Does marriage or divorce affect naturalization?

A person from the internet sent in this question to this site asking how a divorce from a Japanese national affects application for naturalization. It took me a while to get the answer to this question, as I have no direct experience with this. I finally managed to have a lunch with my contact at the MoJ, who gave me an easy answer.

In my particular case, being married for over ten years to a Japanese reduced my "continuous residency requirement" from five years to a mere one year. Being married for this length of time also reduced the requirements, including residency (again to just one year), for permanent residency — which is not a prerequisite for Japanese naturalization.

Divorce from a Japanese national does not negatively affect your chances for naturalization to Japan. It may indirectly affect your chances depending on how the divorce affects your livelihood (meaning your assets and your income), but the event taking place in your past does not affect the six main criteria:

  1. age (non-minor if applying as an individual and not family: 20 years old)
  2. criminal/transgression record (an almost spotless record both in Japan and overseas)
  3. terrorist/subversive activities that intentionally threaten the sovereignty of the nation or the modern post-war constitution (exercising freedom of speech and protesting is not counted, as political protest is a protected right in Japan)
  4. ability to make a living (modest Japanese ability and/or stable income or significant assets)
  5. single citizenship (Japanese citizenship only after naturalization)
  6. length of continuous residency time in Japan (5 years, or three or one year in simplified naturalization cases)

The reverse of this, though, is that a divorce from a Japanese national does not positively affect your chances for Japanese naturalization either. In other words, no matter how many years you were married, even if you still co-habituate or raise children together, your failed marriage will not qualify you for ç°¡æ˜“垰化 {kan'i kika} (simplified naturalization). If you re-marry to another Japanese national and remain married for many years, that marriage may qualify you for 簡易垰化 {kan'i kika} (simplified naturalization).

There is one area where divorce can affect the naturalization decision: during the deliberation period (usually from four to 12 months after the formal submission of paperwork), you must report all exits/entrances to Japan and all major life changing events. The life changing events are defined as: births, deaths, employment changes, change of residence, marriage, and divorce. If your marriage was a variable in your naturalization, (for example, if you qualified for 簡易垰化 {kan'i kika} (simplified naturalization) based on the fact that you have been married to a Japanese national for some time), you will have some explaining to do if you divorce in the middle of this decision process.

Once you have been granted citizenship, though, there is basically no way to lose it, unless it was determined that your naturalization application was fraudulent to begin with; in which case the naturalization is annulled by a process called "administrative denaturalization." However, administrative denaturalization can only occur if you still have an additional citizenship (and the hidden continued possession of that citizenship could be grounds for annulling your naturalization, as you lied during the application process), because countries that respect the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights will not let a human being to become stateless. Falsifying information to the Japanese government is still an offense even if the application is initially approved, though, and you can be punished by fine and/or imprisonment.

So, it's okay to get divorced after you have citizenship, even if your citizenship was granted partially on the basis of you being married, providing your marriage was legit at the time of application.

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