Permanent Residency via Highly Skilled Foreign Professional Question

[8nekojita8]

I entered Japan via an 'intra-company transfer visa' in 11/2011 and recently changed to a 'highly-skilled foreign professional visa' (3-years continuous residency). I am receiving conflicting information regarding when I'm eligible to for permanent residency and seeking clarification.

Japan has passed new laws to relax its immigration policies to make obtaining permanent residency easier (awesome!). As the details are vague, so I called the immigration office several times over the last several months and confirmed that:

• the law is changing
• it will not be implemented until April 2015,
• I am eligible to apply once implemented since I have the HSFP visa and my total time of continuous residency is 3+ years.

Ok, all sounds great! So, I contact an immigration lawyer and they provided me conflicting information stating that the 3-years start once I receive the HSFP visa and the time I was on the 'intra-company transfer' visa does not count towards the 3-years.

I call the immigration office back-up and they re-confirm my initial understanding and then I state that 'but my lawyer said...' and she puts me on hold to 'confirm' then comes back with completely different information stating I won't be eligible in 2019 at the earliest even with the new law changing...

So can anyone please help shed light on what is the correct info and when I'll be eligible to apply for permanent residency? Thanks!

 

[Mike Cash]

We're very happy to have you with us, but how would we have any better information than the officials at Immigration or a professional immigration attorney?

 

[8nekojita8]

well, one can hope ;-) but in all seriousness I've often found Japan related forums to provide the most accurate information regarding immigration... I'm again hoping crowd-sourcing comes through!

 

[Glenski]

Take your lawyer with you to immigration. Then tell us.

 

[Majestic]

Hello 8nekojita8,

Its not surprising that you received conflicting information from immigration (not to me, anyway). You didn't mention if you were married to a Japanese person or not. If so, the guidelines for length of continuous residency are relaxed, and I would say go ahead and apply and see what happens. If you are not married to a Japanese national, I think the guidelines are still 10 years of continuous residence. If you have contributed greatly to Japan's welfare in some way, the length of time drops to 5 years. If you are a resident with special circumstances (family in Japan, divorced from a Japanese, etc...) the guidelines are also reduced to 5 years. But all these are just guidelines, and your residence status seems to be at the discretion of officer in charge of your case. In any event, there is no penalty for applying and getting turned down, other than the dreary trek out to the immigration bureau in deepest Shinagawa (assuming you are in Tokyo), so if you are in good standing and intend to stay here, I would give it a shot. Note, I didn't see any information on a change in the law coming next year.

http://www.moj.go.jp/content/000099622.pdf
http://homepage3.nifty.com/takehara/eijyukyoka.html
在留資格「定住者」とは？

 

[Glenski]

Keep in mind that the person who answered the phone might have been a younger employee at immigration, unaware of recent changes or even old policies. That's the main reason they asked someone else (older, more experienced).

Oh, and those years of "significant contribution to J society" are all nebulous (see the examples on the immigration guide book page), but essentially I wouldn't count on the experience you've had so far to count for SIGNIFICANT contributions. That makes you a regular foreigner, and you should probably heed Majestic's info.

Keep in mind that just filing for PR costs nothing. Only when you get it do you have to pay (8000 yen, if memory serves). And, you can file at any time, that is, when you currently have a valid visa. You shouldn't wait until it expires to apply.

 

[Mike Cash]

And given how long they take to process the things, one may as well get it filed as soon as possible.

 

[tomoni]

I would suggest you give it a try and see what happens. there is still very much that is left up to the immigration officers discretion, so I would suggest that you have a fighting chance, particular if you are married, or have bought a house or shown in other ways a real commitment to living here.

Please let us know how it works out.

 

[Glenski]

I would suggest that you have a fighting chance, particular if you are married, or have bought a house or shown in other ways a real commitment to living here.

VERY doubtful that he has been able to attain enough credit to buy a house in only 3 years. Many/Most banks won't give housing loans without a spouse or PR in the first place. So, yeah, it doesn't cost anything to apply for PR, but from what I can see, he is far from having a "fighting chance".

Of course, more background info would be helpful, but if the OP was married to a Japanese, you'd think they would have already mentioned that.