Japan tightens permanent residency rules: higher income, longer marriage and pension tests, changes applied retroactively

The useful part

On Thursday, the Japanese government announced new guidelines for foreigners seeking permanent residence in Japan. Under Japan's Immigration Control Act, foreign nationals seeking to become permanent residents of Japan must satisfy three conditions. Finally, the applicant's permanent residency status must be determined to serve Japan's national interests.

How it works

• Under the new guidelines, however, foreigners will have to show that they earn an annual income above the national average for Japanese citizens.
• ▼ It seems unreasonable to make the only alternative to the retroactive increase be to travel back in time and file your application on an earlier date, seeing as how even the wealthy struggle to find...
• At the same time, Japan's foreign resident population has increased, but as the majority of them are working for Japanese employers and getting paid in yen, they're not reaping the benefits of the weak yen...
• Those are all broadly defined conditons, and the Japanese government's new interpretation of them is going to significantly raise the bar for displaying financial security.
• Until now, an annual income of roughly 3 million yen (US$19,000) was considered to be a baseline, but generally acceptable, amount for a permanent residency applicant.

What to take from it

The increase is even larger if evaluators are going to be using the average household income for Japanese citizens, which is 5.8 million yen. It's unclear whether this is referring to the applicant's individual income or that of their household as a whole, but according to government statistics the average unmarked adult income in Japan is approximately 4.5 million yen, bringing minimum required income up by 50 percent. The government announced the new guidelines on October 1, and said that the higher-than-average-Japanese-citizen income requirement will be applied to permanent residence applications filed as of April, but that's not April of next year.

Example or evidence

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• Hey, if those foreigners who want to obtain permanent residency status can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps and double their income, they can just file their applications before the new guidelines...
• No, the new income guideline is being retroactively applied to applications that were submitted as much as six months ago.
• Currently, the couple must have been married for at least three years, and the foreign spouse must have lived in Japan for at least one year in order to be eligible.

Details worth keeping

From April, those requirements are going to be lengthened to the couple having been married for five years, and the foreign spouse having lived in Japan for at least three. Note that these requirements are to the above income requirement, not a substitute for it. All of this is taking place against a backdrop of Japanese residents dealing with the most severe price inflation in generations for basic goods and services, while also seeing more and more foreign tourists spending carefreely while on vacation in Japan.

Related coverage

• Nikkei: Japan hikes foreign residency fees, tightens rules: 5 things to know
• Indiatimes: Japan raises permanent residency fee 20-fold as foreign population hits record
• Meduza: Стоимость получения постоянного вида на жительство в Японии выросла в 20 раз и теперь составляет 200 тысяч иен (1270 долларов США).