Renewal of Working Visa with Expired Passport

My passport renewal application is still pending due to limited working hours in the embassy plus limited slots of applicants that are being considered. Besides, passport will be printed back in my home country and it will take about 3-4 months in total before I receive my passport.

By that time, my visa is already expired.
Working visa: Engineering/Humanities/International Services

The embassy said I just need to show my expired passport + the appointment schedule of passport renewal application (to prove that its on pending) when I renew my visa.

Do you think it will affect my visa renewal application?
Any personal experience here who managed to renew visa while with expired passport?
thanks

Weird. I though one of your requirements was to have a valid visa at all times.

If they have said no need, then great.

your country says that the passport is valid during the renewal process (i.e until you get a new one).
do them both ( passport renewal and resident status renewal) simultaneously, after confirming it to immigration office.

It cannot be helped that the passport renewal process takes that long.

I (or my family) don�ft have any experience, but this is as far as I know:

The main thing is to not to let your current resident status (�gvisa�h) expire - so if I were in your shoes, i would proceed to follow the suggestion by the embassy and apply for the resident status renewal BEFORE it expires.

The most that can happen is that they give you a stamp into the old passport, and you might have to have it transferred to the new one later, or that they decide to bind the two passports together to show that the resident status is valid.

@shinagawagirl

Immigration can:

1) Hold up processing your visa renewal/extension until you are able to give them a valid passport.

If you submitted your renewal/extension on time, you will be perfectly legal. They will stamp your ID and give you paperwork that your visa/extension is being processed. It's unknown how long they can keep a person on "processing hold", but have heard from people of it going for 2 months or so.

They might call you to come in to immigration to explain your situation and provide proof that what you say is true.

2) They can give you a temporary or special extension of up to 2 or 3 months at a time.

They may possibly give you 2 of them back to back, but I haven't seen or heard about them doing this more than once. Seems like the problem either gets resolved or the person leaves Japan.

The snag about this is, it is possible for immigration to say the issue is your fault and that you don't meet the requirements for the extension. They then can reject your extension, and give you a special extension for the purposes of kicking you out the country (length of time depends on their decision) or force you to switch to a tourist visa (if you want to stay in the country).

I've heard and talked to people about such situations, as it appears immigration loves to break the continuous timeline of foreigners to prevent or make it more difficult to obtain permanent residency. If you are on a work visa and in Japan continuously, you could apply for a work visa after 5 to 10 years (depending on type). If you switch to a tourist visa for example, then the clock resets. Your previous work visa time does not count towards permanent residency. It appears to be a common thing done by immigration.

If your passport is updated during the special extension or while on the tourist visa, they then might allow you to apply again. Though probably for a new work visa and not an extension.

It is extremely hard for anyone to say what shenanigans immigration might unleash. It often depends on individual immigration officials and secret guidelines not available to the public.

However, a major factor is your sponsor/company that you work for. The more involved they get and fight for you, including using an immigration lawyer, then usually the better the outcome. Usually larger established companies that hire immigration lawyers will be more successful than smaller companies and individuals that don't have such resources and are confused about the process.

Lastly, you might want to visit immigration and talk to the help desk about your situation, before officially submitting any paperwork. The help desk might be able to give useful advice about your options. If they don't answer your question satisfactory, then maybe pay for consultation with an immigration lawyer (costs around 10,000 yen/100 dollars). This way, at least you will be more clear about your options.

Typo- If you are on a work visa and in Japan continuously, you could apply for permanent residency after 5 to 10 years (depending on type).