Under which Japanese visa are you ?

[MikeH]

Or has anyone tried one of these legal companies that do it for you?

They get it done but can be a bit expensive, especially if it's your own money. Extending your visa can be a hassle but if you take it as one of the chores you need to know to be an adult it's OK.

 

[User#21295]

Also a big part of them already holds PR so they are very likely to get approved from the get go.

Do you have any source about that ?
I don't think a big part of those who have PR apply for naturalization. Getting it, concretely you don't receive nothing more than the right to vote, to pass on the "red" line at airport, and the advantage to travel without requiring visa (Japan is at ranking 4 in "Passport" power access).
For that last point, it would be an advantage for people from country with "weak" passport such as Chineses, Africans etc...

 

[MikeH]

Do you have any source about that ?

Fair question which made me realise I was wrong but still I am right. Man, I am just awesome!

First, when I made the comment I was thinking only inside my own bubble, which is westerners getting naturalised. All of the ones I know have been living long time in Japan, have Japanese spouses and PR but then for one reason or another decide to go all-in and get naturalised. But obviously this is a small group of people.

I should have remembered another group which I actually have many relations, and yes I mean relations, which is girls from China who get married to Japanese and get naturalised after just the minimum time required. So they don't have time to get PR but instead go from being in 3 year visa to naturalised state. Obviously this group is way bigger than the first one.

But actually the biggest group to get naturalised is Koreans living in Japan (zainichi) who have PR and are now dropping it to become naturalised. So, I stand behind my claim, though I did it under wrong assumptions.

Old numbers but I don't see why they would have changed radically:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...-acquiring-japanese-citizenship/#.WVYvw4j5iUk

 

[User#21295]

Zainichi are under special residence visa al well as nikkeijin. They were born with the authorisation to live forever in Japan and immigration accept them more easily.

Meanwhile PR is a long process to get it and refusal is much higher than naturalization.
Chinese who are married with Japanese can make their application after 3 years and have to wait at least 4 months but it may can take one year like my friend. At 5 years requesting JP nationality is okay, just better to straight ask for nationality without PR process ^^

Btw way official data are pretty interesting about how many foreigners live here, status, origin etc.

 

[majimekun]

You guys should read this concerning naturalization :
http://www.turning-japanese.info/2017/06/oscar.html

No need for test of Japanese languages skills in most cases either.

Quote from the above site :
"As many other contributors to this site have said, being able to communicate in Japanese during the process was enough to waive the requirement of having a Japanese language test."

 

[majimekun]

http://www.turning-japanese.info/2013/10/how-many-people-drop-out-midway-through.html

"According to the published statistics by the Ministry of Justice (法務省 {hōmushō}), once a case worker decides that your application is in order and submits it to the Minister of Justice (法務大臣 {hōmu daijin}) for approval, the chances of being accepted are 98% or higher."

 

[vondoom]

nice, gives me like 5 possibilities when i got to renew my visa in a few years... ill be trying to get pr, though, since i qualify for the new system, more or less...

as everybody else mentioned, naturalisation is easier to get than pr... though 3rd world countries (and what japan views as 3rd world countries) need to wait about a year...

what is the point of this thread anyway? nearly nobody will give you any information about their visa... either because its not worth mentioning (like the common ones), or because its better not being worth mentioning (like the payed ones)...

 

[MikeH]

"According to the published statistics by the Ministry of Justice (法務省 {hōmushō}), once a case worker decides that your application is in order and submits it to the Minister of Justice (法務大臣 {hōmu daijin}) for approval, the chances of being accepted are 98% or higher."

Same than with the 99% conviction rate in courts; they just submit the cases they know are going though. In effect this number has no relation on how difficult or easy it is to get naturalised.

 

[SugoiBoy]

One wonders if Japan will someday recognize dual nationality. Many other developed nations already do.

 

[Ddddd]

I don't really understand how this works.
You have to abandon your old nationality before you get approved?
So if they refuse you, you wont have a nationality at all?

I don't know for other parts of the world, but, AFAIK, for Spain and other European countries, it is not a massive deal to abandon your Nationality because you will be able to reapply at any given time to recover it. You can literally abandon you old Nationality, get the Japanese one and, the next day, go to the embassy and reapply to the old one.

 

[Ddddd]

So #1 is not getting booted out of the country if your marriage fails.

That's a risk that should be taken into account specially for visitors of this forum.

 

[MikeH]

One wonders if Japan will someday recognize dual nationality. Many other developed nations already do.

My advice is not to hold your breath waiting for that one.

And it's even possible the tide is already going the other way; there are countries considering getting rid of multinationality or even cancelling the nationality of those with not enough ties to their country.

 

[cabbie]

Or has anyone tried one of these legal companies that do it for you?

Yes, I had an immigration lawyer do it for me. I paid him 105,000 yen + cost of the visa itself. I got my visa in 4 months.

 

[SugoiBoy]

My advice is not to hold your breath waiting for that one.

And it's even possible the tide is already going the other way; there are countries considering getting rid of multinationality or even cancelling the nationality of those with not enough ties to their country.

Certainly, I understand your point of view. Immigration is a touchy subject almost anywhere in the world these days.

Nevertheless, allowing dual nationality would help a bit with Japan's declining population. It would make Japan more attractive for some people including certain Japanese who have become citizens of foreign countries. For example, I know several Japanese who are now U.S. citizens. They would probably prefer to have both American and Japanese citizenship, if they could do so.

 

[MikeH]

They would probably prefer to have both American and Japanese citizenship, if they could do so.

Obviously I agree that it would be beneficial for many individuals, including myself. But it would also mean they would need to let us vote and the current politicians will not let that happen as people with international experience and having seen the world from a different perspective would not vote those who are in power now.

 

[meiji]

There's a lot of tax implications to citizenship, too. US citizens get taxed on their worldwide income above a certain dollar amount, so it would probably behoove some to give up US citizenship instead of dual if it were an option.

 

[majimekun]

I've read something on http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?1+150986 that's quite preoccuping :

"Have had the first meeting 事前相談 and discovered that if you're living unmarried, with a Japanese women, then you're out. No deal, regardless of how long you've been in Japan or how stable your income is. They view this relationship as a 内縁の妻 relationship (common law wife) so she'd have to undergo the same interview process as me and even then, they won’t accept it."

I don't live with my GF but she often stays at my place and leave a lot of her stuff which can give the impression that I don't leave alone. Is the guy really right or he is just assuming things?

What do you guys think?

 

[User#21295]

One wonders if Japan will someday recognize dual nationality. Many other developed nations already do.

Japan accepted dual nationality but they stopped that in 1985.
Officially, you have to get only one but many have both. Recently it was discovered that Renho politician still had her Taiwanese nationality.
When you have another nationality, you simply say I chose Japanese nationality and that's all. I have so many friends with dual nationality haha ^^

It won't be recognize as Japan society and especially politicians are still in "one blood one nation."
BTW I recommend you to watch the documentary "half"

 

[MikeH]

When you have another nationality, you simply say I chose Japanese nationality and that's all.

The unofficial policy with this, like with so many other things in Japan, is "don't ask, don't tell". If they ask and you lie then you open up a hole nobody wants to venture. So they try their best not to ask and as long as you keep your multiple nationalities hidden everyone is happy.

The official line is still that if you don't renounce the other citizenship you can lose the Japanese one. http://www.moj.go.jp/MINJI/minji06.html

However the Ministry of Justice has yet never gone after people who got their dual citizenship at birth. And even with people who got Japanese citizenship and "forgot" to renounce the other one there has been only a handful of cases.

 

[foobarxyzabc]

For those who know Japanese it shouldn't be a problem to do all paperwork and save those 10万 of lawyers fees for something more ... interesting.
I have PR and main reason why I didn't get citizenship was requirement to get proper Japanese name.

Actually, some rules regarding PR got better from this year. For example:
https://resources.realestate.co.jp/news/getting-permanent-residence-in-japan-new-rules-announced/

 

[MikeH]

I have PR and main reason why I didn't get citizenship was requirement to get proper Japanese name.

I wouldn't mind the name if they'd let me keep my other passport. I would just take etchina ojisan (horny old man) as my official name as I tend to be called as that already.

But as I see it now they will never allow dual citizenship and I am not trading.

 

[User#21295]

Actually, some rules regarding PR got better from this year. For example:
https://resources.realestate.co.jp/news/getting-permanent-residence-in-japan-new-rules-announced/

It only concerns few people and I call that just "announcement effect", concretely a large majority of foreigners working hard in Japan and not married with Japanese have to wait 10 long following years for PR.
When the high skill visa was launched by stupid bureaucrats, the first year they were so few candidate that they had to make urgent modification. Now medias...oops I mean goverment shout in all over the world that in one year you can get PR but requirements are more like "150millions per year in big corporation, 23 years old, bilingual in Japanese, phd diploma etc.." LOL
I recommend to everybody who is enable to read Japanese to check official data of immigration, that's very interesting...

 

[MikeH]

It only concerns few people and I call that just "announcement effect",

Exactly. It is just PR. Same when they went and published they have a visa for people who want to come with their ideas and start up companies. Yey, sounds great, right? After a year they had given out two visas for that purpose.

 

[foobarxyzabc]

I wouldn't mind the name

It is not only about kanji. I would be limited only to the first and last name, thus middle name would be lost.

 

[Sudsy]

But as I see it now they will never allow dual citizenship and I am not trading.

It was perfectly fine prior to 1985, and given the brain drain with some of Japan's best and brightest going overseas and then being forced to choose... meaning they never return. Brilliant heart surgeon I knew was tapped to head up instruction at Harvard, ended up taking US citizenship - when he otherwise would have been perfectly willing to flit back and forth between countries.

I'm not that hopeful, but it would be to their benefit to amend the nationality law to allow dual nationality. Perhaps restricting certain roles to mono-nationals, such as police, military, fire, and national level elected officials.