Permanent Resident Visa

[goodandbadjapan]

Congratulations on your PR.

I am about to take the plunge as well and from my reading of it income does not matter if you are the spouse of a Japanese national, though being a person of good character does, so if you have paid your tax/pension/health late you are in trouble. It’s OK to have been in prison though...

I am hoping it’s a case of common sense prevailing tbh. My missus and I have been married 25 years, have built a house here, are both working and have paid what we have to when we have to. Being British I have a fear of immigration departments but I am hoping for fair play here.

You'll be fine. I was told I wouldn't get it because I didn't pay into the pension scheme (I do now and have done ever since I knew you had to) but I didn't then and was fine. I was told I wouldn't get it because my business was less than two years old but that, too, was untrue. I was told I couldn't get a credit card or mortgage without PR and yet got both. In short, it's hard to know what to believe but lots of people will tell you things as dead cert facts! On a positive note, in 20 years here I have not actually ever met anyone who has applied for PR and been denied. It must happen, of course, but if you meet the basic requirements I think you have a very good chance of success.

[Beaglehound]

Congratulations on your PR.

I am about to take the plunge as well and from my reading of it income does not matter if you are the spouse of a Japanese national, though being a person of good character does, so if you have paid your tax/pension/health late you are in trouble. It’s OK to have been in prison though...

I am hoping it’s a case of common sense prevailing tbh. My missus and I have been married 25 years, have built a house here, are both working and have paid what we have to when we have to. Being British I have a fear of immigration departments but I am hoping for fair play here.

You'll be fine. I was told I wouldn't get it because I didn't pay into the pension scheme (I do now and have done ever since I knew you had to) but I didn't then and was fine. I was told I wouldn't get it because my business was less than two years old but that, too, was untrue. I was told I couldn't get a credit card or mortgage without PR and yet got both. In short, it's hard to know what to believe but lots of people will tell you things as dead cert facts! On a positive note, in 20 years here I have not actually ever met anyone who has applied for PR and been denied. It must happen, of course, but if you meet the basic requirements I think you have a very good chance of success.

Thanks for the encouragement, I too have seen the doom mongering and of course it does make one worry. But I do meet the basic requirements so am hopeful it will be OK. If not, I can always try again.

[adamu]

Putting this here because I can't think of a better place. We should probably have a "PR Application Useful Info Round-up" page or something.

One piece of useful information I found for providing proof of Kokumin Nenkin, that is not listed on the official site*, is that although you can submit a "full" Nenkin Teikibin or printout of the same information from Nenkin-net, there is also a document called 被保険者記録照会書（＋被保険者記録照会（納付 Ⅰ））, which you can get from the pension office that contains the same information.

You can get an electronic version of 被保険者記録照会書 from Nenkin-net, but it doesn't seem like they provide 納付 Ⅰ, so better to get the physical printout from the office.

*They gave me a paper form that requested this document, after I visited them with a printout of the online information (linked for now - information is behind the links in the 必要書類等 section but the links break all the time) asking lots of questions about what I needed to prepare.

[Del]

Congratulations on your PR.

I am about to take the plunge as well and from my reading of it income does not matter if you are the spouse of a Japanese national, though being a person of good character does, so if you have paid your tax/pension/health late you are in trouble. It’s OK to have been in prison though...

I am hoping it’s a case of common sense prevailing tbh. My missus and I have been married 25 years, have built a house here, are both working and have paid what we have to when we have to. Being British I have a fear of immigration departments but I am hoping for fair play here.

You'll be fine. I was told I wouldn't get it because I didn't pay into the pension scheme (I do now and have done ever since I knew you had to) but I didn't then and was fine. I was told I wouldn't get it because my business was less than two years old but that, too, was untrue. I was told I couldn't get a credit card or mortgage without PR and yet got both. In short, it's hard to know what to believe but lots of people will tell you things as dead cert facts! On a positive note, in 20 years here I have not actually ever met anyone who has applied for PR and been denied. It must happen, of course, but if you meet the basic requirements I think you have a very good chance of success.

As has been said above, as long as you meet the basic requirements......
I could only speak from the spouse visa point of view; I’ve never worked in Japan and have only recently ( 2 yrs ago ) moved here. My wife is Japanese.

Married 30+ years and lived in the UK.
Early retirement gave us the opportunity to purchase a Kominka and move to Japan from the UK 2yrs ago ( 3yr Spouse Visa )
“ Exempt “ from paying into the Japanese Pension system as we are both over 60 and are in receipt of our various UK pensions, but of course paying into the Japanese Health system.
All applicable tax payments were up to date.
I applied in Okayama for PR in early Oct 2020 and was granted it last week ( Dec 2020 ) Was told the process would take at least 6 months.

Del

[RetireJapan]

I applied in Okayama for PR in early Oct 2020 and was granted it last week ( Dec 2020 ) Was told the process would take at least 6 months.

Congratulations! That is incredibly quick

[Quinoa]

Curious if anyone here has applied for PR through the HSFP point system and claimed points for a patent. I was fortunate enough to work on a project last year whose output got patented. The priority claim was in February 2019, the actual patent was filed in February 2020, and the actual publication was in August 2020.

With the patent points, that brings me up to 85, and so I can potentially apply for PR once I can prove the patent has been under my name for at least one year. I'm just curious what the 1 year would be dated from. The priority claim? The filing date? The publication date? I'm thinking worst case scenario I submit my application August 2021, but if I can possibly try February 2021 I'd save a couple of months.

[adamu]

that brings me up to 85, and so I can potentially apply for PR once I can prove the patent has been under my name for at least one year. I'm just curious what the 1 year would be dated from. The priority claim? The filing date? The publication date? I'm thinking worst case scenario I submit my application August 2021, but if I can possibly try February 2021 I'd save a couple of months.

The best thing to do would be to ask immigration directly. When you apply you need to provide two point calculation forms: one for application date, one for a year ago, and they both need to be 80 points or more.

[Quinoa]

that brings me up to 85, and so I can potentially apply for PR once I can prove the patent has been under my name for at least one year. I'm just curious what the 1 year would be dated from. The priority claim? The filing date? The publication date? I'm thinking worst case scenario I submit my application August 2021, but if I can possibly try February 2021 I'd save a couple of months.

The best thing to do would be to ask immigration directly. When you apply you need to provide two point calculation forms: one for application date, one for a year ago, and they both need to be 80 points or more.

I'll give that a shot, thanks! Looks like there's a phone number posted on the HSFP information page, so I'll give them a call this week.

[Del]

I applied in Okayama for PR in early Oct 2020 and was granted it last week ( Dec 2020 ) Was told the process would take at least 6 months.

Congratulations! That is incredibly quick

Thank you in part to information gleaned from your forum prior to me applying.

Also the Okayama office was quite helpful when my wife called them ( several times ) about required documentation during the application completion. This ensured that we only attended the office once, to submit my application. The only query whilst waiting for the result was the lack of info on the submitted Juminhyo. We had to send a COMPLETE Juminhyo containing all info except MyNumber.

Del

[Roger Van Zant]

Congratulations on your PR.

I am about to take the plunge as well and from my reading of it income does not matter if you are the spouse of a Japanese national, though being a person of good character does, so if you have paid your tax/pension/health late you are in trouble. It’s OK to have been in prison though...

I am hoping it’s a case of common sense prevailing tbh. My missus and I have been married 25 years, have built a house here, are both working and have paid what we have to when we have to. Being British I have a fear of immigration departments but I am hoping for fair play here.

You'll be fine. I was told I wouldn't get it because I didn't pay into the pension scheme (I do now and have done ever since I knew you had to) but I didn't then and was fine. I was told I wouldn't get it because my business was less than two years old but that, too, was untrue. I was told I couldn't get a credit card or mortgage without PR and yet got both. In short, it's hard to know what to believe but lots of people will tell you things as dead cert facts! On a positive note, in 20 years here I have not actually ever met anyone who has applied for PR and been denied. It must happen, of course, but if you meet the basic requirements I think you have a very good chance of success.

It must happen, of course, but if you meet the basic requirements I think you have a very good chance of success.

This. I remember when I was applying for my gun and hunting licenses here in Japan. The way a fellow foreigner with guns explained things to me was "If you meet all the requirements, they can't NOT give it (the license) to you". I think this is how it goes with PR, driving licenses, and such like in Japan.