Change to Spouse Visa while in Japan?

Hey, my wife (Japanese national), our daughter and I (German national) are planning to move to Japan relatively soon. However one of her family members is getting married in a month and we'll probably go to the wedding anyways, but to save some money we'd like to immediately stay there rather than going to the wedding, coming back and then going there again. I don't have a spouse visa yet and requesting one will likely take 3-ish months or something from what I heard.

We've been married for about three and a half years and I wanted to know: Is it possible to enter Japan normally/as a tourist with my family and then change my visa to a Spouse visa while I'm there? My wife's family obviously said that they'll offer us a place to stay until we find one of our own and even list themselves as guarantors if necessary.

Thanks in advance!

No one can really answer that on this forum, except for someone at immigration who deal these kinds of cases. Your best bet would be to just call them up and speak to them to ask if this is possible, as they are the ones who are in charge of handling these kinds of questions.

As far as I know, the immigration authorities always “prefer” the path of (a) apply for Certificate of Eligibility (CoE) from outside Japan, wait till you receive it, and once you receive it you take it to the embassy of Japan in your country to apply for a visa based on CoE, then use that to enter Japan. But it is true it takes quite a long time.

People also go the other path, which is (b) to enter Japan on Temporary Visitor visa (available to German nationals just with their passports), then make an application for change of status from Temporary Visitor to a longer term one, in your case Spouse of Japanese National status, while staying in Japan.
(Please note the terminology - the one you use to enter Japan is “visa,” and once you are in Japan, it is referred to as “resident status.”)

The second path ((b), application for change of resident status) oftentimes works, particularly if the one you want to change to is based on family basis, such as “spouse of Japanese national,” because they can’t really try to deny it/kick out someone’s spouse. However, as the above poster responded, no one but the specific officer knows the answer.



Has your marriage been reported to the Japanese authorities already? (I don’t know if the marriage was based on Japanese law; if it is, then it’s already reported. If it was based on German law, it must be reported to the Japanese authorities after-the-fact, be it through the Embassy of Japan in Germany or directly to her city hall in Japan.

If you want to apply for a change to “spouse of resident status,” this report of your marriage to the Japanese authorities must be done first.

Also for the application for change of resident status, there are a lot of documents needed - so please look up what documents are needed, and prepare them in advance so that you can start the process as soon as you arrive in Japan.
Best wishes.

Hello! I’m not sure if you got your answer yet but I wanted to share my experience in case it helped!

I’m an American that recently got married to a Vietnamese Permanent Resident. I came to Japan on a tourist visa to get married. We got married at our City Hall in Kyoto.

Once we married, we gathered all the paperwork needed to switch my status of residence from temporary resident to spouse of permanent resident. I did not apply for a COE. Before going up to the immigration, we called and asked was it possible to do after explaining our situation. They told us to just come apply. Once there, we again explained our situation to the immigration officer and we also added a letter in Japanese explaining our situation of me coming to get married and why I didn’t apply for my status of residence from the US. We had pictures of our relationship before and after marriage and text messages from the same timeframe as well.

The very nice lady at the Kyoto Immigration office accepted our paperwork and told us it’d be about two weeks. That was a shock to me because the earliest I heard it being approved was 40 days from someone else on this website.

I checked the mailbox today and it was approved in eight days! I will be picking up my zairyu card on Monday!

I’d like to give thanks to everyone on this website covering this topic for their tips! It helped a lot. Don’t assume you will be automatically accepted, be humble, and ASK can you change your status of residence. Explain your situation and be very grateful. I’m not sure if the letter explaining our situation helped or not but it doesn’t hurt to have!


Best of luck to you! If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them!

AK san
Best regards
I saw some of your comments. Say. Japan or immigration cant refuse spouse japanese national
You are wrong dear get it example. It me
I married in 2009 in japan i was work there pay tax and
Social Security while i am living there i left japan back with my wife amd kids to my country in 2021 i payed throw 12 year all thing as i said no problem never arrested we apply in 2023 to back there but they refused me. And guess what reason is l they cant really believe that our marry is truth why cz they ask for pic and line chatting we refused. Might you say. I have to give them and i can say why. Hhhh i married. And have 4 kids and i have in my bank in japan more than 70000 dollar sure in japanese yen however. We relaxing our country and might after 5 years latter we think to visit there

we apply in 2023 to back there but they refused me. And guess what reason is l they cant really believe that our marry is truth why cz they ask for pic and line chatting we refused.

¯\(°_o)/¯
geez, wonder why they reject you. /s

Can i say
They have a bit of a racist tendency towards foreigners.
I face it while i used to live there
However. I filed a complaint with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they are investigating the matter.

Moo-san,
Sorry to hear what happened to you.
Why did you refuse to show the pictures and messages? In more recent years, this has become part of the standard requirements to demonstrate through such proof/record that the relationship is genuine.

But for the rest, all I can say is that it is in the end up to the individual immigration officer to decide - I find it disappointing that the Immigration Authorities do not publicize clear criteria for giving approval.

I gave the answer to the original poster (Kumakoii), reading his personal circumstances and gave the best estimate I could make out of that. (I happen to be married to a non-Japanese from the same country as the original poster.)

Best wishes to you.

there are clear reasons why they ask the genuineness of the marriage.
very recently, someone was arrested because of fake marriages.
https://www.sankei.com/article/20240910-CEBGDQ6EHJLR5C67LE7NYVV7LU/
those kinds of fakeness has been so famous historically.
because of immigration's continuous efforts, I have believed that those has been decreased. but, still there as reported, maybe many.

Pictures and conversations are not a criterion for a relationship. They know very well that we live together. The reason is that my youngest daughter was born in my country two years ago. If he does not know that, then this is a problem. If he knows that, then this is also a problem.

to Kumakoii
it depends on the annual income of your wife's parents. immigration request you the income certificate which is issued by the official authority in Japan. for example, the parents incomes should be enough for the 4 adults (two parents and two of you) and one child. (foreign certificates may not be considered, because they can't confirm the genuineness.)
additionally, if someone may write a letter, in which they will hire you after the spouse visa (status) is granted, it is highly helpful.