Becoming Japanese

We've received a few questions about the continuous physical residency requirement for Japanese naturalization. As mentioned before, the official requirement for Japanese naturalization is five (5) years of continuous residency. If you qualify for 簡易帰化 { kan'i kika } (simplified naturalization) — usually due to a significant family connection to a Japanese national (such as marriage for many years) — that continuous residency requirement can drop to either three (3) years or one (1) year. "Physical" residency means exactly what it says: being physically present in the nation of Japan most of the time. Merely having a continuous 在留資格 { zairyū shikaku } (Status of Residence) with a 在留カード { zairyū kādo } (Resident Card) for the length of time is not enough. The purpose for this rule is to discourage "citizens of convenience"; that is, to keep people from earning the right to naturalize that don't actually live in Japan, even if they legally have...

Poor Wikipedia. It gets a bad rap for being the source of crowdsourced misinformation, yet for the most part its editorial system and the amount of experts contributing usually mean that the information is just as reliable — sometimes more reliable and thorough — than traditional encyclopedias. Unfortunately, for the  article on Japanese naturalization , this is not the case. To begin with, the first two statements in the first paragraph are inaccurate: "Naturalization in Japan requires the applicant to renounce their current citizenship(s) after the naturalization takes place." This statement is only true for a minority of cases (i.e. the United States). For most countries (the most common: Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China), and even many western countries like the United Kingdom, you give up your previous nationalities as the last part of the application process right before you are naturalized to Japanese. "Japanese government does not ...

Some sites and people have claimed that certain types of 在留資格 { zairyū shikaku } (Status of Residence) for foreigners living in Japan do not count — such as a 留学 { ryūgaku } aka "Student" SoR — towards the continuous physical presence test of five (5), three (3), or one (1) year – depending on whether you qualified for regular naturalization ( 普通帰化 { futsū kika } ) or simplified naturalization ( 簡易帰化 { kan'i kika } ) — requirement. This is not true. All time spent legally in Japan, even on a 15/90 day visa-waivered temporary landing permit (TLP aka "tourist visa" ← a misnomer), can theoretically count towards the physical residency test. However, if the bulk of your time was spent in Japan as a student, the odds of you getting successfully approved for naturalization are slim, in my opinion. Why? You must still pass the "livelihood requirement", which says: 自己又は生計を一にする { jiko matawa seikei o ichi ni suru } 配偶者その他の家族の { haigūsha sonota ...