Job Discussion Forums

[Rooster_2006]

I'm curious about the process of visa renewal for English teachers in Japan. There's plenty of information about the requirements necessary to get a visa in the first place, but I have not been able to find information about RENEWING.

When you've been teaching in Japan for say, three years, what requirements do the immigration offices have for granting an extension?

Under what circumstances will they *NOT* grant an extension?

Specifically, here are a few cases I can think of, assuming that the person in the examples has a three-year work visa:

1. Somebody gets a three-year work visa. During those three years, he proceeds to do this:
Year 1: work at an eikaiwa
Year 2: no work, just study Japanese
Year 3: work at an eikaiwa again
Would he be able to get an extension in light of "taking Year 2 off?"

2. Somebody starts out at a school that CAN sponsor a visa. However, by Year 3, he is working at a school that does not have the capability to sponsor a visa. Can he still get a visa extension?

3. Somebody is employed continuously for three years, but in Years 2 and 3, his pay dropped to a very low level (like 100,000 yen a month). Will he be able to get an extension?

I'll let you guys know if I have any other renewal questions like these...

Please let me know if you think he'd get an extension in Cases 1, 2, and 3. Thanks.

[seklarwia]

[Rooster_2006]

So then what, specifically, are the criteria that they use to determine whether an extension is granted or rejected?

Oh, and here's another case I'm curious about:

John Smith has successfully held down a teaching job for two years, 11.5 months on his Specialist in Humanities Visa. He is just about to apply for an extension when suddenly, out of the blue, he is fired out of the blue! Does that mean a renewal is denied?

[Glenski]

[Apsara]

I left Japan for almost a year partway into a three year humanities visa, and started working for a different employer when I came back. It was a complete non-issue when I went to renew my visa just before it was up.

To answer the points seklarwia raised, it's easy enough to stop working for a year if you have enough money saved up, if you go and live somewhere else there's no issue with the school being your apartment guarantor, and the ward office must have received information about how much I had earned during the first part of my stay on that visa, because I got bills for the amount I owed as soon as I arrived back in Japan and registered in the area I was living in then. The same thing would happen if you just moved within Japan. You don't have to work a full year for those certificates to be issued or have that information passed on to the tax office.

As Glenski says, technically you are not supposed to be unemployed for more than three months on a work visa, but I have never heard of anyone being called on this. If you were to enroll full time at a language school though you would most likely be expected to have a student visa.

For the third scenario (Glenski, there was nothing about being self-employed, or has it been edited since you posted?), I'm assuming Rooster means cutting work hours to the level where he/she would only be earning 100,000 yen or so. In that case it's unlikely you would get the extension, because although there doesn't seem to be a set guideline, I doubt that Immigration would consider that a livable wage. You would need to boost your earnings back up again by the time you came to renew the visa.

[Apsara]