[tristanj]

A large number of Airbnb hosts were using this Business Manager Visa as a way to stay in Japan.

People in China realized they could just buy/lease a guesthouse in Osaka / any tourist hotspot, and rent it out on Airbnb. Then they become a "business manager" and get a Japanese resident visa within 3 months. All you needed is to invest 5million yen, which is like 31k USD, which isn't much. People wrote entire online guides on how to do this. They even had brokers/agents helping people with the process [0].

Approximately half of all business manager visas went to Chinese nationals. In Osaka, 41% of all short-term rentals were operated by Chinese individuals [1]. The visa practically turned into an Airbnb host visa.

It's not surprising at all that Japan made the rules stricter.

[0] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/06/05/japan/immigrati...

[1] https://chinatravelnews.com/article/186285/

[timr]

Yep. There was also a proliferation of Indian restaurants in the major cities, for the same basic reason. (Though I have to say that seems like a much harder road than operating a guesthouse for people from your own country, which is what I presume was the Chinese approach.)

Since you can bring in relatives on this kind of visa, I’ve heard the expression “One curry pot equals three people”. There have been stories in the Japanese press about long-time restauranteurs being shut down by the new rules.

[rayiner]

> Since you can bring in relatives on this kind of visa, I’ve heard the expression “One curry pot equals three people”.

Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it. The New York Times did a good podcast on how uncapped family reunification ended up being a loophole that totally overturned all the limits and compromises in the 1965 immigration reform laws in the U.S.: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...

[hylaride]

It's a contentious issue in Canada, too. There are legit reasons families may want to bring in certain extended family members (grandparents for childcare, etc), but it becomes a chain. Canada's elderly benefits are designed for people that have lived here all their lives, so it adds a strain to healthcare and other services.

IMO it should be immediate family (spouse and children) and then maybe one should be able to sponsor 2 others on long term VISAs. But there would still be fraud (there always will be I suppose).

[nicbou]

> Canada's elderly benefits are designed for people that have lived here all their lives, so it adds a strain to healthcare and other services.

In Germany, the benefits are tied to contributions, and after 45 years old, having some sort of pension is a requirement for getting a residence permit.

That being said, Canada is also getting skilled workers it did not pay to raise, educate and train. It's getting a good deal, but it's not getting a free meal. Those workers will have demands too.

[rayiner]

> That being said, Canada is also getting skilled workers it did not pay to raise, educate and train. It's getting a good deal, but it's not getting a free meal.

Canada’s moribund GDP per capita suggests they’re not getting a good deal. One big problem is that foreign education is worth very little because the standards are so much lower. Half my extended family in my parents' cohort moved to the U.S./Australia/Canada. They all had college degrees from Bangladesh, which was very favorable under the point-based immigration in Australia and Canada. Out of a dozen people, only my dad got a college-required job without further education. My uncle became a doctor after redoing medical school. And two cousins went to college in Australia and got professional jobs. That was it--everybody else got permanent residency based on paper credentials then took non-college jobs. And they lived in subsidized housing, and got a lot of support from the government.

I would be curious to see the statistics for what fraction of Canadian/Australian skilled immigrants actually get a job that requires their skills and credentials. I suspect that there's a high percentage of people who get permanent residency based on paper credentials, but who can't actually get a job. The American system of tying the visa to a specific job solves at least that problem. I suspect the rate of return for the Canadian/Australian system is poor outside of medicine + people who immigrate to attend college in Canada/Australia.

[hylaride]

I'm not complaining myself, but the system has broken down due to abuse (and outright fraud) of student visas, where the "students" then started working front-line retail and delivery jobs. We stopped getting the skilled workers and got a lot of fraudulent ones, and there was a path to permanent residency/citizenship, which then became a pipeline for their families.

There's been a crackdown as of late, but it's significantly impacted the perceived benefits of immigration here (and significantly increased south-asian racism). I know this problem wasn't unique to Canada (AU/NZ/UK all had similar issues) as many countries felt it was better to get these immigrants educated here where their credentials could be recognized, but they underestimated the demand via diploma mills.

[TMWNN]

>That being said, Canada is also getting skilled workers it did not pay to raise, educate and train.

As raynier said, Canada's diminishing per-capita GDP does not in any way reflect this. It is not an exaggeration to say that the entirety of the country's post-2015 GDP growth has come from massively increased immigration.

Indians in the US are by are large filtered for ability, and contribute to legal immigrants in the country being of high quality in the aggregate (although H1B visa abuse has changed this view).

Canada has seen a colossal recent influx of Chinese and especially Indian immigrants, the latter group now twice as large as in the US per capita.

Like the US, Canada allows international students to work. Unlike the US, Canada allowed those students to work off campus (!) for up to 40 (!!) hours a week. This caused the rise of an entire industry, in which so-called institutions of higher learning (Conestoga, Lambton, Confederation) have 99% Indian "students" that work off campus, destroying the local job and housing markets.

While they are (mostly) legal, unlike the influx of Latinos streaming uncontrolled across the Mexican border until the Trump crackdown, the numbers are still staggering for a country of Canada's size. And at least those illegal aliens entering the US are looking for manual labor, with the men going into construction and other trades. The Indians in Canada aren't nearly so willing to get their hands dirty, working at Tim Horton's ("Timmigrants") and as truck drivers (causing havoc on highways).

[fakedang]

Under the UAE's Golden Visa scheme, it's parents, children and any dependent siblings, which I think is an optimal balance. The person who sponsors the rest is/are the primary visa holder(s) and the authorities only take their situation into account when assessing lifestyle.

So your parents don't need to have a pension or an income source if they want to live with you, and you can sponsor any disabled siblings (who get massive benefits from the UAE government whether citizen or non-citizen). But you cannot support an able-bodied male sibling above the age of 25. You can sponsor female unmarried siblings regardless of age as long as they are unmarried (realities of that region I guess). But more importantly, you cannot sponsor just about everyone and anyone, so it stops becoming a chain of sponsorships like it is in the West. There are some workarounds to this system though (e.g.: you can hire one as a personal driver and another as an administrative assistant staff for your company) but they're still very restrictive.

Citizenship is obviously not at all a given, even for long term Golden Visa holders. But at least they don't tax you either which is still a reasonable balance altogether. You will get considered for citizenship though if you have a stellar track record (research, entrepreneurship, sports, govt service).

[mmooss]

> Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it.

It's a huge benefit, giving more people the benefits of freedom, bringing the country benefits of more free people (including economic growth), and bringing families together.

As there is little documented downside, it's a huge win. I want people to have freedom and families to be together. What's the downside?

[timr]

> Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it.

I don’t know if I’d go that far. I tend to think it’s kind of cruel to separate families indefinitely in the name of labor, but I do see that restrictions are necessary to prevent abuse.

There’s an entire spectrum of reasonable debate here.

[rayiner]

It's not about "abuse." It's that family reunification undermines the filters that are at the heart of every immigration law. My dad came over from Bangladesh on an H1 and he's the guy you put on the brochure when you market skilled visa programs to voters. He's a public health expert who had a job in-hand in the U.S. And he moved his kids to a neighborhood without any other Bangladeshis and raised us without any foreign attachments or sympathies. Because that's the kind of person who self-selects into leaving everything behind to undertake an arduous immigration process.

But none of those filters apply to family reunification. You don't need skills, you don't need a job. You're making much less of a sacrifice in terms of leaving your family behind, since by definition you already have family in the U.S. You can move into an enclave with people from your country and live your life and raise your kids the same way you were doing back home. You just enjoy the benefits of living in a richer country.

The result of all that is you end up with this bizarre system where you apply intensive screening to select 65,000 H1Bs, 19,000 O-1s, etc. But then you hand out hundreds of thousands of greencards to people who meet no criteria other than having family who is already here.

[fc417fc802]

Is that really so bizarre? You're framing it as some sort of fundamental policy failure but isn't it better viewed as the cost of doing business?

Sure, you could propose an alternative regime where that isn't permitted. But that's a competing proposal for how to structure things and has (I think) legitimate tradeoffs. While there might well be practical problems with any given implementation I don't think there's any fundamental issue with handling immigration on the level of the nuclear family.

[rayiner]

> but isn't it better viewed as the cost of doing business?

That assumes we couldn’t get the number of skilled workers we want without allowing them to bring over their parents, siblings, etc. I don’t think that’s true, especially these days. I bet you could easily fill the 65,000 H1B seats just with unmarried foreign students studying in American colleges.

I don’t think the system was ever designed with the idea that we need to allow in all these additional family members to get the skilled immigrants we want. I think it’s just an accident of history. And the result is a law that simply makes no sense on its own terms. Why go to all the trouble of heavily scrutinizing less than 100,000 skilled immigrants while you allow in several times that with no filtering? At that point, you might as well just assign half a million spots by lottery, or auction them to the highest bidder.

[nicbou]

I wouldn't call it a loophole but a compromise.

If you want to attract skilled labour, you must allow them to bring their dependents. They come as a unit.

[rayiner]

It’s not just dependents. It includes parents and siblings of both the skilled immigrant and their spouse. And, transitively, cousins, etc.

[nicbou]

I assume we're talking about different countries.

[jmyeet]

Just speaking for the US:

- Immediate relatives of US citizens have no quota. Immediate relatives include children under 21 (it's complicated), parents and spouses only;

- Siblings of US citizens have a quota. the wait is almost 20 years currently;

- Unmarried children of US citizens and green card holders who are over 21 have a wait of 8 to 20 years depending on country of birth;

- Spouses of green card holders and unmarried children under 21 of green card holders have a wait of 1-2 years generally;

- Married children of US citizens have a wait of 10-25 years;

Additionally, the president has broad powers to limit giving visas (nonimmigrant or immigrant) for consular processing thanks to Trump v. Hawaii [1] that mostly cannot be challenged in court. There are various bans on this for 19, 39 and 75 countries. It is unlikely many of these people will not be able to get a visa at all at least until Trump leaves office.

Immigration has become a political scapegoat for many things from housing prices to crime to unemployment. There's no evidence of any of this. Housing is particularly funny. Migrants (undocumented or documented) aren't the reason your rent is through the roof. Also, migrants of any type commit fewer crimes on a per-capita rate than US citizens [2].

If you want to look at actual immigration abuse, I'll give you two examples:

1. There are credible allegations Elon Musk was out-of-status after leaving Stanford [3]. This matters because, if true, it makes him ineligible to adjust to an employment-based green card and, by extension, it means he can be denaturalized. USCIS under this administration is more aggressively pursuing denaturalization. Do you think that includes Elon Musk? Yeah, me neither;

2. Melania Trump, a model from Slovakia, came to the US on a tourist visa in 1996 and allegedly worked on that visa, which is unauthorized. She later got an EB-1 green card in 2001 [4], colloquially known as an "Einstein visa". Again, unauthorized work here would make her ineligible to adjust status and could be grounds for denaturalization as well. Do you think USCIS will pursue that? No, me neither. Also, she engaged in the Republican sin of "chain migration" by sponsoring her parents in 2006.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._Hawaii

[2]: https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/mythical-tie-between-immigra...

[3]: https://stanforddaily.com/2024/11/11/elon-musk-stanford-work...

[4]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43256318

[rayiner]

Immediate relatives is totally uncapped and includes parents. So right there, each skilled immigrant can bring over a spouse and ultimately four parents. And those four people are going to be the least likely to work and assimilate due to their age. On top of that, although the family preference visas are capped, the cap is very high: 226,000 per year. That's triple the number of skilled workers.

I don't care about this or that individual. The problem is volume. When we came to the U.S. in 1989, there were only 10,000 Bangladeshis. Today there are over 600,000. There are "Little Bangladeshes" in many cities. I have a hard time believing highly skilled H1B workers and their kids are going to create these enclaves.

[selimthegrim]

She's from Slovenia.

[modo_mario]

Same in belgium. It's almost if not the biggest source of migration.

[mitthrowaway2]

I have to say though, the abundant authentic, high-quality and low-cost Indian and Nepalese restaurants across the country was a real quality of life benefit for people living in Japan.

[timr]

I tend to be pretty sympathetic to anyone who does the insanely hard work of operating an actual restaurant.

[alper]

> much harder road

Given that we have 2+ in each high street in Berlin, it seems it's not that difficult.

[alephnerd]

Those "Indian" restaurants are primarily run by Nepali nationals.

[timr]

Yeah, I’ve heard that. Also Bangladeshi. I think it’s a southeast asian mix, really.

[fc417fc802]

I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system from a strictly pragmatic standpoint but 5 million yen seems far too low.

[torben-friis]

>I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system

That depends of what you're hoping to prevent.

If you want to filter out people who can't sustain themselves, petty crime or the like, it works. But it can open the door to a lot of unwanted effects.

A foreign national that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country.

[rwmj]

> A [person] that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country.

Even to their home country.

[junon]

Genuine question: how so? I'm not familiar with the economics of this.

[toss1]

The short answer is this an exemplar of the distinction between generating income by producing vs generating income by rent-seeking.

Producing something, goods, services, useful information, etc. is a net plus for society, adding value for both the producer and the consumer, making the society overall richer.

Rent-seeking is purely extractive - it extracts value from the consumer, and in the cases where the extractor is outside of the society, e.g., a foreigner or oligarch-type, it extracts value from the society, leaving the society poorer.

[bouncycastle]

Many positives. For example, the buildings get to be maintained and left in a better condition, rather than deteriorate. Streets look better too, and landrods have an interest that their assets are located in areas with low crime and adequate public services, as that improves the value of their properties. Often airbnb properties are well maintained, and I've seen a few examples where derelict properties were turned into nice looking houses in my town.

Landlords such as Airbnb hosts usually invest a lot in furniture and equipment, helping to keep the producers in business. Not to mention provide employment thanks to renovations, cleaning and maintenance. I'd say it leaves the economy more vibrant and benefits all. A classic example where landlords were banned was the Soviet Union, and all the housing problems that followed. Although the USSR finally collapsed, people there still live in the old Khrushchevkas...

[junon]

Seems nobody has read the comment I'm responding to. I understand this part. They're saying it is detrimental to the home country. Why?

[nradov]

Efficient capital allocation is a net positive for society.

[junon]

I understand why it's not great for the target country. I'm asking why GP said it was bad for the home country.

[ecshafer]

Rent extraction is bad, since it hurts productivity. Ill admit I am an unabashed Georgist, but the book Progress and Poverty by Henry George is pretty accessible. But basically this: Capital and Capitalists are good, they have money, then lend it for ownership, this creates innovation. Labor is good, you need workers, they work, they produce, its good. But Rent (extracting value from land, patents, etc.) is just a negative drain, labor has to pay rent, capital has to pay rent, but they don't really innovate and grow the economy.

[junon]

But what about their home country?

[embedding-shape]

The general feedback loop is "have lots of money === easier to make more money", and doing so via passive approaches like "own property, rent it out" basically spirals out of control to a few owning a lot, unless you try to restrict it somehow. Add in that "vacation rentals" is hugely interesting for real estate owners as you get so much more per owned property, and suddenly local residents are even harder hit by property not being available even for long-term rent anymore. Final drop being that the real estate owner doesn't even live, work or spend their money in the country of the property itself, and suddenly it's basically all downside for the country and the people living there.

[nradov]

The notion of earning "passive income" as a landlord is a total fantasy. The reality is that it takes a lot of work. Otherwise tenants, vendors, and property managers will wreck the assets and rob you blind.

[junon]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48541141

[nradov]

If foreign nationals are able to extract a lot of capital through rents then that's a sign that the government has made it too difficult to develop new rental housing.

[mitthrowaway2]

This really isn't the case in Japan. It's extremely easy to develop new rental housing, and rents are fairly low.

However, it can be difficult for foreigners without a Japanese support network (like a blue-chip employer) to rent property in Japan at market price, because of discrimination by landlords. This isn't because of government policy, it's because building managers have the impression, mistaken or otherwise, that foreign tenants won't respect the rules, will be difficult to communicate with, or might skip town with unpaid rent.

[braiamp]

Or that capital has captured the regulators and are happy with it.

[Gareth321]

> A foreign national that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country.

Is this a creative way of arguing that landlords are a net loss for the country? Because I would like to remind you that MANY people cannot afford to buy homes, and renting is how they make sure they don't become homeless.

[myrmidon]

I'm from a region negatively affected by this.

Foreign capital is undesirable in the housing market because:

1) It raises demand (when buying a home as a local, you now also have to compete with foreigners "investing", and this raises prices).

2) It often develops housing in a very unhealthy direction: Airbnbs and vacation apartments are toxic for local society and must be kept in check, otherwise you end up with half the houses just being shuttered for the whole off-season, and towns becoming empty husks.

3) Rent is a lot of money, and its obviously beneficial if it stays in the local economy instead of flowing abroad.

[nradov]

Why is there insufficient new housing development in your region?

[braiamp]

Because that implies more supply and landlords are happy with the supply being restricted. The people that has the money to build won't, the government will follow the money, so the state doesn't help. That kind of question reeks to "why are you poor?", well, because I have no money!

[myrmidon]

I don't think there is, really, but plenty of potential housing (and also the cost of construction) is pressured by "pseudo-housing" (Airbnb, vacation apartments, boutique hotels), often fueled by foreign capital.

[braiamp]

So, you changed topics from airbnb, which removes units from the rental market, to landlords in general? I think I can play that game. Lets go for the easiest one against landlords: Renting being the alternative to homelessness isn't a feature, it's a failure of housing policy. Homeowners carry 400% more net wealth than renters with comparable income, normalizing a rental market just means normalizing a wealth gap.

[torben-friis]

>Is this a creative way of arguing that landlords are a net loss for the country?

Not landlords as a general concept, but there are many categories that are:

- Investors buying areas in bulk to monopolise available living space and manipulate prices

- Demand of renting space by investors making purchases unaffordable

- Temporary living space (Airbnb, etc) removing long term residence offer.

- Foreign investors exploiting living space from abroad, since the money extracted from rent will not be reinvested in the country.

The usual free market response to this is "more offer will even out demand". But there's lots of obstacles to this in real life. Regulatory capture, high upfront costs that limit builders, near inhexaustible demand by investors and tourism, etc.

[ffaccount2]

And MANY people, like me, can afford to buy a home, butprefer to rent anyway.

[Scoundreller]

Or you end up with some weird scenario where so many are drunk on “real estate only go up” and rents become cheaper than owning.

I guess that’s a good thing (for voluntary renters… not so much for involuntary renters) but not really supposed to happen.

[gacgacgac]

Why do you assume it has to be landlords providing inexpensive, short term housing?

[f17428d27584]

1) renting is not the only way for a society to create affordable housing

2) rent being the only way to afford shelter has zero relation to whether it is a net loss or not

[TFNA]

A number of European countries have allowed this; the 2010s were the heyday of this path. But it turns out that a lot of the people with big money to buy residence, got their money from organized crime, and it isn’t always easy to vet applicants (or corrupt officials could overlook the applicant’s background).

[consp]

The Maltese route is still open but a bit different since 2025. It's now citizenship by merit (aka the old by investment, since dumping money is considered a cultural contribution).

[tokai]

Malta is also famously corrupt and a safe haven for criminals.

[Gareth321]

It's not a popular opinion but I agree. As long as the price is very high, it is almost guaranteed to be a net social benefit. Even more beneficial is that people who are wealth enough to buy a visa will usually also consume a lot (paying a lot of consumption tax), stimulate the economy, create businesses, and invest. Wealthy people are also significantly underrepresented in crime.

[missingdays]

A guesthouse in Osaka is 31k USD?

[tristanj]

5 million yen is the company capital requirement. They would form a company, invest 5 million yen into it, then the company would lease an apartment and rent it out on Airbnb.

Rent would cost ¥60,000–120,000/month, they would list it on Airbnb for ¥20,000/night, then assuming 50% occupancy the return is ~¥200,000/month.

It was very profitable. The payback period for the ¥5 million was 1.5 - 2 years.

[decimalenough]

Also, the capital stays with the company! Wind down the company and (if it was profitable) you get your capital back.

[Reubachi]

The visa requires licensing/registrations and token investments, all aside from the cost of purchasing a home in Osaka.

[cucumber3732842]

>all aside from the cost of purchasing a home in Osaka

Which they were almost certainly divvying up. A bunch of people invest $32k each. Some management company buys the home, pays them all a cut of airBNB proceeds, etc. You don't "do" anything beyond put up $32k for your $31k piece of paper.

[mytailorisrich]

> Which they were almost certainly divvying up

If I had to guess, I'd say probably not in most cases.

A lot of Chinese are cash rich (perhaps not on average but with 1.3 billion people the absolute number is large compared to other countries) and want to invest abroad, and are buying properties all over the place.

Another piece of evidence is the huge number of Chinese students in UK universities (from my experience) although the tuition fee alone is about £35k ($46k) a year.

[whizzter]

Iirc there's a scrap-n-build culture in Japan, houses are not really valued compared to land (due earthquake, quality, culture,etc).

[hirako2000]

And how are they not managerial, entrepreneur, doing business ?

Is there something illegitimate in doing an activity that yield profit when the national is Chinese ? Or when it's a short term let ? Or when it is something that doesn't directly contributed to innovation benefiting the nation ?

[bombcar]

It’s the difference between setting up a system to encourage investment and hoping for a factory, or at least a large department store, and instead getting a DataCenter that employs 30 people total.

[embedding-shape]

I don't think it's "illegitimate" as such, just parasitic behaviour the world probably needs less of. They buy up real estate, then rent it out, living in another country, basically just extracting wealth, and while it's legal, it's still lazy and kind of despicable behaviour from a "we're all humans on this planet" perspective. From the perspective of Japanese people, you see foreigners coming to where you live and strictly making things worse, not better.

But of course if we limit our perspective to an economic one, then it seems like a wise and sound approach to "escaping the hamster wheel" for the average Chinese person, easy money right? I think people in Japan probably don't have that perspective though, but instead look at the tail-effects of allowing that sort of behavior. That's why they changed the rules probably.

[hirako2000]

I don't disagree with certain occupations being more parasitic than others, but most jobs can be deemed parasitic. In a fair market "lazy" jobs can't exist or someone else would do it at a better price. Short term let entrepreneurs are just doing arbitrage, because there is a need for it. What you see as making things worse for some which is true, is also making things better for many others. Fix the system, rather than cracking down on foreigners doing what you may then tolerate locals to do.

[shevy-java]

It's not just business related though - Japan has gotten more hostile to foreigners. And no, it is not restricted only to chinese foreigners:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGAmKqTWjxU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXLOsYTfl7k

(These two videos are quite recent at the time of writing this here.)

Don't get fooled by the deliberate (but misleading) title(s). This is a narration of more and more restrictions coming. So the article here also taps into this 1:1.

In some ways it reminds me of Nigel Farage in the UK, though in Japan it is not quite as tied to an individual person.