Becoming Japanese

A regular job is good / best, but not always necessary As this site is in English, I often get questions from people whose native language is English and they have worked and lived in Japan for quite some time. Of that subset of people, three types of employment come up most often: English teachers Software programmers Japanese to English translators Of these professions, it's not uncommon for them to be contractor work, freelance, or self-employed — rather than working as a regular employee ( 正社員 { seishain } ) at a Japanese company. I'm often asked by people "how much money do I have to make to qualify for naturalization?" While Japan's MoJ ( 法務省 { hōmushō } ) doesn't reveal their exact criteria, I have spoken to case officers and inquired about other successful applicants, and the general answer is: you don't have to make much . The generic answer is: if your take-home income, minus your liabilities (debts, expenses for food a...

You don't have to be wealthy in order to naturalize. The primary purpose of the lengthy paperwork where you outlay your assets and employer as well as your monthly expenses is basically to determine that the odds of you becoming a candidate for welfare payments anytime in your future are low. In the words of some legal sites, the litmus test is 「日本国に迷惑をかけずに生活できること」 { "Nippon-koku ni meiwaku o kakezu ni seikatsu dekiru koto" } ("can live without being a burden to Japan") Filling out the paperwork on your income and expenses, in fact, feels a lot like completing a major credit or loan application in Japan. They're concerned not just with how much money you're pulling in, but how you're spending it, how stable your employment and career is, and whether or not you have enough skills (i.e. Japanese language) so that if you were to ever lose your employment, you stand a chance of getting another job in Japan. Thus, having a well paying job with a l...