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Japan's immigration system seems heavily set up to encourage young people to come, work and then leave. This startup visa is good for getting a toe-hold on Jap

Japan's immigration system seems heavily set up to encourage young people to come, work and then leave. This startup visa is good for getting a toe-hold on Japan but only targets people out of country. If you live in Japan already (so you might already speak the language and have helpful local knowledge) there aren't any great paths to starting a business without permanent residency. You can't start a side business on a regular work visa. If you change your visa to manage the business and the startup failed you are likely to be "directed to return to your home country", losing all the residence time you have accrued so far. I've been working as an engineer in Japanese startups for the past few years and I'm kept on 1 year visa renewals. On a one year visa you can never apply for permanent residency. And on top of this, there is the 5 year "technical trainee" visa, which is a means of getting manual labor in the country temporarily without having to publicize it. All the people on this visa do not have university degrees so after their 5 years are up they must return home and have no chance of residence in Japan (outside of marriage). Of course, Japan is free to set its own laws. If you look at them the message is clear: "Japan wants your work and taxes, but it doesn't want you"

hardwaresofton 9y ago
I absolutely agree with the message you've arrived at and think you're right, along with the fact that they're free to set their own laws/determine their stance about the outside world. One minor correction: I think you can become eligible for permanent residency with consistent 1 year visas -- from what I understand as long as the TYPE of visa is unchanged and you've had the same type of visa for 5-7 years it counts well towards the (quite recently developed) points system they use. Previously, I thought it was just 5-7 years of same VISA and you're in a pretty good spot, but turns out there's a point system now. Here's the official documentation (japanese, unfortunately): http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/tetuduki/zairyuu/eizyuu.html http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/tetuduki/zairyuu/eizyuu.ht...
- laurieg 9y ago
  Regular working visas and the points system are completely seperate systems. It is true that if you have enough points on the highly skilled professional visa you can get permanent residence (PR) in only one year. On a regular work visa you must have 10 years consecutive residence in Japan and "must hold the longest visa type available to you (for these purposes longest means 3 or 5 years)" (my rough translation). I have consulted with an immigration lawyer on the topic of applying for PR with a 1 year visa and he confirms this.
  - hardwaresofton 9y ago
    Hey do you have any links for the points system vs the work visa systems, that are in english for people that might be interested? Even japanese would be helpful as well. Also, +1 for consulting with immigration lawyers. I employ/consult with one as well, and that's about the best information you can get, it's well worth the money (and usually the consultation is free) -- they're very unlikely to get the paperwork/process wrong.
    - laurieg 9y ago
      The immigration bureau has an English page for the highly skilled professional visa: http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ The English page for immigration has lots of information, but it is quite vague and not wonderfully organized.
  - mikekchar 9y ago
    Do you have any idea why they are giving you only 1 year renewals? Previously on an instructor visa I had no trouble getting a 3 year renewal -- even though I only had 1 year contracts at my employer. I wonder if it's because they see your employer as being risky (given that it's a startup). You might consider trying to get a job somewhere bigger (or trying to get a full time position) if you want to stay in Japan forever.
patio11 9y ago
You can't start a side business on a regular work visa. You know YC's question "How have you ever hacked a non-technical system?" This is my answer to it. You can start a side business on a regular work visa if the character of your business matches your status of residence and you don't intensify the business to the point where it is undeniable that it is a business as opposed to employment, e.g. by hiring full-time employees. So, for example, if you were an engineer, and you happened to run a software company on the side, you could convince the Ministry of Justice to accept the argument that you were employed as an engineer by the 個人事業 (sole proprietorship) of you, which (since you have an engineering status of residence) doesn't require their pre-approval, and then (while establishing a record of e.g. tax paying and similar) bootstrap that into a renewal of your status of residence with yourself as the sponsor, and from there roll on to either a management/investor status of residence or one of the other more stable options. For totally-not-a-lawyer gloss on this I'm happy to chat with anyone; you can make reasonable assumptions as to why I am fairly confident that the MoJ can be convinced to allow this.
- abhinavkulkarni 9y ago
  > You can't start a side business on a regular work visa. You can't do that on an H1-B either.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  wait, as a non-citizen of Japan you are allowed to sponsor yourself for a work visa? That sounds, uhh, strange.
  - sdrothrock 9y ago
    Yes. Essentially you prove you have the funds to do bootstrap and support yourself.
  - coinme 9y ago
    This is possible in Singapore too. It’s technically the business that is sponsoring you.
ekianjo 9y ago
> Japan's immigration system seems heavily set up to encourage young people to come, work and then leave. Indeed, even though you have to pay all taxes like a local when you live in Japan, you can never benefit from stuff like pensions if you ever want to retire there.
- laurieg 9y ago
  This is not true. If you have permanent residence you can retire in Japan and claim the National Pension if you paid in for enough years. In fact, recently the number of years of payment required was reduced from 25 to 10.
  - glandium 9y ago
    There are also bilateral agreements between Japan and other countries regarding pension, and how the years you paid in both can cumulate.
  - mikekchar 9y ago
    There are other categories of visas where you can receive the National Pension as well. I'm on a spousal visa and I'm pretty sure I can receive a pension even if I don't get permanent residence (or at least that's what they told me at the city hall). As glandium says I can also receive what I put in through the pension system in Canada and the UK (the only 2 places I checked). Also, if you don't want to receive a pension, you can also receive most of what you paid into the system when you leave the country. Unless you have only staid for a year or so, though, it's probably better to leave it there, financially. Finally, the city hall also told me that if you have been paying into a compatible pension system in another country, the number of years paying into that system counts for the number of years in the Japanese system (but you have to roll the 2 pensions together). It's worth checking diligently to make sure that you don't fall through some bureaucratic cracks in the system, but it seems surprisingly robust.
drieddust 9y ago
That's not just Japan. UK is another example of such behaviour. They killed HSMP (Highly Skilled Migrants Program ) in the name of curbing immigration. But at the same time allowed companies to transfer employees to UK for up to 5 years. So in my view they are no better. Guess what the very problem it was supposed to solved still exists and immigration is increasing. They are just not getting Highly Skilled immigrants anymore, Strange world!
- azernik 9y ago
  What's different about Japan is that this is just about the only way to immigrate; Western countries typically have skilled guest worker programs in addition to more general immigration.
  - thedailymail 9y ago
    That's not really true. There are quite a few working visa categories for professionals in engineering, medicine, journalism, higher education, etc. in addition to the lower-skill categories for basic English teaching and "entertainment." The government has also introduced a points-based system that prioritizes visas for people with more skills/experience/income, and has been making it a lot easier to get longer-term visas and permanent residency.
  - reaperducer 9y ago
    He's right. Japan is worried about its depopulation problem. I've read articles about all different ways that Japan is loosening its immigration process.
- robk 9y ago
  Hsmp was great but today's Tier 1 Exceptional is arguably the most generous in the western world for tech talent. 5 years with a direct pathway to citizenship. No other in Europe offers a path to citizenship this fast if at all.
  - whyagaindavid 9y ago
gabrielrondon 9y ago
I agree. Also, It is a trend in some EU countries. This kind of program tries to boost the economy.
pwim 9y ago
It sucks to hear you've been getting one year renewals. Unfortunately when it comes to bureaucracy here in Japan, things are on a case by case basis, so its hard to make any sweeping judgements. As a counterpoint, I came here on a working holiday visa (6 months) and found a job at a Japanese startup. When I renewed my visa, I switched to an Engineer visa and got a three year one. Mid-way through that three year visa, I quit, and created a consulting company. After consulting with an immigration lawyer, I was told it was "probably ok" to be the director of a company on an Engineering visa, so long as the primary thing I was doing was Engineering related. When my three year visa expired, I successfully had my own company sponsor it, and got another three year one, followed by a five year one. Last year, I successfully got PR here. Its hard to say why you're continually getting one year visa renewals. If you're not already doing it, it could be worth having an immigration lawyer submit the application on your behalf. Because it was a cheap business expense (~80,000 JPY) compared to the cost of screwing something minor up, that's what I did for every renewal I did under my own company (for PR, I did it myself though). I'd argue that Japan has a relatively friendly policy for skilled immigrants. To get a job as a developer here, all you need is a company that's willing to sponsor your visa and a university degree in a related field. As far as I'm aware, there's no onus on the company to prove they couldn't get a Japanese to fill the position, or quotas on the number of visas like there are in other countries (US for instance). Furthermore, a great thing about Japanese working visas are that they aren't tied to a specific company, only the field of work (which they've made broader by combining several statuses into the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa category). This means once you have a visa here, you can easily switch jobs, and even if your company was to lay you off or you were to quit, you don't immediately need to return to your country. What's more, Japan's introduced a points based system to give preferential treatment to highly skilled professionals. While the points they give create a bias towards someone coming from academia or working at a large well paying job, it makes it theoretically possible to get PR here without being married to a Japanese citizen after one year. There are a lot of problems with Japan. I agree with you that the trainee visa is one big one. The lack of being able to get a clear answer about immigration status issues also makes it challenging, and encourages you to take a certain amount of risk in stepping into a grey area legally, which I understand will hold some people back. But for me personally, and other foreign entrepreneurs around me, it has made it possible to transition from being an employee to entrepreneur with relatively little investment compared to what is required in other countries. If anyone is interested in more detail about transitioning from an engineer to entrepreneur here, I've written more about my experience here: http://www.tokyodev.com/2014/04/17/creating-company-japan/ http://www.tokyodev.com/2014/04/17/creating-company-japan/.
matt4077 9y ago
From reading this policy, it seems there are two competing issues at stake: - It seems necessary to attract the young & creative types. First, because everyone is doing it. And, second, because Japan has has a rather huge problem, not just with age, but with a general lack of anyone doing anything new and/or different. - But Japan happens to be off the charts when it comes to the desire not to mingle with foreigners. It's not that visible, or in the news, because they're less likely to openly show it, or engage in violence. But foreigners are in even lower regard than young people.[0] So you end up with this sort of policy, that has exactly zero chance of attracting anybody unless they see some specific opportunity in Japan. [0]: Case in point: the EU admitted 1.4 Million refugees in 2015&2016. US: 210,000, Canada: 120,000. Japan: 9.
- Boothroid 9y ago
  Some obvious discrepancies around permitted speech on this topic. Say you like traditional British values and think they are being undermined by immigration: "Racist! Xenophobe! There are no traditional British values anymore! Go back to the Daily Mail little Englander!" Point out that Israel or Japan have immigration policy that are highly exclusive: wind blowing, tumbleweed..
makx 9y ago
> You can't start a side business on a regular work visa. This is incorrect. A friend of mine started a businesses on a work visa and I myself have even started a business on a student visa [1]. No legal problems. I just recently switched from "Student" to "Manager" visa, and immigration had no problems with the fact that the business was already running for over a year before I applied for my residence status to be changed. [1] http://marui-plugin.blogspot.jp/2016/11/starting-company-as-foreign-student-in.html http://marui-plugin.blogspot.jp/2016/11/starting-company-as-...
- laurieg 9y ago
  Sorry if my statement was inaccurate. The legal advice I have received states that if I were to start a company I would need to change residence types or would be unable to renew my current visa. So how does your friend renew his visa? Does he renew as a standard work visa and declare his company at the same time?
  - makx 9y ago
    As long as you have your current position (employment in my friends case or university enrollment in my case) you can extend the visa on those grounds, basically making you business a "side-business". After you quit your job or leave university, your visa stays valid until the end of the term. When the visa expires, you will have to apply for a Business Manager (経営者) visa, because you are not an employee (授業員) at your company, but an executive (役員).

hardwaresofton 9y ago

I absolutely agree with the message you've arrived at and think you're right, along with the fact that they're free to set their own laws/determine their stance about the outside world. One minor correction: I think you can become eligible for permanent residency with consistent 1 year visas -- from what I understand as long as the TYPE of visa is unchanged and you've had the same type of visa for 5-7 years it counts well towards the (quite recently developed) points system they use. Previously, I thought it was just 5-7 years of same VISA and you're in a pretty good spot, but turns out there's a point system now. Here's the official documentation (japanese, unfortunately): http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/tetuduki/zairyuu/eizyuu.html http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/tetuduki/zairyuu/eizyuu.ht...

laurieg 9y ago
Regular working visas and the points system are completely seperate systems. It is true that if you have enough points on the highly skilled professional visa you can get permanent residence (PR) in only one year. On a regular work visa you must have 10 years consecutive residence in Japan and "must hold the longest visa type available to you (for these purposes longest means 3 or 5 years)" (my rough translation). I have consulted with an immigration lawyer on the topic of applying for PR with a 1 year visa and he confirms this.
- hardwaresofton 9y ago
  Hey do you have any links for the points system vs the work visa systems, that are in english for people that might be interested? Even japanese would be helpful as well. Also, +1 for consulting with immigration lawyers. I employ/consult with one as well, and that's about the best information you can get, it's well worth the money (and usually the consultation is free) -- they're very unlikely to get the paperwork/process wrong.
  - laurieg 9y ago
    The immigration bureau has an English page for the highly skilled professional visa: http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ The English page for immigration has lots of information, but it is quite vague and not wonderfully organized.
- mikekchar 9y ago
  Do you have any idea why they are giving you only 1 year renewals? Previously on an instructor visa I had no trouble getting a 3 year renewal -- even though I only had 1 year contracts at my employer. I wonder if it's because they see your employer as being risky (given that it's a startup). You might consider trying to get a job somewhere bigger (or trying to get a full time position) if you want to stay in Japan forever.

patio11 9y ago

You can't start a side business on a regular work visa. You know YC's question "How have you ever hacked a non-technical system?" This is my answer to it. You can start a side business on a regular work visa if the character of your business matches your status of residence and you don't intensify the business to the point where it is undeniable that it is a business as opposed to employment, e.g. by hiring full-time employees. So, for example, if you were an engineer, and you happened to run a software company on the side, you could convince the Ministry of Justice to accept the argument that you were employed as an engineer by the 個人事業 (sole proprietorship) of you, which (since you have an engineering status of residence) doesn't require their pre-approval, and then (while establishing a record of e.g. tax paying and similar) bootstrap that into a renewal of your status of residence with yourself as the sponsor, and from there roll on to either a management/investor status of residence or one of the other more stable options. For totally-not-a-lawyer gloss on this I'm happy to chat with anyone; you can make reasonable assumptions as to why I am fairly confident that the MoJ can be convinced to allow this.

abhinavkulkarni 9y ago
> You can't start a side business on a regular work visa. You can't do that on an H1-B either.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
wait, as a non-citizen of Japan you are allowed to sponsor yourself for a work visa? That sounds, uhh, strange.
- sdrothrock 9y ago
  Yes. Essentially you prove you have the funds to do bootstrap and support yourself.
- coinme 9y ago
  This is possible in Singapore too. It’s technically the business that is sponsoring you.

ekianjo 9y ago

> Japan's immigration system seems heavily set up to encourage young people to come, work and then leave. Indeed, even though you have to pay all taxes like a local when you live in Japan, you can never benefit from stuff like pensions if you ever want to retire there.

laurieg 9y ago
This is not true. If you have permanent residence you can retire in Japan and claim the National Pension if you paid in for enough years. In fact, recently the number of years of payment required was reduced from 25 to 10.
- glandium 9y ago
  There are also bilateral agreements between Japan and other countries regarding pension, and how the years you paid in both can cumulate.
- mikekchar 9y ago
  There are other categories of visas where you can receive the National Pension as well. I'm on a spousal visa and I'm pretty sure I can receive a pension even if I don't get permanent residence (or at least that's what they told me at the city hall). As glandium says I can also receive what I put in through the pension system in Canada and the UK (the only 2 places I checked). Also, if you don't want to receive a pension, you can also receive most of what you paid into the system when you leave the country. Unless you have only staid for a year or so, though, it's probably better to leave it there, financially. Finally, the city hall also told me that if you have been paying into a compatible pension system in another country, the number of years paying into that system counts for the number of years in the Japanese system (but you have to roll the 2 pensions together). It's worth checking diligently to make sure that you don't fall through some bureaucratic cracks in the system, but it seems surprisingly robust.

drieddust 9y ago

That's not just Japan. UK is another example of such behaviour. They killed HSMP (Highly Skilled Migrants Program ) in the name of curbing immigration. But at the same time allowed companies to transfer employees to UK for up to 5 years. So in my view they are no better. Guess what the very problem it was supposed to solved still exists and immigration is increasing. They are just not getting Highly Skilled immigrants anymore, Strange world!

azernik 9y ago
What's different about Japan is that this is just about the only way to immigrate; Western countries typically have skilled guest worker programs in addition to more general immigration.
- thedailymail 9y ago
  That's not really true. There are quite a few working visa categories for professionals in engineering, medicine, journalism, higher education, etc. in addition to the lower-skill categories for basic English teaching and "entertainment." The government has also introduced a points-based system that prioritizes visas for people with more skills/experience/income, and has been making it a lot easier to get longer-term visas and permanent residency.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  He's right. Japan is worried about its depopulation problem. I've read articles about all different ways that Japan is loosening its immigration process.
robk 9y ago
Hsmp was great but today's Tier 1 Exceptional is arguably the most generous in the western world for tech talent. 5 years with a direct pathway to citizenship. No other in Europe offers a path to citizenship this fast if at all.
- whyagaindavid 9y ago

gabrielrondon 9y ago

I agree. Also, It is a trend in some EU countries. This kind of program tries to boost the economy.

pwim 9y ago

It sucks to hear you've been getting one year renewals. Unfortunately when it comes to bureaucracy here in Japan, things are on a case by case basis, so its hard to make any sweeping judgements. As a counterpoint, I came here on a working holiday visa (6 months) and found a job at a Japanese startup. When I renewed my visa, I switched to an Engineer visa and got a three year one. Mid-way through that three year visa, I quit, and created a consulting company. After consulting with an immigration lawyer, I was told it was "probably ok" to be the director of a company on an Engineering visa, so long as the primary thing I was doing was Engineering related. When my three year visa expired, I successfully had my own company sponsor it, and got another three year one, followed by a five year one. Last year, I successfully got PR here. Its hard to say why you're continually getting one year visa renewals. If you're not already doing it, it could be worth having an immigration lawyer submit the application on your behalf. Because it was a cheap business expense (~80,000 JPY) compared to the cost of screwing something minor up, that's what I did for every renewal I did under my own company (for PR, I did it myself though). I'd argue that Japan has a relatively friendly policy for skilled immigrants. To get a job as a developer here, all you need is a company that's willing to sponsor your visa and a university degree in a related field. As far as I'm aware, there's no onus on the company to prove they couldn't get a Japanese to fill the position, or quotas on the number of visas like there are in other countries (US for instance). Furthermore, a great thing about Japanese working visas are that they aren't tied to a specific company, only the field of work (which they've made broader by combining several statuses into the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa category). This means once you have a visa here, you can easily switch jobs, and even if your company was to lay you off or you were to quit, you don't immediately need to return to your country. What's more, Japan's introduced a points based system to give preferential treatment to highly skilled professionals. While the points they give create a bias towards someone coming from academia or working at a large well paying job, it makes it theoretically possible to get PR here without being married to a Japanese citizen after one year. There are a lot of problems with Japan. I agree with you that the trainee visa is one big one. The lack of being able to get a clear answer about immigration status issues also makes it challenging, and encourages you to take a certain amount of risk in stepping into a grey area legally, which I understand will hold some people back. But for me personally, and other foreign entrepreneurs around me, it has made it possible to transition from being an employee to entrepreneur with relatively little investment compared to what is required in other countries. If anyone is interested in more detail about transitioning from an engineer to entrepreneur here, I've written more about my experience here: http://www.tokyodev.com/2014/04/17/creating-company-japan/ http://www.tokyodev.com/2014/04/17/creating-company-japan/.

matt4077 9y ago

From reading this policy, it seems there are two competing issues at stake: - It seems necessary to attract the young & creative types. First, because everyone is doing it. And, second, because Japan has has a rather huge problem, not just with age, but with a general lack of anyone doing anything new and/or different. - But Japan happens to be off the charts when it comes to the desire not to mingle with foreigners. It's not that visible, or in the news, because they're less likely to openly show it, or engage in violence. But foreigners are in even lower regard than young people.[0] So you end up with this sort of policy, that has exactly zero chance of attracting anybody unless they see some specific opportunity in Japan. [0]: Case in point: the EU admitted 1.4 Million refugees in 2015&2016. US: 210,000, Canada: 120,000. Japan: 9.

Boothroid 9y ago
Some obvious discrepancies around permitted speech on this topic. Say you like traditional British values and think they are being undermined by immigration: "Racist! Xenophobe! There are no traditional British values anymore! Go back to the Daily Mail little Englander!" Point out that Israel or Japan have immigration policy that are highly exclusive: wind blowing, tumbleweed..

makx 9y ago

> You can't start a side business on a regular work visa. This is incorrect. A friend of mine started a businesses on a work visa and I myself have even started a business on a student visa [1]. No legal problems. I just recently switched from "Student" to "Manager" visa, and immigration had no problems with the fact that the business was already running for over a year before I applied for my residence status to be changed. [1] http://marui-plugin.blogspot.jp/2016/11/starting-company-as-foreign-student-in.html http://marui-plugin.blogspot.jp/2016/11/starting-company-as-...

laurieg 9y ago
Sorry if my statement was inaccurate. The legal advice I have received states that if I were to start a company I would need to change residence types or would be unable to renew my current visa. So how does your friend renew his visa? Does he renew as a standard work visa and declare his company at the same time?
- makx 9y ago
  As long as you have your current position (employment in my friends case or university enrollment in my case) you can extend the visa on those grounds, basically making you business a "side-business". After you quit your job or leave university, your visa stays valid until the end of the term. When the visa expires, you will have to apply for a Business Manager (経営者) visa, because you are not an employee (授業員) at your company, but an executive (役員).