Japan
Japan has no route that turns savings into residence. Every status of residence on offer requires a job, a company, a marriage, or a points score built from salary, age, and qualifications. That single fact explains almost everything else on this page.
Can you stay in Japan long term?
Yes, but only through work, marriage or years. The fastest ladder is the Highly Skilled Professional points system: 70 points gets you a five year status and permanent residence after three years, and 80 points is treated as one year. Everyone else waits ten years, which is the ordinary clock for a work visa, a Business Manager status or a Specified Skilled Worker Type 2.
The digital nomad route is not part of that ladder. It runs six months, cannot be extended, and time on it does not count toward permanent residence at all.
There is one work route that does not need a degree or a points score. Specified Skilled Worker covers the labour shortage sectors, tests skills and language rather than qualifications, and since the Type 2 expansion it carries no stay ceiling and can lead to permanent residence. Type 2 exists in eleven of the sixteen sectors, so a care worker has no exit and a manufacturing worker does.
The business route was repriced on 16 October 2025, when the capital requirement rose from JPY 5,000,000 to JPY 30,000,000 (2026), with a mandatory full-time Japanese hire and B2 language cover. Existing holders are judged leniently at renewal until 16 October 2028.
There is no retirement visa and no investment visa. Buying property, depositing money, or holding Japanese shares grants no status whatever.
Ways to move to Japan
| Your situation | Route to investigate | Quick read |
|---|---|---|
| Work remotely, earn JPY 10,000,000+ | Digital Nomad | Family, spouse cannot work · no settlement · 6 months, once |
| Engineer or manager who can score 70 points | Highly Skilled Professional | Family · PR in 1 to 3 years · 70 points, JPY 3,000,000 floor (2026) |
| Have a Japanese job offer | Work visa | Family · PR in 10 years · degree must match the role |
| No degree, shortage sector | Specified Skilled Worker Type 1 | No family · no PR · 5 year cap |
| SSW worker in a Type 2 sector | Specified Skilled Worker Type 2 | Family · PR possible · no stay limit |
| Founder with capital and an office | Business Manager | Family · discretionary · JPY 30,000,000 (2026) |
| Founder without the capital yet | Startup Visa | Family after conversion · up to 2 years |
| Married to a Japanese national | Spouse visa | Any work · PR in 5 plus 3 years |
| Spouse of a work visa holder | Dependant | 28 hours a week · switch required |
| Resident 10 years, or 70 to 80 points | Permanent residence | Indefinite · income and pension tests from April 2027 |
| Want Japanese nationality | Naturalisation | 5 years in law, 10 in screening · renounce your passport |
| Retired, no Japanese employer | No route exists | No retirement visa, no investment visa |
Read the quick column first. The threshold is only half the decision; the settlement column decides whether the move is a life or a stay.
The programmes
Digital Nomad. Six months, JPY 10,000,000 income (2026), 51 eligible nationalities, insurance covering JPY 10,000,000 of treatment. No extension, no residence card, no PR credit.
Highly Skilled Professional. A points table built from salary, degree, age, experience and bonuses. Seventy points gives a five year Type 1, eighty gives permanent residence in one year. Type 2 is indefinite and rare in practice.
Work visa. The ordinary white-collar status for engineers, IT staff, designers and translators. A degree that matches the job or ten years of experience, and pay equal to a Japanese national.
Specified Skilled Worker Type 1. Test-based entry to fourteen shortage sectors, five year cap, no dependants. The only route open without a university education.
Specified Skilled Worker Type 2. No stay limit, family allowed, counts toward permanent residence. Eleven sectors only.
Spouse of a Japanese national. A residence status in its own right: any work, no sponsor, permanent residence after five years of marriage and three years of residence.
Dependant. The family status for spouses of work visa holders. Twenty-eight hours a week, and income that does not count toward the PR household benchmark.
Business Manager. JPY 30,000,000 capital, a Japanese or permanent resident employee, B2 language cover, a licensed plan review and a real office. Repriced on 16 October 2025.
Startup Visa. Municipal approval, up to two years, no fixed capital figure. At the end you must meet the full Business Manager criteria.
Permanent residence. Ten years, or one to three on points. Since October 2026, household income, pension projection and language are assessed, and the fee is reported at JPY 200,000.
Naturalisation. Japanese nationality, which requires renouncing your existing citizenship. Five years in the Act, ten in the screening standard from April 2026.
What Japan is bad at
Absence, first. No retirement visa, no investment visa, no route where capital alone produces a status. Then the digital nomad status, which is the weakest remote work permission in Asia: six months, no extension, no residence card, no PR credit, and a six month wait before you can reapply. The points system rewards youth and salary so heavily that a competent 45-year-old without a doctorate is often locked out entirely.
The business route was repriced sixfold in October 2025 and now demands a Japanese hire and B2 language cover, which quietly closed self-funded entrepreneurship. Family rules are decent on the work routes, partial on SSW Type 1 and poor on the nomad route. And the administrative direction of travel is toward fewer, slower, more expensive processes, with a PR fee of JPY 200,000 reported from 1 October 2026 that has not been confirmed against a fee schedule page we could open.
Guides
Permanent residence and citizenship
- Permanent residence after the October 2026 revision: the income benchmark, the pension projection, the fee, and which tests start in April 2027
- Permanent residence or naturalisation: one keeps your passport and takes ten years, the other does not
Points and work routes
- The points system, and what 70 points buys: the table, a worked example, Type 2, and why J-Skip is a different gate
- Every Japan long stay route compared: eleven statuses, three questions, one settlement path without a degree
Business and startups
- The Business Manager visa after the repricing: JPY 30,000,000, the Japanese hire, B2, and the 2028 transition
- The Startup Visa and the conversion cliff: two years of runway, then the full criteria
Remote work and tax
- The digital nomad visa: six months, the nationality list, the insurance certificate, and the tax risk
- When you become a Japanese tax resident: why 183 days is a starting point, the non-permanent resident rule, and the exit tax
Sources
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Designated Activities (Digital Nomad) visa page, 2026-10-23
- Immigration Services Agency, status of residence pages for all eleven statuses, 2026-10-23
- Immigration Services Agency, HSP points criteria (PDF), 2026-10-23
- Immigration Services Agency, Guidelines on Permanent Residency Permits, revised 1 October 2026, 2026-10-23
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Specified Skilled Worker overview and sector list, 2026-10-23
- Ministry of Justice, naturalisation guidance, 2026-10-23
- Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Startup Visa programme page, 2026-10-23
- National Tax Agency, residence and non-permanent resident guidance, 2026-10-23
Last updated 2026-10-23.