Dave Fossett <reply@via.newsgroup> wrote:

> "Al" <al@privacy.ne.jp> wrote:
>
> > If you leave Japan and do not come back
> > within 6 months, your work visa will automatically expire, regardless of
> > how long it was valid when you left.
>
> Are you sure about that?

No... in fact, i mixed up US and Canadian residence requirements with
Japanese ones here. Since the last changes in the Japanese immigration
control law (in February 2000), re-entry permits are good for whichever
period ends first, 3 years or the validity of the visa.

Nevertheless, the purpose of re-entry permits is to facilitate the
return of foreigners with valid visas after _short-term_ absences, and
the beauty of the regulations is that nobody tells us what _short-term_
really means, thus the officers can act with great flexibility.

So, someone may be allowed back in after two years of absence - or not.
And if person A got back in, there is no guarantee person B can do the
same. Likewise, although it seems to happen too rarely to make any
waves, if someone quits a job for which they got a work visa, they _may_
lose that visa, even if it had been issued for 3 years (a related
personal experience: some years ago, after obtaining a 3-year work visa
and subsequqently quitting my job, i had relocated to another part of
the country and become self-employed. At the time of applying for a visa
extension the first thing the officer said was, "your visa was issued in
Nagoya, you shouldn't be living here". I mumbled a reply about how my
circumstances had changed and how i had found a new way of making a
living, and no more was said about the matter. But any less sympathetic
officer could have made my life difficult at that point.)

Al