Can spouse of Japanese national enter Japan?

I'm a German guy married to a Japanese woman. And we live in Germany.

Can people like me already enter Japan again?

If not, are there any plans for that in the future? Is there going to be a travel ease for foreigners married to Japanese people?

Thank you.

No. You can travel on tourist visa. Now the spouse visa is very difficult because of the fake marriages. Immigration consider 90% marriages as fake. Immigration will never ease the entry of foreigner spouse just because he is married to Japanese while living out of Japan.

And how can I get a tourist visa at the moment?

Wanna be able to visit my Japanese family ever again^^

You can get your Japanese relatives in Japan to submit the necessary documents to Immigration Office to get the Certificate of Eligibility. Just follow the instructions on the Japanese government website. You will need to send a photocopy of your marriage certificate in Germany. Also, send some photos if you have some good wedding pictures, pictures of you with your Japanese in-laws and other pictures showing that you have a real relationship. Did your Japanese wife record your marriage in the family register? If yes, get that document from the local city hall. Submit all the documents and wait. It takes about 1 month to get the COE, if they do not have any issues. Then go to your local Japanese embassy in Germany and get your entry visa. Within 3 months of getting the COE, enter Japan and get the official Spouse Visa card. By the time you complete this process, Japan should be open again but probably with 2 weeks of quarantine.

Horry,

Currently Japan has a travel ban on people who are from most of the countries around the world, including Germany. Also since you do not seem to have a �gspouse of Japanese national�h or �gpermanent resident�h status for Japan, you are not eligible for any special consideration.
But certainly you will be able to meet your family/relatives in Japan some time again. We just don�ft know when.

By the way, spouse visa is not �gvery difficult because of fake marriages.�h Currently with many non-Japanese people stuck in Japan (due to flight cancellations/travel restrictions) and Japanese/ permanent residents of Japan stuck outside Japan, immigration bureau is busy processing visa extensions and exceptional handling, that is what�fs happening.

If the two of you are living in Germany, and just want to �gvisit�h Japan, yes, tourist, or officially Temporary Visitor, visa is what you need. Normally German nationals can enter Japan just with the passport and get the entry stamp in it upon arrival (Temporary Visitor visa waiver), but I would check with the Japanese embassy in Germany to see what the process may be when the border reopens.
As current planning goes, travel restrictions may begin to ease first with business travelers from certain countries, with certain requirements such as taking COVID-19 test prior to traveling and providing full itinerary/self-quarantine upon arrival. Flight availability is another question though.

If you are planning to move to Japan, only then �gspouse of Japanese national�h visa will come into focus. For that, your spouse need to have reported the marriage with the Japanese authorities, and�c there are other requirements, but that�fs another story.

I just don't want to wait so many years until I can visit my Japanese family again...

General "tourists" are last in the queue.

Sounds like you are wanting a simple visit as a tourist - being married to a Japanese national really has no influence on that - so the earlier post about getting spouse visa is largely irrelevant. And that assumes you don't currently hold a status of residence for Japan as you are living in Germany.
Tourists will be allowed back into Japan eventually, just the timing is unknown. Based on what you have written, you would not fall under any of the special circumstances for exemption of the current rules. The basic rules are being updated roughly monthly and are at: https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page4e_001053.html

@JapanCustomTours Yea... I just hope it does not take years until I can visit Japan again.

Actually, I'm hoping I can go next year...

To add a detail to what @AK already posted & more specifically regarding:

"...If you are planning to move to Japan, only then �gspouse of Japanese national�h visa will come into focus. For that, your spouse need to have reported the marriage with the Japanese authorities..."

Based on what I understood from my wife and our own process:
When a Japanese national marries her/his foreigner partner overseas first (I assume you got married in Germany first), the Japanese national has three(?) months to report the marriage with the Japanese authorities. If the foreign marriage is not reported in timely fashion, I believe this complicates things. By how much exactly? Can it be reported later? - I am not sure.

Now, why this is important? One of the documents that you & your Japanese spouse need to obtain for the Certificate of Eligibility application is her family registry (koseki touhon). If your name is not there on the document, then it is a problem.

That's all I know. I hope others can confirm or deny what I typed.

MrZaggy,

Getting a bit off the topic (the OP seems to have no intention of moving to Japan with the spouse), but on this point:
When a Japanese national marries her/his foreigner partner overseas first (I assume you got married in Germany first), the Japanese national has three(?) months to report the marriage with the Japanese authorities. If the foreign marriage is not reported in timely fashion, I believe this complicates things. By how much exactly? Can it be reported later? - I am not sure.

- Yes, it can be reported later (I reported it a few years later – back then I didn�ft even know of the requirement, and we were not planning on moving back to Japan, which we did eventually, as things turned out.)
- It does not �gcomplicate�h things, but not reporting it within 3 months is a minor violation of the administrative rules (I got fined 2,000 yen for that – they assured me it was no criminal offense). Of course if you are planning to move to Japan and want to apply for "spouse of Japanese national" visa, you need to start from reporting the marriage first, so that might end up in things taking longer.

�uGeneral "tourists" are last in the queue.�v

Yep, but there's a reason for that. With a global pandemic going on, inbound overseas travel is something most governments want to cut down on. Japanese citizens have a preexisting legal right to be in the country (ultimately citizenship is a determinant of where you're allowed to live), and non-citizen residents have a need to be there, since that's where there home is. So those two groups need to get taken care of first in determining special exceptions to travel restrictions.

While you're married to a Japanese citizen, you yourself are neither a citizen nor a resident of Japan, which makes you a tourist. You don't have a need to travel to Japan so much as a want to. While that desire is stronger than it would be for tourists who don't have relatives in Japan, it's still just a desire, not a need, unless there's some special circumstance with your relatives, such as a sick, invalid, or impoverished relative needing you to be in Japan to care for/financially support them. That wouldn't be a short-term situation though, so even then, the special permission you'd be seeking wouldn't be for an exemption to the tourist travel restrictions, it'd be for a resident visa, but it doesn't sound like your intent is to relocate to Japan permanently/long-term.

It's a bummer, but honestly international tourist travel isn't really a priority these days. Also, it's not like Japan is stricter or less flexible on this than many other countries. My wife (Japanese citizen) and I (U.S. citizen) live in Japan and very much want to visit my relatives in America, but that's not something that she can do under the current travel restrictions.

I get it - but still, I will get crazy if I have to wait years or even worse..

If you really want to see your in-laws asap, and assuming they do want to see you too, it would be easier for them to travel to Europe (France/Italy), and meet there.

Japanese nationals cannot visit Germany. Although the EU opened its borders for Japan Germany hasn�et. The reason is the current situation as German nationals cannot enter Japan.
Only when Japan allows Germans into the country Germany will allow Japanese citizens entering the country.
The only exception might be extraordinal situation which have to be acknowledged by the authorities.

Don�et let yourself go crazy with all the news. At some point travel between the countries has to resume. Years won�et be feasible.
It might be possible next year but maybe you have to consider 5-14 days of quarantine upon entering Japan.

I really really HOPE years won't be feasible^^

@Lisa, that's why I was mentioning Italy and France. They are close to Germany, and both German and Japanese citizens can travel there. If OP and his wife really want to see their relatives without waiting, it would be a possibility.

But we also wanna go to Japan again. And we just dont want to wait years.

You just need to wait for as long as it takes. Repeatedly typing keystrokes into an anonymous forum isn't gonna make this virus go away any quicker. Use the time to earn more money and enjoy a longer holiday when the time is right.

Now spouse visa is not important. Japan need the skilled people for work due to shrink in the population.

@h: So you seem to think it WILL take years until tourists come back right?