Becoming Japanese

There are five sets queues in the international airports in Japan: one for crew and diplomats/officials, one for non-Japanese, one for Japanese, one for non-Japanese with re-entry permits, and an automated gate for registered non-Japanese and Japanese. When lines are long, they may direct excess people in the Japanese line and the non-Japanese line into the less used Re-Entry line and Crew/Diplomat line. There is one line, however, that is rarely used and is the fastest: the automated gate. Both non-Japanese and Japanese can pre-register their biometric identification to allow for faster processing at airport immigration. Unlike similar systems in the United States , the process is free and even available to non-permanent residents. This registration can be done at many Immigration bureaus, which is convenient for non-Japanese renewing the reentry or residency status stamps in their passport, or at the airport itself right before immigration check exiting the country. Registration ...

It's legally okay to say goodbye to your Japanese nationality Yes. In fact, unlike many countries, the ability to renounce your Japanese citizenship and/or leave Japan is explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution of Japan: 第 { dai } 22 条 { jō } 　 何人も、 { nanibito mo, } 公共の福祉に { kōtsū no fukushi ni } 反しない限り、 { han shinai kagiri, } 居住、移転及び { kyojū, iten oyobi } 職業選択の自由 { shokugyō sentaku no jiyū } を有する。 { o yū suru. } ２　 何人も、 { nanibito mo, } 外国に移住し、 { gaikoku ni ijū shi, } 又は国籍を離脱する { mata wa kokuseki o ridatsu suru } 自由を侵されない。 { jiyū o okasarenai. } Article 22: Every person shall have freedom to choose and change his residence and to choose his occupation to the extent that it does not interfere with the public welfare. 2) Freedom of all persons to move to a foreign country and to divest themselves of their nationality shall be inviolate. The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights also says everybody should have this right: Article 15. ...

Keene's Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star Yesterday I was at the clinic for my annual full day physical, waiting between sessions (eye check, ear check, x-rays, ultrasound, etc.), flipping through an English  Time Magazine (Asia edition) . In it, I noticed a full page color advertisement sponsored by the Public Relations Office of the Japanese government. It's a good read, but what I found interesting was that the Japanese government was using his naturalization as an inspirational example even though he technically hasn't received permission to naturalize yet. Given that it would probably be very embarrassing not just for Keene but for the Japanese government if he were to not be accepted for naturalization, I think it's safe to say that the odds of Japan rejecting Keene are now very close to zero. If you're wondering if the government will give him preferential treatment, you don't need to. Even for an ordinary citizen that hasn...

Some countries require you to submit your medical history and/or be in good health for naturalization. While Japan does require people that are applying for 永住権 { eijūken } (permanent residency) to be in good health, there is no such requirement for naturalization. Also, unlike many other countries, Japanese permanent residency status is not a prerequisite for obtaining Japanese citizenship. In case you were wondering, the good health requirement for Japanese 永住権 { eijūken } (permanent residency) is defined with the following guideline: 公衆衛生上 { kōshū eisei jō } 有害となる { yūgai to naru } おそれのある疾病 { osore no aru shippei } （ 梅毒その他 { baidoku sonota } 伝染性疾患 { densensei shikkan } 及び { oyobi } 麻薬、覚醒剤等の中 { mayaku, kakuseizai nado no naka } 毒性疾患 { dokusei shikkan } ） に罹患していないこと。 { ni rikan shite inai koto. } 健康診断書等を { kenkō shindan sho nado o } 提出します。 { teishutsu shimasu. } Which roughly translated / paraphrased, is: Those who are not suffering from diseases that are harm...

Stop & think before you make a big life move. Sometimes I joke around and tell people I receive a free toaster oven from the Ministry of Justice for every person I successfully convert into a Japanese citizen. In truth, I actually spend a lot of my time discouraging people that ask me how I did it so they can do it themselves. What's the profile of somebody that I discourage? For people who come from "developed" (" first world countries " in the parlance of my Cold War non-P.C. upbringing) countries, these are people who are: the "young" (defined here as under 30 years old) the not-yet-married or recently married those without children, those with children who don't envision their children living or working in Japan (and those who intentionally or subconsciously are raising their children to emigrate for life or work upon becoming an adult), or child-less people under 35 those in a job, even if it's good (right now), that is un...

One of the most curious things that you get asked for during your initial paperwork collection is for a document called "proof of citizenship". You are asked for this in addition to  your passport. Your passport is a photo/biometric identification, and all passports clearly list the country that you are a citizen of, so why is additional documentation necessary? The answer is related to the length of time that a passport is valid for. The 法務省 { hōmushō } (Ministry of Justice), in general, wants all of the documentation is receives to be issued or certified within six months. For some documents, three months. A typical passport, on the other hand, often doesn't expire for five or ten years. Because the naturalization process of gathering and review by the case worker, which can involve multiple appointments separated by weeks to months, many applicants have stories of paperwork that they initially gathered at the beginning of the process "expiring" befo...

Today's random question discovered on the internet is: What if you're missing some of the paperwork (for example, it's impossible for you to obtain your parent's birth certificates)? Can you still naturalize to Japanese? It's handled case-by-case, country-by-country... and there are thick manuals under the desk of the case worker for the particulars for every state regarding the rules for these documents (with PRC and ROK on top of the desk, well worn). The purpose of getting this documentation is to make the new 戸籍 { koseki } (family register), which needs to be created from scratch for a naturalized citizen, as accurate and complete as possible. They are aware that it's not always possible to get this documentation, and it doesn't automatically disqualify you (although refusing to present it or not trying may not help you; naturalization is not a right) but they try really hard to get it.

Some people seem to believe that you receive a passport upon naturalizing as your proof of citizenship. You don't. The proof of your citizenship that you possess lies in both the } 帰化者の身分証明書 { kikasha no shōmeisho (proof of identity of naturalized citizen), which you receive from the } 法務局 { hōmukyoku ) (Bureau of Legal Affairs) after being informed that you've received permission to naturalize. You use that document at your local } 区役所 { kuyakusho (ward office) or } 市役所 { shiyakusho (city hall) as a breeder document to create your } 住民票 { jūminhyō (Japanese local resident registration), delete your } 外国人登録 { gaikokujin tōroku (alien registration) records, and create your } 戸籍 { koseki (family register), which is stored at your } 本籍 { honseki (registered domicile) and you can request authenticated copies of or make changes from, even remotely, from your } 区役所 { kuyakusho (ward office) or } 市役所 { shiyakusho (city hall). Once all of this Japanese paperwor...

The 官報 { kampō } ( Official Gazette ) is an official government newsletter which is published by the National Printing Bureau. It has been in existence in various forms since 1883. As all citizens have a right to read the Official Gazette to know what their government is doing, the Japanese government put the Gazette online starting in 1999. The electronic versions of the Official Gazette is at the following address: kanpou.npb.go.jp . The government publishes all decisions and actions relating to the Japanese Constitution, Imperial edicts, laws, cabinet orders, treaties, ministerial ordinances, and notices in it. Naturalized citizens aren't the only individuals that get singled out in the Gazette; any person, foreign or not, that does business with the government in an official capacity gets mentioned. Also, Japanese who die overseas while travelling are also mentioned (!). So are people who renounce their Japanese nationality. Naturalization permission is given from a v...

Note: the forms that family registers are printed have been digitized. You may have seen the old style forms, which are on large B4 (257mm × 364mm) pieces of paper , have hard borders and boxes for things like 母 (mother) and 父 (father), and are printed vertically, top-down right-to-left. Japan has been modernizing and computerizing them so the new ones are printed on standard A4 paper which has copy-protection technology in it, horizontally left-to-right top-to-bottom, and have no fixed boxes with the exception of being two columns: the left for the type of information and the right for the contents. We will be talking about the new forms, because frankly, that's all I know: my family register never existed during the "old form" era. As of 2011, over 70% of the family registers in Japan have been digitized. Furthermore, we will be talking about the 全部事項証明 { zenbu jikō shōmei } (unabridged version) of the family register that you can request. Finally, as there a...

The online magazine Slate published an article (which actually originally appeared in the Financial Times ) on Donald Keene and why he became Japanese last week. Most of the article reads more like a French restaurant review than an interview (I do want to try that restaurant though. It sounds delicious!), but one small excerpt caught my attention: Immigration officials required documentation proving his parents were married, something he is still struggling to locate. Then they needed proof that he was American. A US passport did not suffice. Finally, they requested evidence that Keene, the most famous foreign scholar in Japan, had graduated. “I said, ‘Well, I have various honorary doctorates, including from very important Japanese universities.’ ‘Oh, that doesn’t count,’ they said, ‘because honorary doctorates are given to people even without education.’” Keene confesses to being irritated. I have to wonder how accurate this is, as graduating is preferred, but not technica...

The original Japanese ... translates roughly to the following: Dear ______________: Regarding Procedures for After Naturalization Those who have naturalized must complete the following set procedures within the designated time periods: ☑ Notification of Naturalization You must complete a Notification of Naturalization Form and submit it to either the Ward/City Office of your current residence or your new registered domicile within one month from the day of your naturalization (Nationality Law Article 102, part 2) Those who do not may be subject to a fine. You should have received a "Proof of Naturalization Identification" from the Ministry of Justice. You will need this in addition to the Notification of Naturalization form. ☑ Return your Alien Registration Card You must return your Alien Registration card within 14 days from the day of your naturalization. (Alien Registration Law Article 12) Those who do not do so in time may be subject to a fine ...

This may not be the most helpful blog post in the history of mankind, since my first attempt to renounce my US citizenship today was more or less a failure...but since there seems to be a real lack of concrete information and personal experiences out there ( Debito's is the only thorough account I've been able to find publicly available, and it's eight years old by now), I figure that "What not to do" may help some of you...at least more than nothing at all will. The US Embassy's webpage is, in my humble opinion, ridiculously difficult to navigate. It takes a good four or five clicks from the main page (assuming you don't take any wrong turns along the way) to find information like the address, operating hours, and the fact that apparently you are now required to make an appointment for citizen services. Don't worry, though, apparently (though it's not written anywhere on the website), renunciation doesn't fall into the same category...

I've added a new resource to this blog, the "Steps" page . You can access it from the tabs at the top of the site. It should give you an idea of how many steps are necessary, from the beginning of the application to the changing of all your identification to your new name. I came up with fifty (50) steps , but the exact number of steps will be slightly different depending on individual circumstances: what country you're from, the composition of your family, whether you own a business, and other things. If I figure out that some steps should really be broken down into multiple steps, I'll do so. I don't think the order of the steps should change too much, with perhaps the exception of the order for when you renounce your other nationality — Americans being one of the exceptions that renounce after obtaining Japanese nationality. The order that you collect the big bunch of the paperwork prior to the big assessment shouldn't matter much. They have b...

Old ARC card vs the New ARC card One of the more popular posts on this site has been the one titled: FAQ: Can I have an official Japanese name even if I don't naturalize? In that post, we talked about how non-Japanese can get a "Japanese name" (in 漢字 { kanji } (Japanese sinograms) or 仮名 { kana } (Japanese syllabet) registered and imprinted underneath your "passport name" on the official identification card for non-Japanese residents: the 外国人登録証明書 { gaikokujin tōroku shōmeisho } (Alien Registration Card; "ARC"). This field exists for many reasons: originally for non-Japanese who appeared Asian — such as 特別永住者 { tokubetsu eijūsha } (Special Permanent Residents) Koreans and Chinese etc. — who wished to use a Japanese name for various reasons (such as, but not limited to, reducing the chances of being discriminated against), it is now used by some non-Asian residents to provide an definitive transliteration / nickname etc in カタカナ { ...

To the nice Nigerian man who wants to be Japanese and keeps leaving his personal phone number in comments: I'm not publishing your comments for your own safety due to the personal info you included. This is a DIY info site and does not provide legal assistance. There are plenty of licensed professionals on the internet that can assist you though. Good luck!

In the case of the U.S., there is no need to hide additional citizenships, acquired involuntarily or voluntarily. The U.S., due to its history with slavery and its response with the 14th Amendment, has made it almost impossible for the U.S. to revoke somebody's properly acquired citizenship , no matter what you said or did or promised to a foreign government like Japan. Even if you did something so bad that you'd be a candidate for denaturalization , the modern U.S. government would simply throw you in jail (or execute you via the death penalty), rather than revoke your U.S. citizenship. Even so, a U.S. State Department page still warns that: ... U.S. citizens are subject to loss of citizenship if they perform certain specified acts voluntarily and with the intention to relinquish U.S. citizenship. However, what the U.S. State Department says on its site and what the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled (overriding the original stricter intent of the Immigration and Nationalit...