Path: news.ccsf.jp!tomockey.ddo.jp!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!b9g2000pri.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: chuckers Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan Subject: =?ISO-2022-JP?B?UmU6IFBlcm1hbmVudCBSZXNpZGVuY3koGyRCMUo9OzgiIUsbKEIgaW4gSmFwYW4=?= Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:00:45 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 97 Message-ID: <395c2e49-24d9-4135-a37b-c8c9640c3163@b9g2000pri.googlegroups.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 60.36.179.50 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-2022-JP Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1268107246 22705 127.0.0.1 (9 Mar 2010 04:00:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 04:00:46 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: b9g2000pri.googlegroups.com; posting-host=60.36.179.50; posting-account=iPkvIwoAAAAK9uQVY7lJ0Hck6k8yfmjW User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Xref: news.ccsf.jp fj.life.in-japan:168920 On Mar 8, 3:29 pm, sensyujin wrote: > What are the REAL requirements for becoming a permanent resident in > Japan? > As has been mentioned, nobody really knows. It will often depend on the attitude of the person behind the desk and how they react to you. Or not. > I am unmarried and I have lived and maintained an address (I have > moved several times) in Osaka for 5 (going on 6) consecutive years. I > worked as an English teacher for four years through the JET Programme, > and was unemployed for 3 months before securing a contract (renewable > yearly) at a company at which I have been employed for 1.5 years. I am > currently on a new 3 year working visa. I have also recently passed > the JLPT 1. > > I know the immigration office guidelines are vague. I have checked > quite a few sites and realized that many, including debito.org, are > quick to exalt the benefits of being married. I don't think I should > get married for the express purpose of attaining permanent residency. > I don't think I should be expected to either. I've always enjoyed > supporting myself and enjoyed my freedom. If I am able to support > myself financially, I don't think attaining residency should be so > difficult. > Marriage is probably a help but isn't, of course, a requirement. Marriage might decrease the (vaguely defined) required time to be accepted. Continuous employment is also a help. I presume you are paying your taxes and I am sure you paid nenkin/ kenkou hoken while on JET. Are you still paying those now? Did you pay them when you were unemployed? Can you prove it? Not having paid those then, or not paying those now might give you a bit of a black mark on your application. I recommend paying them (taxes/nenkin/ kenkou hoken.) You need to show you are an upstanding individual contributing to the system. > I would especially like to hear about what topics were used in the > essay (理由書）part of the application and what type of person you chose > to be your guarantor（保証人）. > I am hoping to complete my application within the next few months. It > will be interesting to see if I am eligible. > I was 8 years continuous in Japan with 5 years of a spouse when I applied. My company of 7 years was packing up and pulling out so I needed to apply fairly quickly. My "essay" was probably about 3-5 sentences in length, if that. It was along the lines of (in Japanese, of course) "I have established a life here in Japan and would like to continue doing so." I don't remember getting a guarantor although the spousal unit might have served that purpose. An unmarried friend (10+ years in when he applied) doesn't seem to recall what he did either though agrees he must have had one. His "essay" was probably similar (based on the advice I had given him.) I don't know if there was any specific requirement to draw a map to your house on anything I could find when I was applying but all the Interweb rumours seemed to think you needed one. So I included one. Any and all documentation you can provide would be good. Too much documentation is probably never enough. Include proof of tax payments for the last several years (3 ought to be good.) Available at your local tax office for a modest fee. Include a copy of last year's income statement (源泉徴収票) to show you are able to support yourself. Multiple years if you have them wouldn't hurt. Submit and wait. I get the impression that things are easing up quite a bit on PRs. An acquaintance of the spousal unit applied fairly recently and was told the wait would be about 6 months. I was told 1 year for processing about 5 years ago. Doesn't cost you anything (nominal copying fees and transportation costs aside) to submit so you might as well do it. I don't know if they give reasons for rejection or not. If they do, you can try to work on that bit. Most likely reason I can think of would be not enough time in. But you never know. Just make sure you have been paying your taxes and your nenkin/kenkou hoken are up to date. Things are going to get a bit hairy on those last 2 in the coming days, it seems.