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For foreign citizens who live in Japan with VISA status, Permanent Residence is one of the goals they want to achieve in their life. But most people don’t understand the requirements to get PR. the requirement for PR has unique features compared with that of other VISA status as followings;
⓵these requirements are minimum requirement to apply for PR. So, there is risk for rejection even through you meet the requirements for PR.
②For some types of people, there are different requirements to get PR.
In this article, I will explain the requirement to get PR for VISA holders, then introduce some exceptions for spouses of Japanese.
1.Good moral standards
You need to have good moral standard if you would get PR in Japan. You shouldn’t have record of imprisonment and fine because of violation of Japanese law. The government of Japan want to accept foreign citizens who are good members for the community, so they ask PR applicants to have good moral standing.
Even you have not violated the law of japan, you might be rejected if you have record of frequent records of minor violation of law and socially unacceptable acts.
2. Having basis or skills to sustain your independent life
If you would like to get the permission of Permanent Residence, you also need to have economical ability or basis or skills to continue your economically independent life in Japan. If you received public allowance for low income families, you don’t meet this requirement. Generally, if your annual income is lower than 3 million yen, you are unlikely to meet this requirement.
3. Meeting national interest
According to the guideline for Permissions of Permanent Residence from the Ministry of Justice, your residence in Japan have to meet national interest for Japan. They also published condition about national interest as followings;
a.living in Japan continuously for more than 10 years. you also need to have more than 5 years periods with Working VISA or Residence VISA (ex. Spouse VISA) among 10 years.
b.Having 3 years or 5 years VISA
c. Fulfilling obligation for payment of tax and social security and obeying law
d.No risk of harming in terms of public sanitary
e.No extreme risk to harm public interest
If you meet these conditions, you meet the National interests.
These are requirements for the Permission of Permanent Residence in case of Working VISA holders (not including Highly Skilled Professional VISA holders). There are some exceptions for certain types of VISA holders about the requirements for Permanent Residence.
Spouses and Children of Japanese
If you are spouses or children of Japanese, you just have to meet 3. meeting national interest. So, you just need to meet the following conditions.
a. Living in Japan continuously for more than 10 years. you also need to have more than 5 years periods with Working VISA or Residence VISA (ex. Spouse VISA) among 10 years.
b. Having 3 years or 5 years VISA
c. Fulfilling obligation for payment of tax and social security and obeying law
d. No risk of harming in terms of public sanitary
e. No extreme risk to harm public interest
For the spouses and children of Japanese, there is also the exceptions about” a.living in Japan for more than 10 years in Japan. you also need to have more than 5 years periods with Working VISA or Residence VISA (ex. Spouse VISA) among 10 years”.
If you are spouses of Japanese, you just need to continue your marriage life with your Japanese spouses for 3 years and live in japan continuously for more than 1 year.
If you are children of Japanese, you just need to live in Japan continuously for more than 1 year.
This is the typical exception. There are also other types of exception for Permanent Residence in Japan. If you would like to know about “1. Good moral standards”, “2. Having basis or skills to sustain your independent life economically” and “3. Meeting national interest”. But you just need to live in Japan continuously for more than 5 years.
Permanent Residence has so many exceptions. If you would like to apply for PR, you need to check what kinds of exception is available for you.
Daichi Ito
Immigration Law Practitioner(Gyoseishoshi)
Are you considering for PR application
We made the new edition of e-book "Engineer's guide for Permanent Residency 2022". In this e-book, I made this e-book to inform you basic requirements of Permanent Residency. In addition, I also put information on recent changes on PR application.
If you are engineers who plan to apply for PR, please click this webpage to download the e-book.