Becoming Japanese

The website has been around for over 10 years. As with everything, things change, and previous information written years ago on this website will become obsolete. When that happens and old information is no longer relevant, we will try to make a note of it on the site (just like how we point out when other sites on the internet make mistakes about Japan's naturalization process: we mention that in our "misinformation" section. Before the nationalized, digital 在留カード { zairyū kādo } (Residence Card [for non-Japanese]) and database existed, non-Japanese carried a card called the 外国人登録証明証 { gaikokujin tōroku shōmeishō } (Alien Registration Card, or " ARC "). Because these cards were not digital (they didn't have chips in them with cryptographically signed credentials and they were not NFC — near field communication), as part of the naturalization process, you would need to go to your local municipal office such as a 区役所 { kuyakusho } (w...

This little guy completely changed the notion regarding international freedom of movement In early interviews with people done many years ago , people would often ask me, "Why did you naturalize? Why not just have Permanent Residency?" People expected me to answer with things like "so I could vote" or "so I could run for office" . When I actually answered, "so I have the right to live here," they would follow-up with: "but doesn't permanent residency give you that?" I would reply, "No, Japanese permanent residency gives you permission to be in Japan. With Japanese nationality, you have the right to be in Japan." I would then talk about how that in theory, there is nothing "permanent" about "permanent" residency — it is simply an idiomatic expression meaning you no longer had to qualify or keep renewing your SoR (status of residence {as a non-Japanese}). Many ...

A few months ago an American interested in becoming Japanese mentioned to me that he looked forward to not needing to repay his crushing student debt he left back in America. The United States has gone through an unfortunate bubble of costs for real estate in tech areas (ex. Silicon Valley), healthcare, and education, have seen its costs escalate wildly out of control over the past few decades. Most people attempt to solve the education cost dilemma by taking on student loans, which is a special type of loan that you must eventually pay back — you cannot escape the debt by declaring personal bankruptcy. This seemingly inescapable debt, compared with the changing nature of the workforce where people who choose non- STEM  employment find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet compared to past generations, has led some to consider desperate measures. Some have proposed intentionally forcing the government's hand by collectively not paying student debt en masse — suc...

Licensed under Creative Commons Zero - CC0 terms I have run this web site, along with over a dozen other authors and contributors, since 2010. During that time, according to both my personal email, this group's email folder, and other messages and posts from social media: I have exchanges emails, interviewed, and answered questions with over 300 different English speaking people who have become legally Japanese. This includes people of most English language speaking (first or second language) countries, including many in South America, eastern Europe, Russia, India, etc. These interactions are usually questions about naturalization, life post naturalization, and include the applicant's biography and concerns about the process. I have had lunch, dinner, or just a long coffee session at a cafe, personally, with about two dozen English speaking people who have become legally Japanese, which implies a deep conversation / interview of at least 45 to 90 approximate minutes....

Permanent Residency can go rotten if unused. One of naturalization's benefits is that it truly is permanent, in that no matter how long you are outside of Japan, it never expires. Contrary to its name, there is nothing that is truly "permanent" about the Status of Residence ( 在留資格 { zairyū shikaku } ; SoR ) known as "PERMANENT RESIDENT" ( 永住者 { eijūsha } ; PR ) or even "SPECIAL PERMANENT RESIDENT" ( 特別永住者 { tokubetu eijūsha } ; SPR ). You do not have to promise, state, or even intend to live in Japan permanently to receive it. On the other hand, if you leave Japan for more than a year without a re-entry permit or you are outside of Japan for a long enough time that your re-entry permit expires, the PR SoR will become invalid. Thus, if a family or work emergency requires you to leave Japan for a long time (years), and it is not possible to occasionally return to Japan to renew the re-entry permit, it is possible to lose one's permanen...

A better analogy would be the airport immigration lines for citizens versus non-citizens. Frequent readers may have looked at the countries , famous people , our authors & contributors, and the statistics and noticed that they see some (former) nationalities than others when it comes to acquiring Japanese nationality. This naturally leads to the question, "Do we see more of people from one area or country naturalizing to Japanese than another because it's easier?" The answer is: probably. However, the more general answer is that you see more of people of certain countries and locales naturalizing to Japanese due to deep connections made with that country due to geography (distance to Japan) and due to history: in Asian countries' cases, the connection to Japan during its Empire years. In the case of non-Asian cases (such as America), the connections America forged with Japan due to the Meiji Restoration and War and the post-economic revival that connect...

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...

Donald Keene was an honorary citizen of Tokyo before he naturalized and became a legal Japanese citizen Throughout the world, there are all sorts of "honorary" statuses that cities give to living (and dead) people, animals, fictional characters, and even abstract concepts: Honorary degrees (i.e. Harvard & Princeton ) Freedom of the City (also: Key to the City) Honorary citizenship (nations and municipalities) Honorary/special residency registrations (Japan) Japan and its cities and prefectures are no exception. In Japan, an "honorary citizenship" has no basis in law as it is issued by the public relations department of a particular city. Because of this, there are often no defined legal steps one has to do to earn it. Foreigners are capable of achieving and earning "honorary citizenship" and "special residency registration" as well as Japanese nationals (naturalized or natural-born); for the particular case of special residenc...

I thought about what to write for weeks. Everyone except for those under the age of fifteen (15) and Special Permanent Residents ( 特別永住者 { tokubetsu eijūsha } ; SPR ) must write an essay, handwritten in Japanese, in one's own words, as to why you want to become a Japanese national by naturalizing. If you are over sixty (60) years old, your case worker may permit you to let somebody else transcribe it on your behalf — although it still must be your own words. There's an alternative motive for the essay as well: because it has to be your own words and handwritten, it serves as an informal test of whether an applicant can write and understand Japanese. A Japanese immigration lawyer has told me that for applicants whose Japanese is weak, this is the hardest part of the application process. Some applicants study Japanese for three to five years just to get their Japanese level to the point where they can write this essay. For this reason, it's probably not a good idea t...

Non- AFIS biometric systems record features, not the whole fingerprint Yes they can be, but it is not required except for employment in certain specialized professions. Not all non-Japanese are fingerprinted either: Special Permanent Residents (特別永住者; SPRs) those under sixteen (16) years old and overseas VIPs (anybody using a "Diplomat" or "Official" passport to enter the country) are also exempt. The origins of fingerprinting foreign residents in East Asia The process of fingerprinting foreign residents as part of the registration law in (post War) Japan first began in 1952. The reasons for this were primarily to supplement and support weak identification technology at the time: international and domestic identification such as passports and alien registration cards lacked the modern technology of today such as: microprinting, holograms, ultra-violet reactive ink, color-shifting ink, advanced tamper resistant materials, trackable ID numbers, and ...