Approved or Denied Visa?

Hi Guys! We are a group of 4 people who wanted to visit Japan and for some reason our visa application has been in the embassy for 2 weeks now and we are getting quite worried, we just applied for single entry since we really just want to visit for a few days because it really is our dream to experience this beautiful country on our own. We are guessing why our application is taking so long and we think that it's because we've put AIRBNB as our accommodation and maybe that is not that popular in Japan since it's a personal rented place. I really do hope that we get approved, what do you guys think? :) thanks!!! :)

I don't know if 2 weeks is ample time for a tourist visa or not, but you have to take into account the country you are coming from. Immigration tends to scrutinize people from The Philippines more than they do those from other countries. I'd wait a few more weeks before you start worrying too much.

yes we are from the Philippines, oh well I guess we really just have to wait, it's just that all our friends got their visa in less than a week so we're really getting worried. Anyway, thanks for the response :) I hope we'll get approved visa's :)

If in doubt - contact the embassy.

we shall try, thank you very much!! :)

What agency did you submit your requirements? Usually, it should take less than a week if there are no problems/issues with your requirements

Discovery Tour in Makati, yeah it is taking quite some time, they told us that they'll call one of us if there's a problem with our documents so far no call from them. I just hope that we'll get an answer sooner cause it's really stressful to think about this every single day haha! But we are still hoping that we'll get approved! :) *fingers crossed*

From what I've seen, visas are approved on a very case by case basis. I had a friend visiting from a country which has a difficult visa relationship with Japan. They requested a lot of documents from me and called to ask for more.
If they suspect that you will overstay, they are likely to reject it. How they determine that though, I have no idea.
Good luck.

We got our visa from Rajah Travel in Ermita. They were helpful, courteous and professional. It only took a few days. They handle a large volume of Japan visas daily. I can't say enough good things about them.

We first went to the other "authorized" travel agency in Ermita and, frankly, we dealt with an idiot. She seemed to know much less than we did, couldn't answer questions, gave us some obvious misinformation, and we finally just walked out.

We are actually waiting for them to ask for more documents if needed, no problem in that. I just hope that they'll contact anyone from us if there's something that we need to provide to get this over with. Whhhyyy issss ittt taaakiiiinnnggg sooo daaaammnn loooong hahaha! We just want to visit Japan for a few days :( we're not planning to hide there, we have stable jobs here, oh well. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR RESPONSE :)

I wish we just went to that place, our friend recommended discovery tours since that's where she got her's. They can't answer our questions either, all that they're saying is that, "the embassy is verifying". Maybe they are but it's just too long for four people. I hope we'll get our results next week :) thank youuuu for your response!!! :)

And for everyone that took their time to give a comment on this thread, I appreciate it very much :)

It's probably a busy time of year in terms of the numbers of people applying. Plus the numbers of tourists is up sharply on previous years so the number of staff hasn't caught up. Plus it's a time of year when Japanese take holidays as well.
These may all make the process slower.
But, I have no idea really.

I really really really do hope that youre right! I really appreciate what youve said, it lifted my spirit a bit! thank you so much!! :)

So what happened PandaPao, did you guys get approved or denied?

I am losing my wits now as I'm also waiting for my visa application results. It's been 2 weeks.

I applied in Friendship Tours Cebu with another friend. It's my first time travelling outside the Phils but my friend has lots of stamps on her passport already including visas for US, China and Dubai.

I've read somewhere that if it takes a long time then it'll probably get denied. :( Most of the people applying from Cebu got theirs in a week.