Obtaining residence: my current visa is (quite long):
"Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/ Int'l Services" (技術・人文知識・国際業務)
I got this visa sponsored by my first company, which is the most common thing for foreigners. Mine is 5 years, some are just a year long. It all depends on the company and how they file your paperwork.
I don't have permanent residency. I could switch over to spousal visa, but since I still have a lot of time left with my visa, I'm not going to bother the bureaucracy. Also, getting residency isn't as easy; it's like a point system here: how long you've been working, if you went to school in Japan, JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), etc.
Guarantor is only necessary for renting apartments (from my experience).
Did your company handle apartment-finding/ house hunting for you or did you do it on your own? While you aren't a permanent resident, are you treated as a permanent resident for tax purposes?
Regardless of industry, some companies have services for helping you find an apartment, others will have apartments specifically for relocation purposes. Specific to IT, I've never heard a company offering the same things. Some will fly you out. Finding an apartment isn't too difficult although you can only look at the "foreigner list" of apartments.
Regarding tax, it doesn't change. There aren't any breaks nor special levees for foreigners/people with just a work-visa. You get taxed the same (you can even participate in ふるさと納税 [furusato-nōzei] which is a system where you can decide to pay a certain amount to a different prefecture for tax deductions the following year + a gift from the prefecture that you can pick. The gifts are the best part; you can get high grade Japanese beef, high quality fruits, etc).
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https://www.tokyodev.com/
Obtaining residence: my current visa is (quite long): "Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/ Int'l Services" (技術・人文知識・国際業務) I got this visa sponsored by my first company, which is the most common thing for foreigners. Mine is 5 years, some are just a year long. It all depends on the company and how they file your paperwork.
I don't have permanent residency. I could switch over to spousal visa, but since I still have a lot of time left with my visa, I'm not going to bother the bureaucracy. Also, getting residency isn't as easy; it's like a point system here: how long you've been working, if you went to school in Japan, JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), etc.
Guarantor is only necessary for renting apartments (from my experience).