The points to be noted to get a spouse visa in Japan after getting married to a Japanese partner.

When you get married to a Japanese partner, if you plan to settle in Japan with your Japanese partner for a long time, you are, sooner or later, in need of getting the visa status of “Spouse or Child of Japanese National”.

As of when you start preparing for legal marriage procedure, you should proceed with making an arrangement for Spouse visa acquisition at the same time.

When it comes to visa acquisition failure, the sooner, the better.

What is the status “Spouse or Child of Japanese National”?

The spouses of Japanese nationals, the children adopted by Japanese nationals pursuant to the provisions of Article 817-2 of the Civil Code (Law No.89 of 1896) or those born as the children of Japanese nationals.
List of statuses of residence by the immigration bureau of Japan

The status of “Spouse or Child of Japanese National”, commonly known as “a spouse visa”, is a visa type (resident status) that grants a non-Japanese person to stay with a Japnese partner to spend new married life in Japan for a mid-to-long term. Granted duration of stay is 5 years, 3 years, 1 year or 6 months.

“Child of Japanese National” indicates a child corresponding to special adoption or a child, having no Japanese nationality for some reason in spite of giving birth in Japan.

Generally, an applicant will be granted permission with the status of “Spouse or Child of Japanese National” to stay in Japan for 1 year after passing the screening. Depending on the situation, an applicant can be granted 3-year permission.

For example, if an applicant, having made a living overseas so far, has a child coming of age, and earn sufficient income, there is a case that an applicant can be granted permission to stay in Japan for 3 years from the first visa screening.

As I said, this is a visa to allow an applicant to spend a married life with a Japanese partner in Japan. Even though the marriage was formed legally if an applicant doesn’t live together with a Japanese partner, an applicant ends up failing to acquire a spouse visa.

Sometimes, I come across the case that a Japanese partner goes to another country to work, leaving children and non-Japanese partner in Japan. In this situation, it is really difficult to maintain the resident status, granted by the immigration bureau of Japan.

Living together with a Japanese partner is one of the most essential conditions you have to satisfy.

Pros & Cons of a spouse visa

Pros of a spouse visa

No employment restrictions

Prior to working in Japan, a lot of severe restrictions and requirements block you from working visa acquisition such as working experience, educational background.

Even if you somehow get a working visa, there are a lot of jobs which you can’t get because of visa restriction. Especially, jobs classified as manual labor are not included in a job list of a working visa, corresponding to the visa conditions

For example, you can’t get a part-time job at a convenience store, a full-time job at a factory, and a part-time job of easy hotel services with a work visa.

However, if you live in Japan under a spouse visa, the above employment restrictions are removed, you can get a job whatever you want like Japanese people.

Of course, you can start up your own business, with no restriction about employment and capital amount.

Easy naturalization and easy permanent status acquisition

Acquiring the status of “permanent resident” in Japan, a non-Japanese resident, living in Japan, need to satisfy the condition of living in Japan for more than 10 years continuously. This 10-year living in Japan needs to be continuous without skipping a year to live temporarily in the applicant’s country.

For example, if you had already lived in Japan for 9 years continuously but you had gone back to your country because of your work, and you returned back to Japan 2 years later, then your continuous living achievement will be back to square one and your living year in Japan will be counted from scratch.

In contrast, a spouse visa holder’s requirement of the duration of stay on permanent visa acquisition is much more eased than a work visa holder. In the case of an applicant with a spouse visa, an applicant is required to spend substantive married life with a Japanese partner for more than 3 years and live in Japan for more than 1 year continuously after that.

This is one of the conditions of permanent visa acquisition for a spouse visa holder. You might understand how easier it is for a spouse visa holder to a get permanent visa.

In terms of naturalization, similar easing measures to permanent visa acquisition are also set for a spouse visa holder.

Cons of a spouse visa

In other words, a point of dispute is whether or not, an applicant intends to scheme a fake marriage. Especially, Detecting what kind of intention an applicant has in furtive mind is the biggest concern for immigration officers.

For example, in the case of “Student visa”, you have a reason to study in an educational institution because of paying a lot of school fees, even if you have another purpose to do something but to study in Japan, a fake student is not generated from an educational institution ostensively because there is a concluded contract between a student and a school.

And for another example, in the case that an applicant, employed by a Japanese company, is granted a work permit, there is a reality, an applicant is going to work there, which a third person can recognize.

However, the essence of marriage is really based on a married couple’s emotion and thoughts. The requirements that an applicant overcome inevitably increase to judge whether or not, an applicant has another purpose for marriage in Japan.

The conditions of a spouse visa

Stable and continuous income

An applicant is required to gain sufficient income enough to live with a Japanese partner.

If you work as a regular employee, you are generally recognized that you gain stable and continuous income, except for the trial position.

However, even if you work as a regular employee, if your salary is as small as you somehow manage to survive your living, you are judged that you gain insufficient income to live with your Japanese partner in Japan.

Likewise, if you work under the pay structure that the salary amount changes depending on the number of working date, you might possibly be seen that you have a gimmick against stable and continuous income. You need to have a consultation with a visa acquisition expert in this case.

Credibility of marriage

There are so many fake marriage cases not only in Japan but other advanced countries so that the screening of marriage credibility is very stringent.

If you correspond to the following factors, you shall have a consultation with a visa acquisition expert.

Financial potential of a guarantor

When applying for a spouse visa, a Japanese partner submits a certificate of sponsorship as an applicant’s guarantor. A guarantor’s income is investigated with a tax certificate, which is one of the required certificates when becoming a guarantor.

Therefore, if the income of both a husband and a wife is as small as it is difficult to make a living together, the authority hesitates to grant permission.

It is not necessarily that either one needs to feed the other partner.

The important point is that if a married couple, a combination with Japanese and non-Japanese, can be judged that they make a living in Japan independently without relying on someone else in the aspect of money.

5 situations of spouse visa acquisition

A Japanese partner Invite an applicant from your country to Japan

When a Japanese partner holds a wedding ceremony and goes through marriage procedure in your country and a Japanese partner returns back to Japan in advance, leaving you, or when a Japanese partner proceed with marriage procedure in a municipal office in Japan while you stay in your country, your partner is a substitute for you to go through procedure of a spouse visa to an immigration office.

A married couple living overseas comes back to Japan

A person who could get a spouse visa in this situation is mostly limited to the one who works for a Japanese company’s subsidiary or a branch office, located in a foreign country, in the form of inhouse-transfer from the headquarter of the company based in Japan. Either one of you or a Japanese partner needs to work for a Japanese company based in Japan.

This is because a person who works under inhouse-transfer is guaranteed to receive continuous income even if returning back to Japan unless an employment contract ends.

In the case that you work for your country’s company based in your country, if there is a branch office or a subsidiary that you can be assigned to with a request of inhouse-transfer, your stable income is guaranteed and you may be accepted as an indirect case, corresponding to the above case.

However, if you work for a small company without expanding its business overseas, quitting the job is quite a realistic choice to come to Japan.
For a spouse visa application, if you work a temporary contract employee, you end up giving a negative impression to an immigration officer.

If you have no job, you can no longer expect to pass the screening of the visa.

You change the visa status from “temporary visit” to “spouse”

Visa acquisition in this way is principally prohibited by the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.

You, with mid-to-long term visa such as “student”, change the visa status to “spouse”

There is two points to be noted

The current status situation

An applicant’s behavior and conduct must be good. In spite of a student, if you devote most of your time to par-time job and shool attendance rate is very few, you give a negative impression to an immigration officer.

If you are lazy about “activity as a student” althoguh you are allowed to stay in Japan under the permission of “student”, an immigraton officer doubts you if you don’t have responsibility on “activity as a spouce” even after granting the status and if your acual purpose for the visa acquisition is possibly not to spend married life in Japan but just to want to work in Japan.

Expiration of the visa

If you get married to a Japanese partner at the last minute of visa expiration, and if the length of a relationship is very short, the screening naturally becomes restrictive. This is called, “rushing marriage”.

You renew a spouse visa when remarrying to another Japanese partner after getting a divorce from the previous Japanese partner

In the first place, this situation itself already gives a really negative impression to an immigration officer. This is a really challenging situation. The following factors are the worst cases in this situation.

In the above cases, an immigration offer judges that the applications for visa renewal contain fake information with high possibility.

One more thing to be noted is whether you notify the fact of divorce to an immgration office after getting a divorce from the previous Japanese partner. If a person, with a spouce status, get a divorce from or is bereaved of a Japanese partner, a person is legally obliged to notify the fact to an immigration office within 2 weeks.

If you notified the fact of divorce after 3 weeaks or didn’t notify in the first place, you violate the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act and give negative impression to an immigration officer. This behavior is totally against the condition “an applicant’s behavior and conduct must be good”.

The points to be not granted