Married couple moving inquiries

Hello,

My wife and I are interested in the prospect of possibly moving to Japan in a few years so I had a few questions. I've read the standard requests for moving as well as a few posts on here about doing so and it seems that most people only have issues with the visas for work. My wife currently holds a job where she works from home and I'm wondering if there is a way for the business to sign any sort of waver that states that a person will still have a source of income from outside of Japan or she will have to look for a new job within the country that would sign for her. Secondly since she currently holds a four year degree, yet I have no degree but 10 years experience in IT at a major university, would it still be viable for me to find work or should I just go ahead and get a degree (I get free classes). We are currently teaching ourselves Japanese and plan to get a tutor after we have a better grasp of the basics, so we will be language proficient. Also we went on vacation to Japan this past April to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Takayama, and Hida, so we are fairly sure that this is something we want to do. I would just like to get a good plan of how we should proceed if this is viable.

Thank you.

Your wife with a (bachelor's I assume?) degree and you with ten years of work experience sounds like both of you fulfill the basic requirement for a work visa (for you in the field of your expertise only) provided you find employers in Japan willing to sponsor you for visa. So you would want to check to see your IT experience/skill is of immediate use to companies in Japan.

Of course your wife needs to find an employer in Japan - visa is not just about income, but whether one needs to be in Japan. Unless some employer wants her to be in Japan so that she can work for them, there is no work visa.

Yes she has her BoA, but she's been working as a data analyst for the past five years. We were just wondering if there might be a chance that it would help if we showed that we would already have an income of roughly \6m per year. But maybe I could look for work, have a business sign for me, have her registered as a housewife, and then she keeps her current job?

If you find work in Japan, she can obtain "dependent" status so that she can stay in Japan with you. (There is no resident status that is specifically intended for remote work).
Depending on how long you remain in Japan, she would eventually have to declare her income outside Japan (initially for the portion she remits to Japan, then later regardless of whether she brings it into Japan at all) for income taxes in Japan. So some good long-term planning is needed.

Showing income/saving would help if you were applying for a long-term visitor status (for extended sightseeing), but not for living. You "need to be in Japan," be it for work or for living with the spouse, if you know what I mean.

If you can get a job and the appropriate work category visa your wife can be dependent status. Her work in another country does not require a working visa in Japan - one of those neat little things about definitions.
The time in Japan before you have to declare her income is 183 days, at that point you are tax resident and required to pay taxes on all of your worldwide income in Japan (not just income derived in Japan). You may also have to pay taxes in your home country - double taxation. Make sure you know about tie-breaks and the rules that apply.
The other "great" incentive Japan recently introduced are some changes to inheritance taxes - depends how long you stay, but it is a pretty punitive system.

Proficiency in Japanese is not realistic. Given that you plan to move in a few years, this will require more than full-time study. Best to aim lower and look for jobs where English is used, or where the level of Japanese required is not quite so high. I know people who have been learning Japanese here in Japan for 10+ years who I wouldn�ft call proficient.

Thank you all! We were looking at the benefit of the fact that she can work remotely as a possible way for us to move with both having established jobs so that the income change would not be too drastic. We would have a sizable savings since we would most likely sell our current house prior to moving. We would not expect to be fully fluent and likely try to find employment where we could take advantage of bilingual/foreign born traits.

Please note that Japan is not a country you just move over and that's it. Your employment might be contract based, just one year term for example, and if it doesn't get renewed you will lose the basis for any stay beyond it. I would not do anything that would be like burning the bridge behind yourselves.

We don't plan on completely burning our bridges, but with the immigration reform and low birth rate affecting Japan's taxes we figure that it would be a good chance. After reading on the point system in place and the 3 - 10 years to obtain citizenship that I'm seeing in multiple articles, it seems possible.

Immigration reform? Japan? I don't think you have got the right message. Officially there is no immigration policy. The latest "improvement" is come to Japan , leaving your family behind, and then after the country has used you for five years, go home.

To pick up on the points just mentioned above, you cannot just move to Japan and hope to get a job. If you just arrive, you will be on a temporary visitor permit, and after 90 days (depending where you are from), you go home - you cannot legally stay. Of course you might get a job and be better than the local candidates. You really need a job to come to and that provides a residence status and a lot of restrictions - you cannot just move to a different field of work. There are some other avenues, but they are tricky.

The points system - you might want to look pretty carefully at that and how to qualify. And the requirements for citizenship are non-trivial. PR is a lower hurdle.

In my researching I'm seeing the immigration job practices that you're talking about with the laborer jobs being a five year and then get out plan. That seems like an issue that needs to be changed, but my wife and I both fit into the skilled worker category that would be applicable to work visa's and possibly permanent residency. We would not dream of just going there and hoping for the best, we plan on revisiting in two years after research and language studies then deciding if we wish to pursue it further. That's why I'm inquiring now for four years in advance.

Fair enough, but even as a skilled worker under the HSP you need someone to actually hire you.
Another small trap, you might be highly skilled and earning well in your home country, but depending on your field, you might be back at starting salaries when you arrive - that makes qualifying under the HSP much harder. For instance, my previous day-job I could have got 50 points easily on income alone, but that doesn't translate to what I am doing currently here in Japan building a business from scratch.
As you say, you have four years to do some planning and a lot can happen in that time.