extension, they sure are leaving it to the last minute I guess I have to visit the immigration just in case the ost card gone missing or something! Any advice would be appreciated or someone in the same circumstance.
Sorry I’m not entirely sure what you are asking.
If you have submitted your change of status after getting your COE, when you submit this you get an extra 2 months for them to process it.
If you don’t have the result by the end of these 2 months you cannot stay any longer and must leave. I would recommend you to contact immigration a week before the end of that 2 month extension if you haven’t heard though. Every time we have done it, it’s taken about 1 month for the approval from submission of change of status.
I went to them a couple of days before the two months extension begins, that was almost one month since submission of change, and they told me to be patient and I have two months extension. So one month and a week is now gone by and no news, or at least I have not received the post card. So I will head there on Monday to see what is going on. Would be strange that they will not even reply and say you can not stay.
Personally I’d just wait. You still have 3 weeks left and they’ve already told you to be patient so I wouldn’t want to push my luck. A few days before maybe, but not with 3 weeks left. That’s my personal opinion anyway
James, if you’ve been in Japan under this visa for a year (or more), have you been able to avoid becoming a tax resident?
Thanks.
If you’ve been in Japan for 183 days or more you become tax resident regardless of your visa status. You will get sent a tax return to fill in through the post. You just need to fill in the box that says you have no income in Japan and that you are relying on savings. That’s what we were told by the tax office last year when we got the forms through. We then submitted at the ward office. After 5 years tax residency you become liable for tax on your foreign earnings and after 10 years for inheritance tax from overseas. This is what we were told by the tax office themselves.
I know what you mean but what if they sent the post card and it has been lost, that what kills me the most and I heard that you have 10 days from the receipt of that post card to exchange your visa, is that right? That is the second point that I am afraid of. There are plenty complications if I have to leave in two days, wonder what they would tell me if you go there two days remaining and tell you no news but you must be gone in two days not realistic at all. If they reject you prior to it is one thing and Japanese are very good with discipline.
Yeah I get where you are coming from. Especially when it’s your first time it’s even more nerve wracking. It’s also good to know how long it’s currently taking at the moment as we will be applying for our change of status soon and trying to work out the best time to do it as we have a trip planned outside as well but at the same time want to maximise that bit extra time from the 90 day visa.
Has anyone tried to apply for this without getting the coe first?
https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page22e_000738.html
This says instead of the coe, you can just submit the documents you submitted for the coe along with the visa application
I wonder if getting the coe as a separate step is any faster than just applying all at once
You can do it without the COE if you apply outside of Japan, but inside of Japan you have to have the COE first.
I believe one of the commenters was successful applying in US. We enquired in Bangkok also and were told it was fine to apply without COE but might take a bit longer (their turnaround time applying with COE is 5 working days). So still quicker than applying inside.
Any recent datapoints on how long the extension processing is taking? We’re going to file for our extension in a few months and thought it would be useful to know since we’re moving around the country and were wondering how long we might want to stick around in Tokyo for this.
Not sure on the extension but we did our 3rd change of status on 11th June. Received the postcard today which was stamped 26th June. Although we always found the change of status/COE approvals take less time than extensions.
Updates;
It’s now ¥6,000 for the residence card
There is a QR code you can scan to access the number queue for picking up the card so you can leave and come back later. It’s not really that accurate though we found.
And it took just over 3 hours to get the card after arriving at 11:35
Hi, wondering if anyone in the same situation as me: I had the long term tourist visa too and used it to open a JP Post bank account to pay my utility bills etc. My visa expired and I’m out of japan now, with intention to apply once I return to Japan. I just realised that JP Post Bank has suspended my bank account because my resident card has expired and they will not reinstate until I have a new resident card! Does anyone know of a better way, for people like us, to pay recurring bills even when we are not in Japan? It seems ridiculous to have be suspended each time my visa expires and to go back to the bank to reinstate. 🙄 Thanks in advance.
News article if anyone interested: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/04/09/japan/society/bank-accounts-expired-visas/
Yes we heard all banks close/suspend accounts once the resident card runs out which is one of the reasons we didn’t bother opening.
We just use our overseas credit card to pay our bills. We have a recurring payment set up for it and only time we had a problem was when we lost our card when overseas and couldn’t change it online so had to wait until we got back.
Hi, Just an update that one of my bills (municipality admin related) managed to be deducted. So when they say “some services” are suspended, I believe it’s withdrawal, transfers or for non-admin related purchases. I have an utility bill coming up next week, let’s see if it gets deducted successfully! Another question, any idea if I go back to Japan without a return ticket, will it raise any red flag at the airport immigration or will they refuse me entry? Thanks.
That’s good news!
On the flight front, we’ve entered many times with no return flight and it’s never caused an issue. The last 2 times we came back we were on visitor visa with no return flights and no questions asked
If you’re traveling around and staying in hotels / AirBnBs on this visa, do you need to update the registration on your residence card every time? Can you use hotel addresses?
I tried applying in Bangkok but they refused on the basis that my Thai visa didn’t cover the period of the Designated Activities visa (i.e. it expired within 12 months). The implication being that you’d need to be a Thai citizen or have permanent residency, or a long term work visa, in order to apply. Not sure if some countries are exempted from this.
JVAC confirmed to us that we could apply as British nationals on a tourist visa in Thailand. Not sure which others it covers. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything though as you know in Thailand it can depend who you speak to 😂
I am curious how you get the required insurance coverage to match up with the various visa/application dates. For example, I started a new 12 month insurance policy in May, at the same time I applied for the COE; 5 weeks later I got the COE and in about 2 weeks I plan to apply for the residence card. By the time I get the residence card about 2 months will have passed. 6 months after that I plan to go and apply for an extension – but at that time I will only have 4 months remaining on my insurance policy and will no longer meet the requirements of the visa (i.e. I won’t have insurance to cover the visa period I’m asking for). My insurance company only renews the policy in the last month of the existing policy. How do people handle their insurance policy vis-a-vis the numerous, unpredictable visa/application dates?
Our policy is a rolling policy that continues and we pay it annually, so we attach a copy of the policy showing the original start date and the premium we’ve paid. So it doesn’t match up with the dates but shows we’ve continuously had a policy in place so I guess they think it’s less likely we’ll cancel
Thanks for that. A Japanese consulate in Australia told me the policy must cover the entire period of the visa you’re applying for. That seems all but impossible when you don’t know how long it will take for the different stages to be processed. I suppose they are viewing it from someone leaving their home country on a fixed date, with a COE in hand, and returning 12 months later. The immigration office in Shinagawa seems more pragmatic and demonstrates how different locations can offer different interpretations.
Yes for sure. I think the overseas embassies/consulates generally stick a bit more 100% to the rules whereas the immigration here seem to make more of a sensible call on things. That’s our opinion anyway as like you say it’s pretty much impossible to always have a policy that covers the full length of stay as by the time you do the 90 days, the COE, the change of status etc you’ve already used up some and then when it comes to extension also. I think it definitely helped us having proof we’d constantly had insurance prior to coming here too as we could show our policy was in place for many years and just keep paying the premium to extend
Just got this visa for the second time. Looking ahead at the extension, I’m curious if anyone has tried to extend it electronically with your my number card?
Seems like it’s possible if you can fight through the Japanese IT design
We did look at this last year and after spending 5 minutes on the website and looking at buying card readers we thought the trek to Shinagawa didn’t seem so bad after all 😂
My second application for certificate of eligibility in Osaka Immigration Regional Office got rejected, with reason “activities not credible” and when I came to ask for details, they told me I have been in Japan for more than one year, and they dont trust that I have been traveling for such extended time, and will not grant me another visa of this type to allow me more travel.
Do you mean you had this visa for 1 year and when you applied the second time for COE it got rejected?
What did you put down on your schedule of stay?
I’ve not heard of anyone being rejected for this before, we literally just picked up our residence card yesterday which is our third time (1 time + extension, 2nd time no extension, 3rd time yesterday).
We do generally spend a few months out of Japan in between applications and sometimes even when we have resident card so I don’t know if that makes a difference
yes I had this visa for 1 year (6 month + extension) and when I applied the second time for COE it got rejected. I feel very unfair that they dont let me appeal or reconsider the application, and the immigration staff told me I could re-apply but result would likely be the same. So my 3-month visa waiver is expiring and now I have to leave Japan before July 2025.
Oh my that really sucks. I assume you met all the criteria again for the second application? Were there any major changes in your circumstances since the first time?
Are you able to try from another immigration office?
This is really interesting and valuable information to know that it’s not guaranteed. As we just got approved third time we thought it was almost guaranteed as long as you still qualified. But this goes to show we can’t be reliant on that.
We have spent a decent time out throughout the whole time frame thought so not sure if that makes a difference
The staff implicitly stated that my leaving Japan for 20 days (quick turn-around) between applications was a red flag. Even though during the time when I have resident card, I have left Japan 5 times (2 times back to home country USA) and totaled a few months out as well. Basically they just dont want me to spend too much time traveling in this country within 1-2 year timeframe. Especially during between applications, I was recommended to spend more of my time elsewhere.
Yes I am meeting all criteria, and no major changes in my application, except that this time I followed the application receptionist’s tip to apply for “1 year” duration in my COE (instead of 6-month then have to apply again for extension), but this was only briefly mentioned during our conversation about the rejection, so I believe it is not a major issue.
I was 100% sure I would get my COE this time, and now I feel so rejected by Japan!
That really sucks. The second and third time we also put on 1 year in the space for how long we wanted to stay after one commenter said they got 1 year straight away. But both times we still only got 6 months. Maybe next time we’ll just put 6 months in case that makes a difference. Safe to say we won’t be trying in Osaka though!
yes, I was thinking to try Tokyo immigration office but my visa waiver is expiring, and I applied for another visa (J-Find https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page22e_001037.html) — just submitted my COE at Osaka office the day after my long-term tourist visa denial.
Though I was told that I must apply for this visa at a Japan embassy outside of the country i.e. I cannot come to Osaka office with an approved COE.
Hi, a quick update that my utility bill was successfully deducted, glad to know JP Bank has some sensibility to this despite the suspension of the account.
We went to immigration yesterday to put in our “Change of Residence Status”. All went well (1 hour in total), but we noticed that, contrary to what has been mentioned here, we got no new extension visa, nor were told of any new time frame (e.g. 2 months), but instead got a stamp in our passport that simply referenced our application. The passport stamp number also matches the application number on our receipt. I’m not overly worried as we have a stamp of sorts entered by the immigration office and, being yesterday, we’re a long way off the 2 months expiring anyway. I’m just curious if this is normal or perhaps the immigration officer accidentally skipped it?
If you look on the receipt on the back it tells you about the 2 month extension. Keep this receipt in your passport with the stamp as the stamp shows that the request is being processed and that is enough to confirm you have the 2 month extension from the expiry of your 90 days.
We too were a long way off the expiry but previously we took it to the limit to take advantage of the extra 2 months
I just applied for COE, but think I messed at counter E for receiving COE approval by email
I wrote the correct username on the paper that they email you, but on the paper did they ask for a mailing address twice? Or was one of those for an email address and then a home address? I think my translator messed up so I wrote my home address twice
D: Hoping that with that ID they can still send the approval via email
Hi yes there is one space for e-mail address and one space for home address. Did you manage to receive the approval?
This article is really helpful for anyone planning to stay in Japan for a longer period. The step-by-step explanation makes it much easier to understand the visa process. I’m especially looking into how to apply, as I’m exploring options for Japan Visa For Indians. Thanks for sharing such detailed information!
Thanks for the article. My six months stay will expire in two months, and I like to extend it, so if I just take the application( picture, 4-6k stamp, passport, residency card and insurance for six months to the immigration) in a few weeks time and their main concern is 30m yen satisfaction, I should get at least the two months extenstion even if they eventually not to extend the six months, which of course no reasons for that, but who knows. My first six months approval took 2 months and 10 days to approve, which I was getting worried for, because if things do not work out I need to give 30 days notice for my apartment and get a flight booked and even decide where to go from here, which can not be done in only few days. I guess there is always the visa run and come back for three months, if I do that will I lose my six months extension possibility and need a new COE? Thank you so much, time flies here. Can you apply for this six months as many times as you want, you seem to be doing it?
For the extension you also need to take with you the same evidence as when you initially applied ie the evidence you have the ¥30m savings and the insurance covering you for the 6 months. When you submit the application, as long as counter T let you submit as you still qualify, then you’ll get the 2 months extension. We only extended once and it took longer than the initial approval, about a month in total. The second time we didn’t extend and we are now onto our third round and it’s not up for extension just yet. So yes, we’ve been approved 3 times. There’s nothing written that says there’s a maximum number of times you can extend, but one commenter on the blog has said they were declined for the second COE because the immigration deemed they weren’t really tourists. So whilst we’ve been successful 3 times, there’s no guarantee and I guess it depends on your individual circumstances and the immigration officer.
If your extension approval doesn’t come back before the end of the extension you should go to immigration a few days before to check, but from all experiences on here the approvals have come back well within the 2 months. If it’s declined then you’ll need to leave the country before the extension expires. I’m not sure what the impact of a declined extension would be though. I very much doubt you would be allowed to just do a visa run and come back in no questions asked as the declined would most likely show on your immigration record for when you re enter. So if you’ve been declined an extension and then try to come back in on the 90 days, my personal opinion would be that they wouldn’t let you in. But I don’t see why they wouldn’t approve the extension if you still continue to qualify.
Keep us updated on how it goes!
Thank you so much for your response. I hope I am not being dense here, but last time I did COE and after approved after a week I applied for the visa application which took over two months. I thought I read for extension you no longer need to apply for the COE application part, am I all confused is verifying your insurance and savings etc all part of the COE process and you need to apply for it again the application and all and wait for it for a week or so? Just wondering so I would apply just a month before visa expiration so if any problems arise I have time to leave properly. Thank you again
Wow 2 months for the approval? It’s always only been a couple of weeks for us. Which immigration office was this at?
You don’t need to apply for the COE again to do the extension but you do need to prove you still qualify for the visa by providing your bank statements again (otherwise you could’ve spent all your cash and you become a risk).
When we did the extension it took a month for approval. I guess it takes longer for the extension as they verify your documents as well rather than having the COE to rely on and this is why you get the 2 months grace period.
It was the Tokyo office. I applied one month before my visa ran out and then i went 40 days into the two months grace period. Hate to think what will happen if it takes even longer. But I guess the one week that it took for COE to get approved will not be wasted. But they did verify my bank statements, can not see what COE or they can verify further the banks would never tell them what I have?
Sorry I’m not sure what you mean? The COE application verifies the documents you provide them with to confirm you qualify for the visa you are applying for ie that you have the ¥30m in the bank and adequate insurance. They don’t phone the bank or anything, they rely on the documents you providing them with are legit, unless they have reason to believe they aren’t. At which point I assume they’d ask you to verify or something.
The reason you need to give the bank statements again for the extension is to prove you still have the money required to qualify for an extension and you haven’t just spent it all in the 6 months you’ve been here. As if you no longer have the ¥30m then you no longer qualify for the visa so you would be denied the extension.
Knowing they might not approve the 2nd year visa after the 1st year is up, even if you meet all the criteria is quite unsettling actually considering we have a dog with us. Should I apply the 2nd COE one month before it expire so it gives me more time to move back to Singapore with my dog in case it is not approved? My dog is 8 yrs old now. We intend to stay 3 years so he can enjoy the snow and the cool weather as much as his body allows and then move back to SG when he is 11 or maybe even earlier, so he is not too old for the flight back home to SG. We will then not travel till he crossed the rainbow bridge.
Yes any kind of visa like this that’s temporary is always a concern they won’t renew it. However, there’s only been 1 comment of someone being refused it for a second time from all the comments we’ve had. In that case the poster went to a different immigration office other than Shinagawa and no one knows their individual circumstances.
We’ve personally had 3 approvals so far. There’s nothing to say that there’s a maximum amount of time you can apply for it either. I personally wouldn’t worry too much but obviously I understand the reasoning since you have a dog (as we do).
I personally wouldn’t apply for the COE before the current visa expires. If you apply for the COE while in country ok your current visa you would have to leave the country and apply for the visa in a different country at the embassy. Which has its own challenges as most countries only allow you to do this if you are a citizen or long term resident there.
The other option is to leave Japan at the end of the visa and come back in the 90 day visa then do the same process as the initial visa.
This is our preferred option and what we’ve done each time. It also allows you to utilise some of the time from the 90 days before getting the actual visa.
For us we do spend a couple of months a year outside of Japan more than once a year and we’ve only extended once. So I don’t know if that helps. We personally think that it does as it doesn’t look like we’ve totally set up base in Japan. Whereas if you extend each time and have multiple visas without spending much time out of Japan they may behind to ask questions that you aren’t really a tourist but have set your life up there.
That’s my personal take anyway.
Your advice is gold. The only trouble is the dog. Kinda reluctant to leave him at a boarding place for 2 weeks if we need to leave. If not because of the fur boy, we actually prefer to just enjoy Japan, as it is, 3 months in, out for 3 months back in Singapore.
Yes totally understand, however there’s no way of getting the visa a second time round without leaving for at least some time. Either you apply for the COE in country then you apply for the visa itself at an Embassy overseas. Or you leave and come back as a tourist with another 90 days. This is what we’ve always done as you get the added benefit of the 90 days again on arrival. Then the potential 2 months at the submission of your visa request once you’ve got the COE.
We hate leaving Wylie as you can see from the blog we usually take him when travelling but since there’s only a handful of airlines we can take him with in Asia it’s not always possible. We have an amazing dog boarder Sakura Bace, which is based in Sakura city on the way to the airport. So we drop him off on the way and pick him up on the way back and we don’t have to worry about him at all.
Extremely grateful for taking your time to share your experience and knowledge!
Hey guys, we received a request for payment for pension contributions for the first time, and we wanted to update everyone about the situation. I’ve written a full post on what happened when we went to the pension office and you can find it here – https://wylietraveldog.com/pension-contributions-in-japan-for-long-term-tourist-visa/
Any comments related to pension contributions if you can add specifically to that post so this one can remain focused on the visa itself.
Thanks!
Here’s the stats as of the end of 2024 for who has this visa:
English:
https://ibb.co/6JmWcZRd
Japanese data source:
https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00250012&tstat=000001018034&cycle=1&year=20240&month=24101212&tclass1=000001060399
149 people had the visa in total
56 from asia
56 from north america
25 from Europe
12 from Australia
Wow that’s great information. We knew it wasn’t common but didn’t realise it was that uncommon. Only 149 people is crazy, no wonder it’s hard to get information about it. I think most of those 149 have been on this blog at least once 😉
That’s really interesting. Your reply prompted me to have a look as well. The latest 2025 figures were released a few weeks ago.
As at the end of 2025 there were 244 long-term tourists and 35 spouses.
China 26 – spouses 5
China (Other) 2
Singapore 13 – spouses 3
South Korea 4 – spouses 1
Thailand 4
Taiwan 62 – spouses 9
UK 13 – spouses 1
UK (Hong Kong) 8
Austria 1
Cyprus 1
France 3
Germany 2
Ireland 1
Italy 4 – spouses 1
Netherlands 1 – spouses 1
Norway 4
Portugal 1
USA 62 – spouses 8
Canada 15 – spouses 3
Australia 19 – spouses 3
New Zealand 1
Serbia 1
Spain 2
Sweden 1
Switzerland 1
It’s a really interesting table overall and gives details of all the different types of visa holders by country. Being a Brit, I was interested to see what other British people were doing there.
There were 2,020 people in Japan on a Working Holiday visa, 330 ski instructors, 12 recent graduates from Japanese universities and even 3 people there as ‘amateur athletes’.
There were also 3,066 Brits there as a spouse of a Japanese national and 249 permanent residents.
Yes, I find the numbers really interesting that there are so few applications/approvals for this. I often wonder if it’s because it’s lesser known or perhaps people don’t want to share too much financial information with other countries for visa’s such as this. I do wonder if they allowed dependents to be included whether the number would increase. I also wonder what Japan’s view is on the kind of people on this visa. I would think these are the type of tourists that Japan would readily want given higher assets, higher spending ability etc. I’d love to see it improved to a 1 year approval each time and to include dependents as well.
It’s 200. I had spouses filtered out
But yeah that would explain the lack of familiarity
I wonder when they constitute a spouse, would that only be if you only show the ¥30m together and if you have ¥60m you qualify separately?
That was a very quick response for extension, under 3 weeks! It says come for your application result and bring 6000 yen, so I take it, is approved? Why else they want 6000 yen!?
That’s a great turnaround. Yes in our experience once you’ve received the card that means it’s approved, especially since they are asking for the fee. Congrats!
Hello again,
I finishing up the second 6 months of the 1 year visa and thinking of applying for a third six months. Do I need to start fresh again apply for COE again or can I just apply for a third extension as I did for the second on? Thanks a lot.
If you check the original post it covers all of the options you have if you want to stay longer.
Either you apply for a new COE in Japan now and you have to leave to apply for the new visa at an Embassy outside of Japan (most likely your home country). Or you have to leave and re enter on another visitor visa and do the same process as last time.
Well, this was a genuinely refreshing read. It’s rare to find a breakdown of Japan’s long-term tourist visa options that feels this grounded and honest instead of mysterious or intimidating. I really liked how the post cuts through the usual visa anxiety and lays out what’s actually possible, especially for people who want to slow travel rather than rush in and out.
The personal perspective makes a big difference here. Instead of just listing rules, it shows how the process feels in real life—the waiting, the paperwork, the uncertainty, and the small wins along the way. That kind of context is gold for anyone considering an extended stay in Japan and wondering if it’s realistic or just a bureaucratic fantasy.
It’s also nice to see expectations handled responsibly. There’s no overpromising or “visa hack” energy, just practical advice, patience, and a clear reminder that flexibility matters. If someone is dreaming about spending more time in Japan without working or enrolling in school, this post gives them a realistic starting point and a lot of reassurance.
I recently got my residence card in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It took 32 days.
The whole process was smooth and straightforward, thanks to this post and all the comments. Almost everything needed was already mentioned so I was very well prepared.
In short, I submitted my CoE application on day 1, got the CoE email early morning on day 19, and submitted the “Change of Residence Status” application on the same day. I got my approval postcard on day 31, went to Shinagawa and got my residence card on day 32, then went straight to the local ward office to register my residential address.
(Optional / Extra): On day 33, I went to my local ward office again to apply for My Number Card (Express Issuance and Delivery).
Since most of the things are already mentioned, I will just talk about a few extra things I noticed during the process.
[1.] Photos
a.) If you want to convert your foreign driver’s license to a Japanese license (Gaimen Kirikae, 外免切替) later during your stay, which needs another smaller 3.0cm × 2.4cm photo (instead of CoE / Residence Card’s 4.0cm × 3.0cm), there are some photo booth capable of printing both sizes together.
If you are lucky and able to find one nearby, you can save some money and time.
For example, at the time of writing, there’s one “Photo Me” booth near JR Hamamatsu-cho Station’s north side exit which is capable of doing that (6 of 4.0cm × 3.0cm + 3 of 3.0cm × 2.4cm on a single print).
(https://www.locationsmart.org/?tag=_service_idphoto)
b.) YMMV, but in my case, my local ward office’s friendly staff took the My Number Card photo free of charge, so I wasted 1000yen taking a My Number Card-sized photo at a photo booth near a JR station before visiting the office.
(Don’t know why my comment triggers captcha failed error a lot…)
[2.] Account for CoE & Print
a.) While I highly recommend getting a Japanese number in advance (e.g. Mobal, mentioned by others here), which can access the web using Japanese IP.
However, in case you cannot, but you are still willing to have the CoE result emailed to you, which requires you to create an account using a Japanese IP:
I cannot guarantee you this will work, but if you have internet / Wi-Fi at your place which uses a Japanese IP address, you could try to create an account before visiting Shinagawa (or your local immigration office), .
https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/guide/onlineshinsei.html
Remember to write down your email, User / Account ID, etc., since you will need them at the office (e.g. Shinagawa CoE Counter E).
b.) If you forgot to print something, in my case, I forgot to print my CoE email, and during my 2nd Shinagawa visit, Counter T told me I needed to print it in order to submit the “Change of Residence Status” application at Counter B5.
The Shinagawa immigration office Family Mart’s printer wait queue could be long, if you have internet and you’re OK with uploading your documents to the cloud, here’s Family Mart’s network print website.
Learning about it in advance could save you a few minutes instead of learning how to use it on the spot:
https://networkprint.ne.jp/sharp_netprint/en/top.aspx
[3.] My Number Card (Completely Optional, somewhat useless, but in case you want one for whatever reason)
If you never had a My Number Card before (from your previous stay etc.), within 30 days after you register your residential address at your local ward office, you can apply at the local ward office to have the card mailed to you within a week, free of charge.
Make sure to be at home, you need to sign to receive it since it’s registered mail.
https://www.kojinbango-card.go.jp/en-express-apply/
[4.] And lastly, Nenkin problem
I know there’s a separate post just for that but please let me post my comment here.
I checked that post so I had the Nenkin (年金) and Kenko Hoken (国民健康保険) page printed before I went to the local ward office, and it really saved tons of headache.
Pages were printed in Japanese and I highlighted the part about the exemption.
Also, the staff checked that piece of paper stapled in my passport too, to confirm that I am indeed holding long this visa.
a.) Nenkin:
https://www.nenkin.go.jp/service/kokunen/kanyu/tekiyojogai.html
適用除外事由
在留資格が「特定活動（観光・保養等を目的とする長期滞在または長期滞在者の同行配偶者）」の場合
b.) Kenko Hoken (Tokyo):
https://www.hokeniryo.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/kenkou/kokuho/aramashi/kanyuu/kanyuu01
国民健康保険の対象外となる方
在留資格が「特定活動」で医療を受けること等を目的に滞在する方、または観光保養を目的に滞在する方
… and that’s all. Wish everyone enjoy their stay.
Hello, has anyone tried this in 2026?
I am in the process of getting my COE (applied April 10 and just got a phone call about it April 20) but I have been told twice now that after I get the COE I must return to my home country (USA) to actually get the visa.
Is this a new rule or is there something specific I need to push back on?
Thanks!
Who told you you had to go back to your home country to apply? Shinagawa immigration?
99% of people will tell you that you have to in our experience but the officers at Shinagawa are well aware you can do it in country. We’ve never had any push back at the immigration office itself and we’ve done it 3 times so far in country.
Yes Shinagawa immigration.
1) The day i applied for the COE I was mistakenly sent to counter B5. A woman there told me I must apply for the actual visa (not the COE, I submitted that at E) at my home country embassy.
2) Today the officer reviewing my application called me and asked me when I was going to go back home to apply at the embassy. I told him I planned to do a change of status in Japan and he told me that was not possible. I told him if I needed to i would go back to my home country. He said I will have my COE result by the end of the month, but didn’t budge on the “must go home” part.
https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/status/designatedactivities10.html?hl=en <- this does seems to indicate a change of status can be done in Japan so I plan on taking a print out to Shinagawa once i get the COE results.
If you have any other tips for what to say/who to talk to that would be great.
Thank you for the great documentation on this process btw.
Counter T is generally the counter that deals with the tourist applications originally.
I’ve never heard of any officer calling during the COE stage, we’ve always just had the result sent to us. Did they ask you any other questions regarding the application or documents?
We always just go to counter T as our first port of call and here we’ve never had it mentioned about going back to home country to apply. Many of the commenters have also had success with changing in country (unless it’s a second application which does have to be done outside of the country if you apply for the following COE whilst still on your designated activities visa in Japan).
If they do ask about going back I would just show them that page and say you have many friends that have done it in Japan successfully at Shinagawa office.
I went to the T counter originally. They gave me a document that said all my COE documents were good to submit and then told me to go to B5. (That was an error I guess)
I went to B5 and was told that I can’t get the visa inside Japan (she even went back to T counter to talk to someone), but I can apply for the COE.
I went downstairs to apply for the COE and they took my app without any trouble. I said I wanted the results via email and filled out that paperwork.
Today an immigration officer called me and asked when I would be going back to the USA to get the visa. I said I wanted to do a change of status in country. He said I couldn’t. I told him i would go back if need be. (I am not 100% he understood everything i said perfectly) I then asked when my COE results would come and he said it would be done by the end of the month.
I have read all the comments on your blog so I am hopeful I just need to talk to the right person 🙂
Anyway, I will go back to the office when I get the COE results and update with what happens.
Thanks for your help!
What is your country?
I’m USA. They could mean that if you don’t get your COE by the time your temporary stay or visa waiver period ends, you have to leave.
They told me this one time, and so I did schedule a trip nearby, and wouldn’t you know it, the COE came they day I flew out
But I could apply from within Japan when I got back
For the visa change, they seem to look to see if you have a 3 months tourist stamp
You can just try to submit the visa change when the time comes and see if they give you the same spiel
As an update to this, as I mentioned on a recent comment, we just applied for our 4th COE. This time we tried at Matsudo instead of Shinagawa, although I believe the processing itself is done at Shinagawa still. Anyway, we missed out one part of the application form so today we got a letter asking us to fill that bit in. At the bottom of the letter there is a section which says;
‘if a COE is issued, you must once leave Japan and apply for a visa at a Japanese Embassy in your home country to receive the visa. It is not possible to apply for a Change of Status of Residence while staying in Japan.’
So perhaps they have now changed the rules and you have to leave to apply. We are no longer going ahead with our application so it will be interesting if anyone else comes across this or is able to successfully do within Japan. If this is the case, it’s a bit of a bummer as as far as I know there are no nearby countries that allow you to apply for a visa at their Embassy without being resident. Bangkok do allow it for certain nationalities if you have the COE (but they only allow if long term resident without a COE).
Having to come to Japan to do the COE and then leave and come back is a total pain in the ass. I can only imagine it’s to stop people from maximise the 90 days then the additional 2 months leeway for when they process the change of status. Either way, it’s not a positive step forward in my eyes for this visa which is a huge shame 🙁
If that’s the reality, does anyone know what options there are and what the process would look like?
Let’s say one does apply for the COE and have to go back home to get the actual visa. You’d come for the typical three months, apply for the COE sometime within those three months. Get the results and leave at the end of three months, then go back home to apply for the visa. How long does the visa application take? A quick Google says it takes about a week, but can we assume that applies for this visa as well?
Another option seems to be just applying for the visa entirely at home. Any idea how long that would take? Just want to lay out options and logistics should one decide to pursues this visa going forward.
My thoughts are that you would apply for the COE towards the end of your 90days and then go somewhere that allows you to apply for the visa there.
The Embassy’s we looked at say the application takes around 5 working days and should apply for this one too. You them have 60 days I think it is to enter Japan.
We tried to apply for the visa in full in Bangkok with no COE but we got rejected as we didn’t have COE or a long term visa for Thailand. So I think it would have to be done at your home country Embassy or wherever you have residency if you want to do without COE.
I did write to the one in Edinburgh when I first looked into the visa a few years ago and I got mixed response about applying without the COE.
The MOJ websites says you can apply without it as long as you provide all the evidence required but they generally seem to be sticklers about having the COE. Which I guess means you would need to hire an immigration lawyer to get the COE for you since you can’t apply for that without being here.
We won’t be trying these options as our travel plans going forward mean we aren’t going to be going for this visa again.
But I’m hoping others carry on with it and can update on here the process that works best 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼 ideally if someone actually tries the change of status in country first for real life update 🙏
Thanks for the update—that really is a bummer for all of us. After looking into it, turns out that leaving Japan to apply at your home country’s embassy once the COE is approved is actually the standard process. It seems immigration has been a bit lax across the board for a long time, and they have been tightening enforcement since April 1st. On a side note, I remember you mentioning you got your Japanese driver’s license back in 2023. Since a new license is valid for 3 years, isn’t yours due for renewal this year? I’m fairly sure you need a residence card for that, so you might want to check if that’s possible to do while you’re on a short-term visa status.
Yes, maybe as more people have applied for it in Japan, it’s taking up more time so they are becoming more strict which sucks.
We actually renewed our driving licence last year. The green one was only valid for 2 years from issue. Now we have the blue which is valid for 3 years. At the time we were in between visas so looked into being able to renew in case it didn’t come in time, since you only have a short window to renew. From what I saw/read (but didn’t try) if you have proof of residence it says you can do it also. So we had planned to take our property ownership documents with utility bills and see what happened. But in the end our visa came through so we didn’t need to try.
Hello, I’m reading this part, “ You are also allowed to leave and come back in as often as you like during the 6 month period.” I can leave the country if I needed to once I get the visa? For example, if I have an emergency overseas?
Yes once you have the visa you can come and go as you please just like any other resident. You just need to fill in the resident form before you go through immigration confirming you will be coming back before the expiry of the visa.
Did you see the April 1 thing somewhere specifically?
It’s still a rare visa and may slip through if someone actually applies. I can give it a shot for the next one as I’m going to the US anyway, so that would be the backup plan
Accepting in country changes was always administrative discretion. For a visa for rich-ish people to come and spend money and not get any benefits, it makes sense to still let it through
Iirc, if you license expires it’s pretty easy to renew once you get a residence card again. I got a 3 year one but it took 4 months to do the conversions and tests
It’s unlikely we’ll be applying for this visa again so for our driving licence I’m not what will happen for a renewal. When we converted (from a UK licence)we didn’t it one day. When we renewed we had to watch a video all in Japanese which seemed strange to do for the renewal but not the first conversion.
I guess if we don’t have residence card though we can drive with an international driving licence anyway.
I’m from the U.S., and I contacted the embassy in my region (Miami). They told me I can apply for the visa without a COE, either in person or by mail, so I’m planning to go that route. It’s a bit unfortunate, since based on recent posts it sounds like you can no longer switch from a 90-day tourist visa to a designated activities visa within Japan.
Let us know how it goes and how long it takes 🙏
I wanted to share my recent experience applying for a visa through a U.S. consulate.
At the time, I was in Japan on a tourist visa and was already planning to return to the United States on May 3. Fortunately, there is a consulate located near where I live in the U.S. I reached out to them by email in advance, and they confirmed that I did NOT need a Certificate of Eligibility (COE). They then scheduled my appointment for May 6.
For the appointment, I brought the following documents:
-A visa application form provided directly by the consulate
-Six months of bank statements
-A copy of my certificate of travel insurance (I used Genki)
-A brief written description of my planned activities during my stay
-A passport photo taken within the last six months
-My passport
Since I am form the U.S, the visa did not cost anything.
After reviewing my documents, they requested more detailed bank statements. Thankfully, I was able to provide the additional information by email within 48 hours.
I received my visa on May 13, about one week after my appointment.
Overall, the process was smooth, and the consulate was responsive and helpful throughout.
Timeline summary:
Left Japan: May 3
Applied at consulate: May 6
Visa issued: May 13
Entry window: May 11 – August 6
This seems a really smooth and quick process. Especially with them now requiring you to leave to get the visa regardless after receiving COE. Only downside is you don’t get the time of the visitor visa but it’s a lot less hassle, time and money so it’s a very good option.
Only downside to us was we aren’t in the UK and don’t plan on going back so finding somewhere that allows you to apply without being resident/citizen without a COE is very difficult .
I understand. This time it worked in my favor, but in the future it will be a pain to travel all the way back to the US. COE and finding a neighboring country will be the route in the future for me next time, unless things get back easy. Finger crossed
Yes for the first one it’s great but it always makes me laugh when immigration just say oh yeah you have to go back to your home country to do the visa. It’s hardly just a short hop away is it 😂
Maybe Guam could be an option for you if you are from the US? Worth a look since it’s not far. But I guess you’ve pretty much got a year now not to worry about it anyway and who knows what will change in that time!
I got my COE on Monday, April 27 (so it took about 17 days to be approved).
I went to Shinagawa today, and the news isn’t good. I went to the T counter, and they told me the procedure changed in March. You can no longer change from a temporary visitor to a resident inside Japan. They said I have to apply from abroad. I asked if I could go to Korea, and she said yes.
I anticipated this, so I spent the week emailing Japanese embassies in nearby countries. All the ones I contacted (Seoul, Jeju, Bangkok, and Phnom Penh) said they will process my visa even if I’m there as a tourist (not a resident), as long as I already have an approved COE. I’m a U.S. citizen, and they made it clear that matters, so other nationalities may have different restrictions. Also, note that in Korea you can’t visit the embassy or consulates general on your own. You need to hire an agent, and they provided a list.
I have a trip back to the U.S. planned for late August, so if I want to apply there, I would need to do a visa run first and then get a new COE. If I’m already doing a visa run, I’ll probably apply at an embassy in Asia.
If I don’t, I have a question. I’m approaching 180 days in the last year on temporary entry stamps. Has anyone had issues with that “soft” limit? Should I be concerned about exceeding 180 days out of 365 without this visa?
Wish I had better news to share.
That’s a real bummer about having to leave now but it’s consistent with what the rest of us have bene told recently. Thank you for updating us and confirming what we had all feared.
One word of warning I would have for you if you go ahead with your trip to apply in the US, is that I have read that if you get a COE and don’t get the visa issued it can cause you a problem later if you try to apply for another visa. I was told it is better to withdraw your current application. Although if you already have the COE approved I’m not sure how that would be looked at.
Also, if you have already acknowledged the acceptance of the COE, I’m not sure they will let you back into the country without the visa. This was something we looked into also, and got mixed reviews. At that time we had electronic COE approval but we didn’t acknowledge the acceptance and came back in and it was OK.
Personally, if you have the COE approval I would do a trip and get the visa before the current COE expires. I think (as always, my personal opinion on the matter) that it will cause you future problems if you apply for another COE without having utilised the previous approved one.
Did you try Guam as an option? We just got approval for a long term Thai visa which couldn’t be issued in Japan as we don’t have residence card here, but the Embassy in Guam was able to issue as a tourist (although that was an EVisa done through the Embassy in LA).
With regards to the 180 days, I’ve read mixed reviews again. I personally wouldn’t risk it, as if you get an officer on a bad day they can stop you entering and it would cause issues for future visa applications so it’s not worth the risk in our view. Some commenters on here have mentioned they’ve been questioned when coming back.
I did ask the woman at the T counter if I could reapply for a COE if my current one expires. She told me I could. But I agree that any future complications are probably not worth the trouble.
Guam is a good idea. I just heard back from them and Palau. As an American, they might be good options for me because they say that they can process the visa for free in 4 and 3 business days respectively. How was Guam to visit?
Did you ever get questioned coming back into Japan on a visitor stamp after your one-year stay was up? Technically, you did spend more than 180 days in the country and then re-entered on a 90-day stamp. How long did you usually stay out before coming back to reapply for a new COE?
We went just after the recent typhoon so a few things were still closed such as the Wednesday night market and there was a lot of destruction around. It was a bit too ‘American’ for us with all the fast food chains etc, we felt we couldn’t find any decent food and came back feeling fat! It was worth it to visit though and I recommend to hire a car to see the whole island.
We’ve never (touch wood) been questioned when coming in. The 180 day rule is for visitor visa only, so doesn’t apply if you’ve been in the country on a residence visa with the designated activities visa is, even though it’s for tourism. So I believe you only get questioned if you are spending more than 180 days on a ‘proper’ tourist ie 90 day visitor visa. Usually we will spend 2-3 months out of Japan before coming back and applying for a new COE and we’ve only done 1 extension also.
Update: Last week I (USA citizen) went to the Japanese Embassy in Palau with my COE and got my Visa. It took 5 days and was pretty painless (although I do wish I could have done it in Tokyo, but this worked fine). Thanks for all the info everyone.
By any chance did you happen to ask if they would process the application without a COE?
Confirming the recent reports – went to Shinagawa today to apply for the CoE, and they happily took my application and told me, extremely apologetically, that I would have to apply for the visa back in my home country (US). The agent said the rules had become stricter recently.
Last year, I did the entire process Tourist Visa -> COE -> Change to Long term -> Extension from Fukuoka, and it felt very… chill compared to Shinagawa. I may try to apply for the visa at Fukuoka again this year. If so, I will report back. Otherwise, will also investigate the Korea option.
Question for the wise folks here: I’m on my first tourist visa of the last trailing year and it expires mid June; assuming I get my CoE in a few weeks that will probably have 2.5 months before it expires by the time I have to leave. Any advice on if it would be worth it to come back on a second tourist visa before attempting the CoE, or is it risky to come back in on a tourist visa while you have an issued CoE? Obviously wouldn’t let the CoE expire.
(Apologies if this has been asked before – it’s a lot of posts to scroll through)
Also, thank you Wylie and co for this phenomenal resource. It’s been, and continues to be, invaluable.
Thanks for the update and for confirming what seems is the way forward of having to leave.
We did come back in once on a tourist visa when we had a COE approval, however we were a bit concerned as wasn’t sure how it would be treat. At that time it was when you could still do the change of status in Japan so we did the change of status here. In order to minimise the risk we didn’t acknowledge the COE approval and planned to say we hadn’t received the approval yet if questioned on arrival. We weren’t questioned so not sure if that’s because it didn’t show as ‘active’ on the system, or if it just doesn’t matter and you can come in with an approved COE.
But if you have to leave to apply for the visa outside anyway you are probably best off just applying for it before you come back in and save you going back out again and not taking the risk of being questioned coming back in.
Makes sense. Yeah, just tempted to try to maximize time here, but probably not worth the risk…
I will get a Japanese friend to call immigration and ask this question & report back.
I am a bit optimistic about trying this again in Fukuoka, because it seems like the process there was already different a bit from Tokyo even last year – which makes me hope a lot is discretionary and not fully standardized. In Fukuoka they didn’t extend my tourist visa when I went with my CoE to apply for the visa, which seems like the standard procedure in Tokyo. They hadn’t ever seen this visa before in Fukuoka, everyone was very excited, it was cute.
When we applied for our COE this time (4th time) we tried Matsudo branch for a change. The idea was we hope they would do the change of status and give the residence card in the same day. But to be honest it was a more difficult process as they didn’t really know anything about the visa. At first they said we couldn’t even apply for COE there we had to apply outside the country. It was only when we gave the expired residence cards and they saw our history did they accept it. So sometimes the smaller places have their benefits but also their downsides.
Although I do remember when we did our first application in Shinagawa it was a little bit the same, they definitely hadn’t come across it often and it was nowhere near as smooth as the process became.
What I would say though is that every dealing we’ve ever had with immigration has always been very pleasant and I’ve always found that everyone has always tried their best to help, even when they weren’t quite sure of the procedure. This is vastly different to some other visa offices in other countries we’ve dealt with!
Answering to Joe: Last year, we left Japan a few days before our first long-term visa expired and re-entered on a short-term tourist visa 30 days later without any trouble. We applied for a COE two weeks after returning and it was approved. However, with regulations changing, it’s hard to say if that will remain the standard experience.
I am also curious if it’s possible to apply for the COE while the current long-term visa is still valid, receive the approval, and then exit Japan once that visa expires. From there, apply for the new visa at an overseas embassy (within the COE’s 3-month validity window) and return to Japan on the new status. Technically it’s doable and wouldn’t be considered a “visa run” since it’s a pre-approved status, but I am not sure how Immigration will look at it, and I am wondering when the new visa’s validity actually begins. Just some personal thoughts.
When we looked into getting the visa the second time round we asked this and we were told that it was possible to apply for the COE whilst you still had the valid visa but if you applied for it in Japan at that time you would need to leave to apply for the actual visa. Which is essentially what the process would be now. At the time we wanted to maximise our time so we re entered with the visitor visa so we got the extra couple of months.
But if you have to leave anyway it probably makes sense to do it this way since you’re leaving anyway and saves another trip out.
Sadly my current one year designated activity visa (30m Y) running out, and would love to renew it for a second time. So based on what I am reading here, I can apply for COE again while here and even if it gets approved while my current visa still valid I still need to leave and get a visa from outside Japan, planning to head to Thailand. The last time I got COE approved, I got two months extension to wait for my visa. A bit confused here. Is there anything I can do to avoid leaving, or leaving is a must? Wonder if I apply for the COE while here and then return as a visitor that might be frowned upon, though you guys seem to say it is ok. I am from the States so I do not want to return there to get a visa, much rather try applying as a tourist again. @Wylie have you actually got COE approved 4 times for the designated activity and got 4 years of visa intermittently? It is heart warming. No retirement visas I guess
If you apply for the COE whilst your current visa is still valid you 100% have to leave and apply at another Embassy. This has always been the case.
The difference now is that everyone is reporting that when applying for COE on a visitor visa now, we have all been told that once approved we need to apply elsewhere. No option to do change of status any more. Since this was first brought up no one has been successful in doing a change of status in Japan.
You can of course try but you will need a back up plan of leaving again. The benefit of this is that you will get the 90 days of visitor visa whilst waiting for the COE approval but then you need to leave to do the application.
So it depends on your plans. Personally we would do that way as at least you get that bit of extra time.
Please check with the Embassy in Thailand or JVAC if an American can apply with a COE for this visa type when on a Thai tourist visa. When I checked, they asked my nationality and said I could as British. So best to check for US to be safe. Guam could be another option. I did my Thai visa through the LA Thai Embassy in high were super relaxed. So as US national they could be another option for Japan.
We withdrew our 4th application for COE actually. Our circumstances have changed and we won’t be needing anything more than the 180 days we will get on the visitor visa so we didn’t want to waste their time approving the COE only not to use it. We heard this could affect us negatively in the future and didn’t want to risk it.
“If you apply for the COE whilst your current visa is still valid you 100% have to leave and apply at another Embassy. This has ALWAYS been the case.” I never had to leave for the first time I applied for the COE, once approved, got a 2 months extension and then before the extension was up I got the visa. Unless this is new, my designated activity is from June 2025 to June 2026. Thailand is my backup plan. I know people are saying that you can apply and come back as a tourist but one can not help but worry about that! Thailand visa is 2 months with a month of extension.
But the first time you applied you were on change visa right? What I mean is that if you’re currently on the designated activities visa and you apply for COE while that’s still valid you have to leave and apply at an overseas Embassy.
Check out my post on renewing the visa – https://wylietraveldog.com/renewing-a-long-term-tourist-visa-japan/
It should only take 5 days to process the visa in Thailand for Japan if you have the COE. We did try to apply there without the COE but they wouldn’t accept without a long term visa or COE. If you have long term visa you can apply without COE but with tourist visa only you need COE.
Also keep checking on the validity of Thai tourist visa as there’s a lot in the news recently about them changing it back to 30 days.
First time I applied I was on a 3-months tourist visa, I did a visa run and then applied for the COE before the 180 days. So you are saying, apply for COE now, and once approved go to Thai embassy (provided they accept) and apply for the visa. Maybe I am over worrying, if the COE is rejected, would that affect my return as a 3 months tourist? Wonder if anyone has posted that. Maybe I am over thinking this. I will also pop over to the immigration in Japan to see what they have to say, lack of English is such a huge problem.
Yes so you didn’t have the visa at the time of applying for the COE the first time and therefore just did the process as standard (as it was).
The only thing that has changed now is that you apparently can’t do change of status in Japan.
So your options are to apply for COE before you designated activities visa runs out. Once your visa expired you leave Japan and go to another country and apply for the designated activities visa there with the approved COE.
Or you leave Japan when your designated visa expires without applying for a COE in Japan. You come back on 90 day visitor visa and apply for COE during your 90days. Once approved, or at the end of the 90 days, you leave again and apply at an Embassy overseas.
It all of course depends on your plans and personal circumstances but the second option gives you more time in Japan as you have the 90 days visitor visa time. Otherwise you leave at the end of this designated activities visa and come back with a new one, starting the 6 months already.
None of the comments in this thread have mentioned that they have been declined for the COE. As I mentioned we were approved for 3 in total, although we only ever did 1 extension. Whether they are becoming tougher on approvals or not we are yet to see, but as long as you continue to qualify there is nothing written anywhere (yet) that says there’s a limit on how many times you can apply.
Common sense says that since it’s a tourist visa if they believe you are setting up life here, rather than just being a tourist then they can question you. They may check bank statements more thoroughly to see if there is any evidence of income from remote work ie are you working here which is against the visa rules. As always, this is just my opinion, but I feel that if they are becoming stricter on certain elements of the visa it won’t be long before they start looking at other elements of it in more detail too.
It seems at the moment they are only becoming stricter on not allowing change of status within Japan (which officially I believe was always the case but they seemed to let it slide until earlier this year).
> As always, this is just my opinion, but I feel that if they are becoming stricter on certain elements of the visa it won’t be long before they start looking at other elements of it in more detail too.
I had the same thought as well recently. I suspect it’s probably a matter of time until this one becomes stricter, especially in light of other immigration changes recently. It behooves those of us hoping to continue with this visa to come up with some contingency plans.
I did recently have a Japanese friend reach out to Fukuoka immigration; they reiterated the party line that you could not convert your CoE to a visa there (though I will try anyways). I also reached out to the JP Embassy and Seoul and, like the earlier poster, they confirmed that you *can* convert it there, as a US citizen. So this may be the happy path for the time being.
Thanks a lot. I will head to the immigration now and apply for the COE there and then, and let you guys know if I hear anything different. Probably not. Then will head to Thailand and hope COE gets approved by then and try to get a visa at the Japanese embassy. Its a plan.
Good luck, let us know how it goes!
I went there, they said they are more strict now, but kind of implied depends also on nationality and the person giving it. Did not get a yes you must leave or no you can apply within Japan after COE! Not any wiser
Yes but as you have applied for the COE whilst you still have a current designated visa active it’s always been the case that you need to leave. So you will definitely need to leave regardless once your current visa expires whether you have COE approval or not. This has always been the case.
I think I made a mistake by putting Aug date for my COE, don’t know why I did that, just arbitrary, I want to return as soon as possible. I am worried they may not issue the COE until close to that date. Do you think I can go to the immigration and ask them to change that? Is that possible.
Gracias por compartir tu experiencia sobre el proceso de obtención de una visa turística a largo plazo en Japón, es un tema que genera muchas dudas. Me parece interesante cómo mencionas que no hay mucha información al respecto. Justo estoy considerando un viaje largo y me pregunto si hay recomendaciones específicas sobre la documentación que se necesita. ¡Cualquier consejo adicional sería genial!
Update on the new process (since converting your CoE to a visa in Japan has since been disallowed):
I successfully received my visa in Seoul. It took only *two days*, despite being quoted as taking up to five. I submitted on Tuesday afternoon, and received my visa by Thursday afternoon. This is my second long term stay visa.
I used Soho Travel (https://sohoholiday.com), though there are plenty of other options. It cost like $40 and just required your CoE, passport, and entry stamp into Korea.
Great news, thanks for the update! Was the $4o including the visa fee and the agent fee? I assume you got a visa approval letter/stamp in the passport and you will get the new residence card at the airport upon arrival back in Japan?
I just dropped mine off in San francisco today, and got an email in the afternoon saying they’d mail it back in exactly 5 days. The email said they wouldn’t send it any sooner
Seems some places will be stricter than others! Hope the process was relatively straightforward. Other than the obvious downside of the flight back and costs, how was it in comparison to a trip to Shinagawa? 😉
There was no process. I just dropped an envelope with all the required docs listed on the SF consulate website at the consulate, and they sent an email in the afternoon saying they’d send my passport in 5 business days
So way way better than Shinagawa
That sounds a hell of a lot better!
Just to clarify – these new data points of visas being applied for & granted overseas – have people been submitting a COE with their documentation, or just submitting all of the necessary documents that a COE would otherwise require in lieu of a formally granted COE?
Double check with the consulate you will be applying to. I applied at the consulate in Miami without a COE. I gave them all the documents you need when applying for COE and had no problems.
Visa fees will be hiked from July this year. Issuance fees for multiple-entry visas from 6,000 yen to 30,000 yen. (https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/78283)
Thanks for previous comments that you could apply for COE while in Japan on this status already. I went ahead and did that since I planned on visiting family for a month anyways and had heard horror stories about my particular consulate. Shinagawa took 2 weeks to grant. I did electronic as I was leaving in three weeks.
When I landed in US I applied at consulate. It took them a week to approve the visa.
I honestly was not expecting them to grant since I left beginning of June and was applying for the new visa to start in July. In Shinagawa they didn’t really cross-check or ask for anything additionally as I’d already highlighted insurance details and such. I did have to have adjust dates because I entered incorrectly which they helped me with at the first counter. The COE one in Shinagawa.
One tiny plus is there was no fee for the visa in US.
Glad you got it sorted and nice to hear there was no fee! Also the fact it only took a week to get approval is great as Shinagawa used to take a while also.
When you say you did COE electronically do you mean you got the response electronically or you actually applied electronically? We once tried to apply online but needed a device of some sort and the website was a nightmare.
The consulate in SF also told me Americans were exempt from the visa fee. So maybe these fee increases are irrelevant for now — using the savings to pay to apply from abroad
When leaving Japan, do we have to go to the ward office and fill out any moving out application?
We never did that but we own our property so felt that our address would still stay the same when we came back. Although every time we renewed the card we still had to re register. I did read that you should but like a lot of stuff I am not sure if that’s mainly targeted more for the longer term visas.
On the COE application, which box did you check on no. 11, purpose of entry? There are several designated activities options, but I don’t see one for “Long stay for sightseeing and recreation”.
You choose the option for other, the one at the bottom
Does the 180-day soft limit for the temporary 90-day tourist visas have any possible effect on approvals for the long term tourist visa and/or vice versa? So for instance, if I wanted to enter on a 90-day tourist visa, then enter on the 1-year long term tourist visa, then enter on the 90-day tourist visa, and so on and so forth in short succession?
There are no set rules published on this. I can give personal experience having originally entered Japan on a 90 days visa in 2023 and having done a mix of multiple 1 year and 90 day entries. For us, it hasn’t affected anything doing a mix of both. But, everyone’s individual circumstances and applications are different and will be assessed by different immigration officers. Ultimately the decision lies with the immigration officer who approves your application/stamps your 90 day visitor visa on arrival at the airport. So whilst we’ve not had any issues over the past few years doing it in this way, it’s not to say that will be the same for everyone or that it will continue to be the same in the future.
That makes sense–thank you!