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Working over 40 hours a week for a US company on a student visa

Tim0thy

後輩
9 Jun 2014
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As the title states, I would like to know if Japan will have any issues with me working over 40 hours a week for a US company while I'm there on a student visa. I know they typically have a limit of 28 hours a week for students but everything I've read seems to state that this is for work performed IN Japan. The same thing would seem to be the case for obtaining permission to do so. It would seem to only be required if you are working a job within Japan. I would be working a telecommute job so all my work would be done over the web and I would be getting paid into a US bank account. I know that I have to file a tax form with this income reported on it while I'm staying there. I just want to make sure I'm not going to lose my student visa for working this much.

I haven't been able to find any information on this over the internet. My guess is that what I would be doing is very rare. Perhaps someone can direct me to what organization I can ask about this?
 
Have you asked Immigration?

Thank you for the response.

I have now sent an email to the Tokyo Immigration Information Center to see if they can answer this question. If they cannot then hopefully they will tell me who can.

Any other places I should try in case they never get back to me?
 
As the title states, I would like to know if Japan will have any issues with me working over 40 hours a week for a US company while I'm there on a student visa. I know they typically have a limit of 28 hours a week for students but everything I've read seems to state that this is for work performed IN Japan. The same thing would seem to be the case for obtaining permission to do so. It would seem to only be required if you are working a job within Japan. I would be working a telecommute job so all my work would be done over the web and I would be getting paid into a US bank account. I know that I have to file a tax form with this income reported on it while I'm staying there. I just want to make sure I'm not going to lose my student visa for working this much.
I haven't been able to find any information on this over the internet. My guess is that what I would be doing is very rare. Perhaps someone can direct me to what organization I can ask about this?
Why post this question separate from your original one on the work in Japan section? It is all related.

I don't have an answer for your question but suspect you will be ok. I just wonder how many hours you have to attend school and do homework per week, leaving enough time for 40 hours to work!
 
I think you'll find that Japan immigration bureau (and possible every other country's immigration bureau) has not fully caught up with the internet age, and their current policies don't anticipate the possibility of working overseas while living in Japan. So I would not be surprised if there is no clear guidance on this, and I definitely would not be surpised if you get conflicting advice from two different officials. It is not uncommon.

Having said that, the visa sets the ground rules for your entrance and residence in this country. It isn't meant to limit any aspect of your life outside of Japan. For example, if you are the director of a company outside of Japan, the Japanese immigration bureau here doesn't and can't force you to give up that directorship just because you are entering in Japan on a student (or tourist) visa. Likewise if you have rental property, neither the school nor the immigration bureau has any interest in, or jurisdiction over, that activity.

I could easily imagine an immigration bureaucrat reflexively taking a very conservative stance and telling you (without any basis in fact) that the student visa prohibits all work whatsoever, wherever. But I think this would be a stance that wouldn't hold up in court. (And really, why would the issue ever go to court unless you were caught committing some serious offense in Japan, and the police were looking for a reason to deport you.)

So, bearing in mind that this is all an anonymous layman's advice, I would not worry about the visa implications of telecommuting. In my opinion you only have an income tax issue to worry about. The visa issue is very negligible.
 
Why post this question separate from your original one on the work in Japan section? It is all related.
I don't have an answer for your question but suspect you will be ok. I just wonder how many hours you have to attend school and do homework per week, leaving enough time for 40 hours to work!

I posted this separately because I felt this question was important enough to warrant it's own thread. This really is the most important thing for me to get nailed down right now. The school I'm looking at has about 3 hours per day, Mon-Fri, of in class time. They expect you to spend an additional 2 - 3 hours of study outside the classroom. I expect that I will need to work at least 6 hours each day during the week. Sundays I will probably work at least 10 hours and possibly more in order to make time for more study during the week. This would leave me with Saturday being my only day "off". Ill probably be able to squeeze in a couple hours here and there for relaxation time. The breaks the school has throughout the year will be wonderful. The fact that I can pretty much work my hour whenever I want to makes it much easier to arrange everything. It won't be easy but I've done it before. You just have to treat school like it's your hobby rather than more work. Works much better that way.
 
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