Certificate of Nationality query

Just a quick recap before I get to my question. My j-wifey and I got married in Hawaii, I went back to Australia and she went back to Japan. She will come to Australia for a few months and during that time I will apply for a spouse visa to join her in Japan early next year.

Today, she went to cityhall to register our marriage and was told that she needed to have a copy of my Certificate of Nationality aka Kokuseki Shoumeisho aka �‘�Ð�Ø–¾�‘

Is that my Australian Citizenship certificate? If so, my wife was told to call the Australian embassy for a copy. Does it need to be an official copy from the embassy? or do I can I just scan a color copy and send to her by email and in turn she can print it out?

Anything else we need for cityhall to register our marriage successfully?

Any past experience and useful info/advice is appreciated.

Thanks all.

That depends on the city hall - she needs to ask at that specific city hall. In our case (myself Japanese, my husband continental European, we got married in the UK as we lived there back then), all we needed was our UK marriage certificate, its translation (done by myself) into Japanese, and as we reported it after we moved to Japan already, his Alien Registration Card as his ID. It was in Hyogo prefecture.

I guess in your case you are not in Japan yet, so they need an official ID for you. (Please ask her to ask the city hall if a scanned copy would suffice.)

I believe that Australian nationals can enter and stay in Japan only with their passports for... 90 days or so? You could enter Japan with her when you move back, and apply for Change of Resident Status (from Temporary Visitor status to Spouse) once you are in Japan.

I believe that Australian nationals can enter and stay in Japan only with their passports for... 90 days or so? You could enter Japan with her when you move back, and apply for Change of Resident Status (from Temporary Visitor status to Spouse) once you are in Japan.

I would strongly consider this method as well, as there is no waiting time involved to get to Japan. Its a fairly quick, simple, and inexpensive way to convert to a spouse visa. Just make sure you have all the proper documents prepared (e.g. translated marriage certificate, birth certificate, etc.) ahead of time.

Thanks for your replies.

AK, we've established that now. After all day on the phones between me and her, her local cityhall and the Australian embassy in Osaka. I think there was abit of miscommunication on our part since I was at work and we were both panicking over this predicament.

For now, we've got her local cityhall in Takarazuka communicating with a staff in the Australian embassy about this. In regards to the just the scanned copy or if an official copy is needed, in which I will have to get an apostille for my Citizenship certificate copy so Japan will recognise it.

OR I could just send my Citizenship certificate by express international courier, get my wife to show it to them and if they want make a copy. My wife will bring it back with her when she comes here in a 2 months.

yllwsmrf - there is that option, but isn't it harder to get a spouse visa inside Japan?

For now what matters is we register our marriage before our 90 days/3 months is up. We got married in July 7 so we've only got about a month left. Yikes. The initial copies of our marriage certificates got lost in the mail so we had them issued again by the dept of health in Hawaii. Mendokusai na :(

JR

PS.

Just in case your marriage has been more than six months ago, my experience was as follows:
http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+92860

JR,

If you are worried about reporting the marriage within 3 months from the date of your marriage (or to be precise, your wife reporting her marriage with you to the Japanese authorities), I posted the consequence of having missed the due date (personal experience). No big deal. I would not really worry about it.

Thanks again AK.

Well if we do miss the deadline she can always plead that it took us longer to register because her local city hall was being anal about proper official documents. Considering that I'm not in Japan.

Well it's not their fault and we didn't know better. I've tried the internet on info about registering our foreign marriage in Japan with the husband absent but couldn't find anything related to my situation. Or maybe I didn't look hard enough.

Oh well, it's too late for that, we'll just have to do it the hard way now. Almost there so I'm not giving up even if I have to miss a few days to go to Japan just to register with me being present with my passport and citizenship certificate.

By the way, does anybody know if copies of docs such as my citizenship certificate and passport need to be notarized here and have an apostille stamp on it for me to send to my wife in Japan and be accepted by her local city hall?

Thanks much :)

JR,

you are in a bit of a complex situation aren't you

You could always go to Japan for a few days, show up with your wife at cityhall and hand in the original docs for them to look at. It's the most easiest and simplest way to go about this problem, however it will cost you a return ticket in the thousands lol

Otherwise, does anybody know if Notary Public and Apostilles are accepted in Japan for foreign docs? I know Japan and Australia are both in signatories in the 1961 Hague convention. If accepted, this would be the lengthy but less expensive way to go about it without leaving your country, let alone your city.

Hope this helps.

E