Visa information

Japan offers three named routes in the 2026 guide: the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities work visa, the Highly Skilled Professional points visa, and a six-month Digital Nomad visa with a high income threshold. The guide scores Japan just 48/100 for visa and bureaucracy — its lowest dimension — and it is explicit that there is no retirement visa. Its paperwork stages run from about six to ten weeks depending on tier.

The routes the guide names

Engineer/Specialist in Humanities work visa — the guide's named work route.

Highly Skilled Professional points visa — the points-based talent route; the guide's schemes list adds that it comes with fast PR (see the honest-limit section below on what “fast” is not quantified as).

Digital Nomad visa — listed as 6 months, high income threshold (see the income test below).

The guide's schemes list adds J-Skip and J-Find for top talent and graduates, without eligibility rules in either source. And one absence matters as much as any route: the guide states there is no retirement visa (see the Retirement page).

The income test — what the sources actually say

For the Digital Nomad visa, the guide gives the test precisely: 6 months on $68k/yr income, and it adds that the visa is not renewable in-country. The site data carries the identical line.

For the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities and Highly Skilled Professional routes, neither source states an income threshold, a salary floor, or — for the points visa — the points total required. This page does not invent them.

At the guide's exchange rate of $1 ≈ ¥154, yen figures convert at roughly that rate for planning.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government visa fees. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan, and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $950 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,350 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $3,200 — Luxury plan (the plans note the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line — $2,450 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification” — but read the Retirement page before relying on it: the guide states there is no retirement visa, so that generic plan line does not correspond to a named Japanese route.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — the honest limit of the guide

Two renewal and pathway points are sourced, and only two. The Digital Nomad visa is not renewable in-country — the guide says so in terms. And the schemes list describes the Highly Skilled Professional route as a points visa “with fast PR” — but neither source gives the number of years, the points needed, or any renewal intervals for the work routes, so this page does not state them. Treat “fast PR” as a headline to verify with an immigration lawyer or the embassy, not as a timetable.

Frequently asked questions