Getting married in Japan + spouse visa

Hi ^^

I am planning to marry my Japanese boyfriend and move to Japan (Kansai) next May/June. I am a British national and am currently living in London.

I wonder what is the best way to proceed - should I fly to Japan to get married first, then come back to London to sort out everything? Or would it be possible to get to Japan during the visa -free period, then get married and apply for the spouse visa within 90 days?

To get married will require me to get a document in Tokyo UK Embassy before getting them submitted to the local offices in Kyoto, which means I am likely to spend at least a week in Japan for my first trip commuting between the two cities. My bf thinks it seems to be easier to do everything in the 90 days period, but I personally think I would like to settle in Japan asap so I would like to get started with job hunting etc once I move, plus it would really stress me out if I am not able to get the visa back in 90 days.

I would be grateful for advice from people who has faced similar situation before.

Thank you!

Cis

Congratulation for your upcoming new life.It is better ,if you married in Japan. Come Japan, with proper documents.

Would you like to get married in the UK and then go to Japan and just change your resident status there?

Not sure why you would fly back to the UK. Come to Japan, get the affidavit/docs from the UK embassy and submit the paperwork to your local city hall - the marriage step is simply a form filling exercise. Make sure you have the correct form of documents (full birth certificate for example). There are a couple of other threads discussing this.
Once married, then apply for the change in resident status - submitting that application within 90 days of arrival should be trivial, and as you are from the UK you can apply for the additional 90-day extension if you needed to.

If your boyfriend is not living in the UK, the obvious choice first of all would be for the two of you to get married in Japan (meaning, according to the Japanese law); you would come to Japan, get married, then either:
- Apply for Spouse of Japanese visa from outside Japan
Or
- Stay in Japan and apply for change of resident status from Temporary Visitor to Spouse of Japanese National from within Japan.

If you do the application for visa from outside Japan, youfd have to wait until the visa is granted to be able to join your Japanese husband in Japan. Currently the immigration bureau seems to be taking quite a bit of time to process applications. The good part is you can continue with your life and work in the UK until you get the visa and are ready to fly to Japan to join him in Japan.

If you do the application for change of resident status from within Japan, you will be able to stay in Japan with him; once you get married and get all the papers submitted to the immigration authorities (and they are accepted as complete) within the 90 days as Temporary Visitor status as part of visa waiver program, youfll get a stamp in your passport saying gunder processingh or gunder reviewh (sorry I forgot the exact wording) and with that you will be able to stay in japan for additional time (even beyond the initial 90 days) until they come up with their conclusion, so you get to stay in Japan with your husband. The hitch is that you will not be able to start working until Spouse status is granted, so it can be a rather long wait before work can start. (You can look for work with the prospect of getting Spouse status, but cannot start working, until Spouse status is granted.)


At the beginning I briefly mentioned that getting married in Japan would be your obvious choice; I am just comparing your situation to ours (me = Japanese woman; husband = continental European), and we used to live together in London, so we could go to the town/county hall to get married according to the UK law, and then later when we decided to move to Japan, registered the UK marriage after-the-fact with the Japanese authorities (then went on to get him the Spouse status).
But I am not familiar with the current marriage procedure between a UK resident and a non-UK resident; it might not be possible if he is not living in the UK (I know we got married after a week or 10 day public notice period). He might have to get marriage visa or something to enter UK to get married in the UK; that would be extra hassle (if you are not at all thinking about possibly living in the UK). Best wishes.

Everyone: Thank you for your helpful advice! ^^

AK: Thank you especially for your thoughtful and detailed reply. Yes we have never considered marrying in the UK as 1) we plan to live in Japan; 2) he is not living in the UK. I have a quick search and it seems he will need a marriage visa to get married in London, so I agree it seems more sensible to get married in Japan instead. I did not know that I can apply for spouse visa outside Japan, so it is useful to know. Your experience has been really helpful for me. This is one extra option for me to consider :-)

If you plan to get married in Japan, then yes, you come to Japan and get married, then on that basis, either you apply for (1) Spouse visa from outside Japan, or (2) change of resident status from Temporary Visitor to Spouse while staying in Japan.

One thing to note about terminology:
gvisah is for entering Japan, and
gresident statush is what is given once you have entered and are in Japan.

So that is why I say (1) apply for spouse visa from outside Japan, or (2) apply for change of resident status in Japan. Please be careful about this.

Also, please look into the path to apply for visa from outside Japan; this is likely to involve application for Certificate of Eligibility (CoE) from Embassy of Japan in London.