As another Asia-based software dev (Vietnam), this was an interesting read. I am currently going the spousal visa route but this carries its own advantages and disadvantages. I've always loved Japan but generally unsure of living there due to high cost of living, aging population, and strict immigration laws. As least in the case of the latter, it's good to know a path exists!
Actually Japan is significantly lower cost to live than to live in SF. The average salary of a college grad that’s 30 years old is roughly $30K. Their prices are roughly the same because wages are the same, and they can’t afford to increase prices without causing huge systemic problems. As long as you’re not eating kaiseki or expensive sushi, Japan is absurdly cheap from USD standpoint, especially with recent exchange rates. 1 bedroom apartment might only cost you $600/month in more remote parts of Tokyo. A very filling yakitori meal might only be 1000 yen ($7-8) per person.
"non-residents": Did you mean non-citizens? Else, I do not understand the context of this term. Clearly, the OP was talking about living/working in Japan. That would imply residence. Yes, there is national health care. For working age people, it costs about 10-20k yen per month (many factors can change the final cost). Co-pay is 30%.
It's actually better in practice because the state puts maximum prices on all kinds of procedures, and IIRC there is also a maximum annual amount that you can be charged. IOW it's easy to ensure your care costs are bounded.
Great point! First, I didn't know that the national gov't is actively involved in medical pricing. I guess it makes sense when you have national health care. Second, to state the obvious, 30% would be insane co-pay for someone in the United States. However, in Japan, it is quite reasonable. Elderly only pay 10%, and most children pay nothing.
This is a bit of a misconception, at least by East-Asian standards: much easier than China, (surprisingly) easier than South Korea, and similar (maybe slightly stricter) to Taiwan.
Overall: This is a great article. I am not surprised that Japan granted the visa, considering his long work and live experience in Japan. It was relatively low risk for they to grant him the initial 4 month visa, followed by a 1 year visa. If his business failed, he would have closed up after 16 months and returned home.
To me, the most important part about why Japan continues to approve his visa extensions: He income is high enough and he pays local + national taxes. Paying your taxes is the number one reason why Japan will extend your visa! Even if you earnings are overseas, but you declare them while living in Japan and pay Japanese taxes, they will grant you visa extensions.
On a more personal note: It is interesting that he wrote "I have recently remarried, to a Japanese national". The term "~ national" is quite specific in North American English, as it implies the person's origin (and original nationality) is different than the country. For example, Canadian national, but born in Jamaica. This implies, at some point, that the person nationalised as a Canadian.
This is also the visa that many middle class Taiwanese and Chinese people use to move to Japan. It's basically a visa for sale under the auspices of a "business visa".
Can this strategy be used while working remotely as a regular employee for an American company? In other words, does the Japanese business have to generate any revenue?
How so? I’m genuinely curious as a current Tokyo resident.
The main issues Vancouver seems to face are:
Affordability and Housing Crisis: Tokyo is a remarkably affordable city given its status. There’s housing stock at pretty much every price level.
Homelessness and Street Disorder: not a problem in Tokyo
Drug Addiction and Overdose Crisis: not a problem in Tokyo
Traffic Congestion and Transportation: public transportation is stellar in Tokyo. Traffic can get pretty crazy at rush hour, but I hear that’s been the case for a long time and it’s not much of a problem if you use the aforementioned fantastic train system.
FWIW, I left San Francisco after close to 15 years due to the issues above. Tokyo has its problems, but they don’t seem to be in the same category.
Agree it’s not as bad as Vancouver, but housing costs in Tokyo are rising [1]. And speculation by Chinese investors is being blamed, similar to Vancouver.
And while I agree that public transportation is excellent, commuting every day on crowded trains, which can take an hour or more for many people, would be hell for me personally.
Only this year, did the most central parts of Tokyo finally return to their peak property prices from 1989. Tokyo is a steal compared to its "Global Alpha" counterparts.
Thanks for the great writeup! It’s good to know that this option exists for remote software developers who wish to live in Japan.
> My visa has been renewed four times now, with the most recent renewal being for three years (the first three were one-year renewals).
Having to renew every year sounds pretty inconvenient. How bad was the renewal process for the Business Manager visa, in terms of time and cost? Also, is it possible to apply for permanent residence after a certain number of years?
The actual visa renewal fee is only JPY4000 (for full-time employees, spending one of your limited days off going down to the immigration office stings a lot more than the monetary cost). If you want to pay an advisor to prepare the documents that will cost more, but you probably don't need to do that if it's a straight renewal where nothing's changed.
> Also, is it possible to apply for permanent residence after a certain number of years?
10 years generally; there's also a fast-track points system. (You can also naturalize after 5 years, but you have to renounce any other citizenships for that).
helped me put together a three-page document that I was sure wouldn’t be sufficient for the Japanese immigration authorities.
This struck me as a case of bureaucracies operating the same way everywhere (though I could be wrong).
The magic key to documents submitted to governments: don't say anything that requires denial.
So less is often more and it is critical to use the right words and not their apparent synonyms even when the synonyms mean pretty much the same thing.
I.e. if you plan to paint your shed green, don't mention that in your building department application. It doesn't help and can only hurt.
Can't speak for Japan, but in the US, the immigrant does have the burden of proof that all requirements are satisfied and not submitting enough evidence can lead to a request for evidence (RFE) or notice of intent to deny (NOID). And so the law firm we used had the opposite strategy: submit as much evidence as possible and really help the adjudicator check all the boxes. Our petitions tended to be 250-500 page documents.
Yeah, this part smells like the government agency needing a document with the correct contents so someone working there can tick several boxes saying "Requirement fulfilled". The post ends with him wondering why he got the visa, I suppose he just met all the requiments...
Modern Japan gov't agencies are much less adversarial than people imagine. The bad old days of 1990s are gone. Japan is much more liberal about work visas now. If you have a good reason to be here, you make good money, and you pay your taxes, short of a criminal act, you can renew your work visa forever, without issue.
Imagine running a business with a series of one-year guns pointed at your head, never knowing if they'll go off. Countries can and do summarily change the rules for work visas all the time: for example, in Singapore during COVID, the government decided to shore up local employment and score political points before an election by suddenly announcing that spouses of employees could no longer apply for work rights (Letter of Consent) and that existing LOCs would not be renewed, throwing a lot of families into disarray.
It's even worse for an unusual visa like this, where a lot is left to interpretation. You may get a different officer this year who is going to nix what the previous one allowed last year, and appeals are uncertain, cumbersome and may require you to leave the country.
Renewals in Japan are guaranteed if you meet the requirements. Japan foreign worker visa rules are very straightforward. The number one cause for concern would be if your business generates insufficient revenue to pay your a minimum salary required by the visa rules. And the minimum is rather middle class. Before you reply very quickly saying: "What if they business has a bad year?" ... please answer from the perspective of other highly advanced, wealthy nations: Do they want to allow people to stay who are running weak/failing businesses? Probably not.
> in Singapore during COVID ... suddenly announcing that spouses of employees could no longer apply for work rights
This is the reason that I never recommend to live in Singapore as a foreigner, unless you are working as a senior manager for a very large corp.
> Countries can and do summarily change the rules for work visas all the time
Not in Japan. In the last 50 years, they have universally become more liberal about allowing highly skilled people to live and work in Japan.
Maybe things are different with Japanese immigration authorities, but posting this feels dangerous.
In other countries there's a lot of attention on "fraudulent" visas, and it's often vague what "fraudulent" means. I'd be worried that some of the 'tricks' in here (the admission that the business doesn't really need to be in Japan, the office arrangement, etc.) could make immigration authorities revoke the visa if they feel it was done under false pretences.
While I agree if he were doing anything questionable, IDK, my reading is that he's exporting software development services from Japan and paying taxes in Japan correctly on both business income and personal income incident to doing this.
Yup I agree. Japan sets and enforces the requirements as they see fit. It sounds like they are pretty much happy to let anyone in as long as they’ve got ¥5,000,000 and a plan to start a business in Japan.
They clearly keep you on a short leash with the yearly renewal requirements to ensure you are paying taxes, following laws, and are unlikely to become a burden on society.
They may change the requirements in the future, but in a country facing severe population decline, just paying taxes, supporting the health care and social security systems, and spending money with local businesses may be sufficient to justify handing out the visa.