Leaving Japan on a Spouse Visa - Is this okay?

Good Morning Everyone.

Anyone who has read my previous questions knows I'm all over the place at the moment, so please I'm not looking for personal judgements, i just need to know the rules on this.

Me and my soon to be wife are here in Japan and we are looking into our options. I would be able to go home to the UK alone and work for 6 months in order to sponsor her for the UK spouse visa. My question is - if this goes wrong somehow, we want a backup plan to ensure we can be together. After marrying, if we apply for the spouse visa here in Japan, what are the rules around leaving Japan and keeping this visa?

It seems quite cheeky but i am interested. Ive read up on re-entry permits but the thing is I'm more interested on the facts in terms of when i would need to come back to Japan to keep the visa valid.

For example -

If I get the spouse visa in Japan in February, then go back to the UK and start work there in March, what would happen to my Japanese spouse visa? When would this become invalid? If i need a re-entry permit, what kind of date would i need to give them for my return?

I hope this makes sense,

Thank you,

David

Well, it makes it look like a marriage of convenience.

Also, I'm not a tax accountant, but if you are able to do what you describe, as a resident of Japan you'd have to declare that UK income here, and pay income and residence tax accordingly. Plus health insurance/pension.

I googled it.

JAPAN : visa, immigration, working visa, spouse visa

KashimaKing said:

...
If I get the spouse visa in Japan in February, then go back to the UK and start work there in March, ...

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Yeah, right. Picking up your spouse visa is kind of like going thru the checkout line at a supermarket. :bored:

Before you get married in Japan, will you have a valid visa (work visa, for example)?

1. If so, you yourself can leave for a maximum of 1 year before it becomes invalid. Japan calls this having a "special re-entry permit". There is nothing fancy to sign, but you do have to declare what you're doing at the airport during immigration. I believe all you fill out is a simple disembarkation card. This applies to any valid visa, I believe.

2. If you plan to stay more than a year, you can without losing the visa, as long as you apply officially for what Japan confusingly calls a "re-entry permit". Yeah, love the difference in language being almost no difference! Fill this out, and you can stay a maximum of 5 years outside Japan before it's invalid. Used to be only 3 years. Of course, if you have some sort of emergency (not just a desire to stay longer), you can apply outside Japan for an extension, and I think it's only for a year more.

The link Mike Cash gave you is from a company that copied/pasted from this site, which offers far more information. If you are in doubt, just have your wife contact immigration. DON'T go through a long description of what you are doing. Just ask how long you can stay outside Japan on a spouse visa, and what paperwork you need to fill out. They'll ask you if you plan to stay less than/more than a year for the reasons I've just given.

Keep in mind that you're not going to get that spousal visa overnight. Getting married is a 10-minute process at city hall near where you reside. You'll need to buy a license at that time if you want to apply for a spousal visa. Otherwise, buying the marriage license is entirely optional, believe it or not. There is likely to be special paperwork you need to fill out to declare you are currently single when you go to register your marriage, so check with your country's embassy to learn what that is.

Glenski said:

If you are in doubt, just have your wife contact immigration.

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That is the perfect one-sentence answer to practically everything he asks.

Nobody asked, but I've been biting my tongue to the point its getting bloody......

Getting married to a gaijin spouse is like finding yourself in instant possession of a two year old, with nobody to hello you take care of it. If she isn't willing and/or capable of figuring out this stuff then I can't help but wonder if she has the maturity to marry or the capacity to take care of daily matters once she has. Maybe her father was right and you guys ought to wait a bit. At least one of you needs to be able to function as a grown-up in this country first.

Mike Cash said:

That is the perfect one-sentence answer to practically everything he asks.

Nobody asked, but I've been biting my tongue to the point its getting bloody......

Getting married to a gaijin spouse is like finding yourself in instant possession of a two year old, with nobody to hello you take care of it. If she isn't willing and/or capable of figuring out this stuff then I can't help but wonder if she has the maturity to marry or the capacity to take care of daily matters once she has. Maybe her father was right and you guys ought to wait a bit. At least one of you needs to be able to function as a grown-up in this country first.

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There is no need to insult me or to become aggressive on an internet forum so please try to not do that, not that I'm really bothered by that. You have no right to really suggest me or my wife are 'not grown up', how silly when you dont even know me.

We both have a strong relationship, have known each other for a long time, and both have good jobs in which we work very hard at, even more so recently for the sake of our future.

We are under a lot of stress and you should know that name-calling on the internet in places like this, which are supposed to be for adults asking questions to seek advice for problems they are having having living in a foreign country, looks very silly and makes you look like a bully and a bit of a loser.

Your comments are very passive-aggressive and you seem to have an issue with looking down on people posting here so i won't be using this service anymore. I don't want to ask for help with the fear that you will go out of your way to insult people.

You are right by the way, of course immigration have the answers, but calling them is not always the easiest option as anyone in my shoes will tell you, thats why things like this exist!

Thank you

What name did I call you?

Mike Cash said:

What name did I call you?

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Well there wasn't a specific name. You suggested my wife hasn't grown up and you also believe that marrying a Gaijin 'me being said Gaijin' is like being in the possession of a two year old.

I find those comments offensive but it doesn't matter anyway I'm just a bit surprised. I thought this was an appropriate platform in which to reach out to the old-timers who have lived here for a long time for support. I expect either an answer, or nothing, before eventually making the trip to the visa centre. The last thing I expected was to be verbally attacked with words that upset me a little bit, but then again, words are only words i suppose.

Mike Cash said:

That is the perfect one-sentence answer to practically everything he asks.

Nobody asked, but I've been biting my tongue to the point its getting bloody......

Getting married to a gaijin spouse is like finding yourself in instant possession of a two year old, with nobody to hello you take care of it. If she isn't willing and/or capable of figuring out this stuff then I can't help but wonder if she has the maturity to marry or the capacity to take care of daily matters once she has. Maybe her father was right and you guys ought to wait a bit. At least one of you needs to be able to function as a grown-up in this country first.

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Your attitude towards certain others is pretty obvious.

Grumpy old guy.

And why did you stop posting on the various reddit japan forums, which get multiple times the traffic that this place does?

You are right by the way, of course immigration have the answers, but calling them is not always the easiest option as anyone in my shoes will tell you, thats why things like this exist!

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Wait a minute. This statement deserves explaining. You have a Japanese wife. Why the hell can't she contact immigration to get the answers you both need? That's how you make it sound, anyway.

I wrote that suggestion a week ago. That's plenty of time to phone in a query. Has she?

KashimaKing said:

Well there wasn't a specific name. You suggested my wife hasn't grown up

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1. She is incapable of finding the answers to your questions.
2. She is unwilling to find the answers to your questions.
3. You don't think her answers accurate or reliable.
4. You don't even ask her in the first place.

Which of the above, if any, are accurate?

KashimaKing said:

you also believe that marrying a Gaijin 'me being said Gaijin' is like being in the possession of a two year old.

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It is. One clever enough to be potty-trained, admittedly.

KashimaKing said:

The last thing I expected was to be verbally attacked

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It wasn't an attack. A thoroughly unwelcome, unsolicited, and unwanted frank observation which is understandably easily viewed as an attack, though. I didn't expect you to like it.

Look, one way to get in trouble in this country is to place an over-reliance on what old-timers tell you. The fact that someone has been here a long time doesn't mean squat. People here for decades are just as willing and able to hand you a wrong answer to a question as people who stepped off the same plane you did. Never be impressed by how long anyone has been here. Never give greater credence to a statement which is propped up by reference to how long the person saying it has been here. In regards to Really Important Stuff (like immigration matters, for instance), always rely on information directly from official sources over anecdotal answers from your fellow gaijins. Things are generally either a matter of clear law or policy...in which case the person answering should be able to link to a supporting reference or in some similar way back it up... or the thing is a matter in which the individual bureaucrat you happen to deal with that day may exercise a range of options based on personal discretion...in which case the individual experiences of others may be interesting but they certainly are no reliable indicator of what will happen in your own individual case.

The answer to pretty much everything you have asked her so far has been easily findable by googling for it. You don't think any of carry around in our heads the url for the Immigration office in Osaka, do you? Nobody has come right out and said "Here, let me google that for you..." but that is essentially what we've been doing in answering most of your questions.

johnnyG said:

And why did you stop posting on the various reddit japan forums, which get multiple times the traffic that this place does?

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Your question contains the answer.

I was spending entirely too much time there. There are also too many people to feel any sort of sense of community and I never really felt I had anything other than our gaijinity in common with them.

Don't tell me you miss me posting there...