Extending your working Visa in Japan

What do I need to extend my working visa in Japan, you may ask?  Here's a mail I sent to my friend today.
I thought I would post it, since it took me awhile to find the information I needed.

The key to getting anything remotely useful out of google is, you don't "extend" or "renew" your visa in Japan: you "renew your length of stay" (在留期間更新)  Anyway:

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Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:18:14 +0900 
Subject: Visa 
 
Bloody impossible to find decent information online.  All the Japanese
content is people complaining about illegal immigrants and all the English
content is about bizarre exceptions to the rule ("I'm married to a Japanese
woman who lives in the US while I live in Canada and my military status
means XXX and can I extend for 5 years if XXX...")

In any case, finally tracked it down. Would have been considerate of them to
use the word 'VISA' anywhere on the government website where the information
is located.
:)


Anyway, things you need (here's the website in J that describes it):

1) Application form (I think we're on the same 'cultural' visa (人文知識), so it's
this form)

2) Passport and/or gaijin card (I'd bring both, who knows.)

3) Proof of employment ('the company' should know how to do this one by now, it has to
prove your type of work, length of work and place of work. I just used
whatever 'the company' gave me and it was fine.)

4) A document showing your total paid taxes for the past year. The website
mentions getting it from the Kuyakusho, but I'm pretty sure your yearly tax
statement ('gensen choushuu hyou', 源泉徴収票) should be all they need.


There are information centers for us foreigners that should be able to
answer this. I just tried calling the Tokyo and Shinjuku offices, though,
and both are busy (http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/info/index.html)

Hope this helps!

Comments

[Travel Passports]

Excellent post! this case study gives me a lot of things to think about. I think this would be nice and helpful to others. Thanks for the post.

New Passports | Passports for Children

[taikotari]

[this is good] Thanks for this. I have just spent 1 hour online trying to find this exact information and you're right the government's website is not exactly the most helpful! You, on the other hand, are very helpful.

[naruzo]

Glad to be of help! :)

Come to think of it, I've got to renew my visa this month...