Long time non resident Japanese

Can anyone give us some guidance on the following problem?
I (English) married my wife (Japanese) over 30 years ago in Tokyo. We then left Japan and lived in the UK (and The Netherlands). My wife's parents left Tokyo some years ago and moved to the Nagoya area.
My wife now needs to spend more time in Japan with her aged parents. She was removed from the Koseki when she got married and has no Juminhyo so can not open a bank account, get a driving license etc etc.
How can she get back into the system as a "temporary" "intermittent" resident? She has kept her Japanese nationality.

Normally when a Japanese woman marries a non-Japanese man, she makes a new koseki where she is the head of the household. Are you sure your wife did not do this at the time? It might be a good idea to contact the city/ward/town office where you took care of this at the time.

It was a long time ago, but we think that we never made a new koseki. We left Japan after getting married

There's still some record somewhere in Japan.

Contact the city officials as Mikawa Ossan advised.

She can't even remember making her own koseki? Strange and very unusual, I think. One easy way to find out is to have her ask her parents to check their[/i] koseki and see if she is still listed on it.

Another way, less easy, is to contact her home office where she would have had it made, and inquire, perhaps even ask for a copy.

As far as getting a driver's license is concerned, does she need a koseki or juminhyo for that?

If you two are planning to live with or near her parents, contact (or have her parents contact) their ward office and inquire about what is needed for her to establish residency (permanent or otherwise) there.

Your wife SHOULD HAVE done what Mikawa Ossan suggested when she got married. (Maybe she was young and didn't care about the possibility of losing her Japanese nationality at that time?)

If she didn't, she doesn't belong in any koseki--meaning she's not a Japanese national in the eyes of the Japanese government. I believe this requires a lot of time-consuming paperwork starting from finding your wife's deleted name in her parent's koseki to prove her Japanese nationality. (Your wife's name might be "deleted" from the koseki, but the name should be visible, because the deletion method deliberately leaves the deleted name apparent by simply striking through the section of the koseki with a single line or a cross.)

However, if she has a valid Japanese passport, she must have submitted a valid koseki-tohon/shouhon to the local Japanese embassy or consulate for passport extension (this is an essential requirement) and had been approved. This means that she should know where her koseki is.

If the passport is an expired one, she will need to do the paperwork mentioned above.

I would recommend trying to get this straightened out and getting a Japanese passport issued before re-entering Japan.

As epigene pointed out, there is the possibility that her continued claim to Japanese citizenship might come into question, though that can be straightened out by wading through the red tape. Since Japan doesn't technically allow dual citizenship in the case of adults, entering Japan on a non-Japanese passport would likely bring unwanted attention to the matter and put the kibosh on getting her claim to Japanese citizenship worked out favorably....meaning she would have to go through the same visa hassle that the rest of us do. Getting her Japanese citizenship ducks in a row first and entering on a Japanese passport would make any questions about residency status entirely moot since, as the saying goes, "Home is the place that when you go there they have to let you in".

You need to physically go to the city hall to do the paperwork, so just get there however you can.

When you get married a new koseki is made automatically. If you still have your kikontodokusho then you can show that (at the city hall where you got married) to get what you need, along with a hanko. Worst case you need to go to the city hall that her parents koseki is at, and use that to work backwards - she is still listed on the parents koseki (as being their child) and the last reference on there will be when and where the new koseki was made.

You will need something to prove she is who she says she is, a passport showing when you left Japan would be a good start as you don't have a fixed address as listed in the koseki (in which case showing phone/gas/electric bills is accepted along with photo ID).

Bring as much evidence as you can. Old school records, bills, anythign you have no matter how oblique. Sometimes it's the little things that will get things moving quicker in Japan. Good Luck.

Ewok85 said:

You need to physically go to the city hall to do the paperwork, so just get there however you can.

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Actually, a friend or relative can do it on her behalf. They just need an ﾋ?鞘?戮ﾂ湘ｳ (ininjou).