Sorry for going AWOL again, I’ve been busy with my latest visa application. We’ve officially applied last week Friday, but we don’t know how long it will take this time.
Unfortunately, there is not much reason to be optimistic. The Japan Times, the country’s largest and oldest English-language newspaper has a whole new section just about immigration, with many reports on the business manager visa. And the reports are not good.
This article is about the owner of a small restaurant with 2 employees, who has just been denied an extension of his visa. He has been in the country for 18 years, has a wife and two kids who grew up here and don’t speak any other language than Japanese.
The major hurdle is, as I predicted, the new capital requirement of 30 million yen, and it’s prohibitive: only 9% of Japanese-owned companies have that much capital. From a Japanese point of view, the new requirements for business manager visa seem to work – applications are down 96% in some areas! Note that the total number of such visas is just over 46,000 (end of 2025), obviously a major source for governmental pain right now…
Anyway, I don’t like complaining too much… Doesn’t help with anything and takes time away from more important things. I’ll keep you posted, I’m just not sure how regularly.