<gh14tq5@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I've been working at a Japanese university for two years.  My current
> visa is a working visa with the status of "researcher".  The visa is
> valid for another year, but in August I will change jobs and start
> working at a Japanese company.  I'm not 100% sure, but I think the
> researcher visa is only valid for working at universities and
> government labs.  So I probably need to change the status of my visa to
> something like "engineer".  First, is it strictly necessary to change
> the visa status or is it ok to change jobs with the current status
> since it is a working visa. My other question is how does one go about
> doing this, i.e., what documents do I need, where do I take them, and
> about how long will it take.

Rather than ask here for advice, how about ringing the number given
here?

<http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/IB/ib-18.html>

There's no guarantee that any advice you get from people here will
actually be valid, and the Immigration people tend to be very helpful
(unless you've given them good reason not to be, of course).

________________________________________________________________________
                   Louise Bremner (log at gol dot com)
   If you want a reply by e-mail, don't write to my Yahoo address!