how Long will it take to get my COE

I was in Japan on my tourst visa and me an my fiance got married in October

I went to the embassy and applied for a spouse visa but I need to get my COE first
I did everything they asked and turned in the paperowork

They said everything was alright and I just needed to wait for my COE to arrive at the house in Japan
They said it would take about 2 months

we waited 2 months and my wife called and they said I was supposed to go back to the states and wait because I need to have the COE in America and get my visa from the embassy here

So Ive been back in the states since December and They contacted my wife and said they needed some more paperwork. They wanted proof of income and stuff like that. So my wife got all her tax papers and had a professional look over everything and sent it in

Now i'm wondering if the time restarts because they wanted more paperwork?
I keep hearing it takes 2-3 months for the process of the COE

Does the time restart if they want more paperwork or does the process just continue as it was?

it's now midway through march and still no word from them.

She did try to call and ask about it but of course they said they can't give that information
they said just to wait a little more

Total it's been about 4 months now and I"m starting to worry. I was hoping I would be back in Japan before too much longer

The professional that she talked to said that he thinks it will be completed this month
he said it maybe taking a little longer because so many students are applying also But I started the process last year so I don't know if that makes sense

any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

People recently have been waiting 4-6 months for COEs.

They got ahold of us last month for the extra paperwork

Does the processing time start over because they wanted a couple extra things?

Or does everything continue from when they started the processing?

since you don't know what documents they (your wife and a lawyer) sent to immigration office in application, no one can speculate the result.
when the first time last October, they sent the official income certificate (income of 2015) to immigration. if she get a new one in March, it should be the same. I think immigration asks her to give a copy of Œ¹�ò’¥Žû•[, which shows the income of 2016.
the reason they want to have a new one is probably her income of 2015 is lower than their borderline. I think immigration tries to rescue the application by additional information of the recent income.
you shouldn't complain about the slow processing.
generally speaking, if the application has no problem at all, it is processed quickly. if it is slow, there should be some problems in the application.

Ken

Thank you for the information. you are right. They wanted proof of income and tax paperwork for her and her son

When we originally applied and started the process, They did not ask for that stuff
They just recently said that they wanted that paperwork


I did not know that! I keep hearing the opposite. Everyone has been telling me and from what I"m reading on other sites, Is that if the process is bad I would know quickly but if it's going well it takes some time

Well, there are differenct kinds of bad. There's bad as in "your application has a fatal flaw which means it's instantly rejected" and there's bad as in "your situation is very complicated so it takes a lot of time for them to figure it out and during that time all you can do is wait".

I agree with the previous posters, the only issue I have is I don't see how you had to leave. You should have been given a stamp with a number in your passport that would permit you to stay while your application for a change of status was approved (or denied).

Well at first they told me to wait at the house in japan for the coe

After about a month and a half or two months my wife called them

They told her that I was supposed to kbow that I had to return to America and wait for her to send me the coe ,so I could exchange it at a embassy here, then return to japan

I literally had 2,days left on my tourist visa and they said I wold get overstay if I stayed there after that date

So I booked a flight back to america the next day and been waiting since october-dec

That doesn't make sense, at least it's not in my experience. When you go to immigration and submit an application for change of status they put a stamp next to your visa and write in an application number, this allows you to stay even past your visa expiration under the status of designated activities. Even then, if you did have to leave you could've jumped over from Japan to S. Korea and you wouldn't have overstayed.
Something doesn't sound right with that time frame either, you've been waiting close to 6 months.

PDGY was applying for a CoE, not for a change of status. The two-month "grace period" is given only for applications for change of status and extension of period of stay.

Also, during the "grace period" you are still under your old status, not "designated activities".

I understand that but why apply for a COE when he should have applied for a change of status from temporary visitor to dependent?

Designated activities is a catch all that typically is whatever your previous status was. opr what your new status would be. Immigration has discretion, the OP could have received and asked for dependent designated status which would have allowed them to work. Usually the designated status is whatever it was before such as a work status that's being reapplied for, or a new status such as going from humanities to instructor. If your status is humanities and you go to work at a University and apply for an additional status of professor or instructor the designated status lets you work as an instructor or professor while you wait on the application, it is not just your old status of humanities in this case.

Designated activities is a catch all that typically is whatever your previous status was.

No, it is not. "Designated activities" is for some specific situations deternmined by MoJ ordinances; examples include people entering on working holiday visas, recent university graduates job hunting, or people with a pending asylum application.

Yes it is, the status of designated activities covers a large field. You usually see it talked about when someone overstays their visa, and instead of deportation gets a period of time to leave voluntarily, but it actually covers a range of possible scenarios. For most people it's the transitional status when moving or adding an additional status humanities to professor for example. You don't have the professor status until it's actually granted, but you're permitted to work in that capacity as a designated activity.

For whatever reason they told me I could not extend my stay.

I thought it was fine because they told me to wait a couple months for it to come to the house in japan. But after it did not show up in time I had to return

They said they wanted the extra paperwork, the tax and financial stuff. By the end of February

My wife had that all finished and turned in by mid February

I hope I know what's going on soon

My wife finally got the paperwork back and they said I was denied my coe

It said that the marriage is real and it has nothing g to do with that

There was also a paper saying I can appeal within six months

She is going to the office today with a professional to talk to them and see if it's possible to fix what was wrong

I keep hearing that if my coe was denied I can directly apply for a spouse visa at the I'm mag ration office in america

Does anyone know about that? Or is that even true?

I thought I needed the coe and then exchange it for the visa

Pgdy
Buddy somebody in at the immigration gave you very wrong advice to apply for COE, also you should have been smart enough to figure out difference between status change and Coe
You could have stayed in Japan and done status change easily
I think the only option now is get some lawyers help, who knows this stuff. One he can suggest the right course of action