Hello,

Sorry if this is an obvious question. I'm just pretty clueless about visa rules, so I wanted to check to be sure.

I was in Japan with a visa to teach English for a couple years. I ended the contract and came back to Japan early last fall. I'm now thinking about going back on a short stay (tourist) visa, and staying for a few months, probably starting this month or next.

Would there be any problem doing this? I thought I heard something about a limit to the number of days/visas within a certain time period. I imagine that was about getting numerous tourist visa, but would any rule like that limit me here?

Thanks in advance!

Your first visa needs to have expired (which I assume it has because otherwise your question wouldn't make much sense), because otherwise you would need to apply for a change of visa status. Other than raising the suspicion that you might come back to work illegally on a tourist visa, nothing stands against that as far as I know. I did the same once, leaving in April, one-year researcher visa expired in September, entered Japan again in December same year.

In any case, this isn't legal advice. A short fax/email to the nearest Japanese consulate might be a good idea to verify the rules.

I lived and worked in Japan for quite some time, with an apartment, car and job, on a tourist visa. My work had me travelling outside the country at least every 90 days, so there were no issues. Although once I had to do a quick weekend trip to Korea for the weekend just as my visa was about to expire.

Thanks for the info.

My work visa was actually a three year one, but I came back after two years. I assume the visa was ended with my job though.

kurukuru Wrote:My work visa was actually a three year one, but I came back after two years. I assume the visa was ended with my job though.

Your visa is not tied to your job. It is a visa that allows you to work in the area of the visa (specialist of Humaninties I'm assuming) anywhere that you can find employment. Do you have a reentry permit? If you do then there is no reason that you cannot come on that visa if it is still valid.

Really? I was under the impression that it was somehow tied to the job.

When I ended my contract, I was even told that I would have to leave Japan in a certain number of days (I think a month or so?), and that if I wanted to stay longer, I'd have to change it to a normal tourist visa or something.

I guess in a way you are right because you will have to have sponsorship. That is probably what they were talking about. But, no, your visa is yours and they can't do anything with it but you would have to have another employer that would sponsor you since it is a work visa you have to have a job in order to be in Japan on that visa. It sounds like maybe they were pissed that you were quitting and wanted to kind of intimidate you a bit so they said you would have to leave Japan within a month. You are probably allowed a month (I don't know the exact time frame) to find a new job before your visa would be invalid for not working not because you quit that specific company. But I guess in the end you have probably been without a job for too long on that work visa anyway so it ends up being a non issue. Sorry about that. I wrote a bunch of stuff but the end result ended up being the same

Thanks for explaining! That makes sense.

I was actually on the JET Program and it was totally routine for people to end their contracts after one or two years, so it wasn't a case of them being angry or anything.

tokyostyle Wrote:

kurukuru Wrote:My work visa was actually a three year one, but I came back after two years. I assume the visa was ended with my job though.

If you didn't get a reentry permit before you left then you'll want to get that all taken care of before you arrive in Japan. Did you relinquish your 外国人登録証明書 when you left?

Re-entry permits don't exist anymore.

In case anyone is wondering about this kind of thing... I just did some research and it turns out that they're no longer using short-term visas ('tourist visas') for U.S. citizens. It sounds like you just need a round-trip plane ticket showing that you'll leave within 90 days and a passport.

It's still not totally clear to me that my old work visa is totally gone or not, but it sounded like that wouldn't be a problem as long as I entered on this 90-day short-term stay thing.

@kurukuru - Even if you don't have to apply for it ahead of time, your 90-day stay is facilitated by a tourist visa. It's just that people from certain countries (including the US) can get tourist visas upon arrival.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Re-entry permits don't exist anymore.

They do still exist, but they are only required when leaving Japan for over a year. If leaving for less than a year, you have to indicate the みなし再入国許可 option on your embarcation form.

In the past, if someone left without a reentry permit and came back, even with a valid visa still in effect, they would have to get a tourist visa and apply for their visa all over again. It's plausible that that could happen to someone who left without using みなし再入国許可 or who left before that policy went into effect, but I wouldn't know.

At any rate, I don't think kurukuru needs to worry too much about being able to get a tourist visa.

Those short-term stay visas really still exist? So you have to get them when you arrive then?

Because the Japanese embassy there was no visa like that anymore. I guess they were just simplifying it for me because I don't need to do anything before going?

Tourist visa's still exist. But you still need a return plane ticket to get one. I have heard that some people have been able to get into Japan on a single one way ticket but far, far more people are caught off guard when the airport says they need a return flight for their current visa status and won't clear them for flight till they buy one.

Yeah, I was told I definitely needed a return flight.

But if those short stay visas still exist, when do you get them? The person I talked to made it really clear that I didn't have to get anything or bring anything to the airport (apart from the plane ticket and my passport).

A tourist visa is put in your passport at immigration, when you land in Japan.

You do not get a tourist visa added to your passport when you land you get a landing permission stamp (上陸許可).

A tourist visa is a completely different thing only necessary if you are from a country which doesn't have an exemption.

Japanese Tourist Visa
Japanese Landing Permission Stamp

The Japanese embassy will never use the term "visa" in place of "permission stamp" despite the fact that among foreigners almost everyone uses the terminology "visa" when they are discussing changing or renewing their permission stamp. (ie. "renewing my visa")

Quote:Re-entry permits don't exist anymore.

The system of re-entry permits is still fully in place. If you leave Japan for less than one year then your foreigner identification card serves as your re-entry permit. If you are going to be gone longer than one year then you are required to apply for the re-entry permit stamp. Returning without one or the other is still going to get you a lecture about the proper entry/exit procedures.

Yeah; the government website talks about this. As tokyostyle says, the legal thing you need to be in Japan is the landing permission; you can get one of those by being a tourist from a set of countries with visa exemptions. If you're from a non-exempt country or not going for a short tourist stay, then the set of required conditions to get a landing permission includes having a valid visa (and the visa evaporates once it's done its job of getting you the landing permission, unless it's a multiple-entry one).