No COE, close to school’s start date?

My university applied for my COE in first week of May.

My orientation starts on August 6th, which is in 2 weeks, but I still haven't received my COE.

Has anyone experienced a similar situation where your COE arrived close to or even after the start date? I'm worried that it might get rejected after waiting for so long.

Thank you in advance, and I hope everything gets through these anxious times. Hearing similar stories and your experience do help me with my anxiety.

I’m sorry to hear of your situation - I have never been in a situation like yours, so I cannot share any experience, but if you look at another thread on this Forum titled “CoE processing times,” you’ll see that the immigration authorities are extremely busy thus slow with processing applications.

In the meantime, you might want to check with your university/school in Japan what they expect to see (their recent experience about the length of time needed for the CoE for their students, and their prospects of your application being approved - which should be good if you have not received any request for additional information so far), and what you can do in case the CoE does not arrive in time for the orientation. And also options like if they will be OK if they send you the material from the orientation (but you not attending in person), or they do the orientation remotely for you, etc.

If you are from a country where there is visa waiver program (whereby you can enter Japan just with your passport and stay like 90 days as “temporary visitor”), there is a possibility that you might simply be able to come in early August, get set up in temporary housing, attend the orientation, and when/if the CoE is received by the school in middle of August for example, you use it for a change of resident status from “temporary visitor“ to “student,” and stay on to study in Japan (I am assuming your course starts in September).

This might be possible because the immigration authorities allow cases for people to apply for change of resident status while staying in Japan, if the CoE is received when the applicant happens to be in Japan already, and have a good reason to make the change while in Japan, instead of leaving once and changing the CoE to visa outside Japan. Your good reason is of course that your classes start soon, (again I’m assuming) in early fall. These are things you can discuss with your university/school.

Best wishes.

Hey @AK, thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my message with detailed explanation. I really appreciate it! I actually received my COE yesterday and feel so relieved.

Here are the details to hopefully help other students as well:

Waiting time: 2 months and 3 weeks (2 weeks before my start date)

I was really concerned since it was so close to my start date, so I emailed my university's visa office. They contacted immigration and pushed them a bit, and the next day, I received my COE. It seems like many students are experiencing delays in getting their COEs, so take the 2-8 week estimate with a grain of salt—I almost waited 3 months. But don't worry, your visa coordinators know what they are doing, so please be kind to everyone. I hope you all have a good experience!