Change to Spouse Visa while in Japan?

Hey, my wife (Japanese national), our daughter and I (German national) are planning to move to Japan relatively soon. However one of her family members is getting married in a month and we'll probably go to the wedding anyways, but to save some money we'd like to immediately stay there rather than going to the wedding, coming back and then going there again. I don't have a spouse visa yet and requesting one will likely take 3-ish months or something from what I heard.

We've been married for about three and a half years and I wanted to know: Is it possible to enter Japan normally/as a tourist with my family and then change my visa to a Spouse visa while I'm there? My wife's family obviously said that they'll offer us a place to stay until we find one of our own and even list themselves as guarantors if necessary.

Thanks in advance!

No one can really answer that on this forum, except for someone at immigration who deal these kinds of cases. Your best bet would be to just call them up and speak to them to ask if this is possible, as they are the ones who are in charge of handling these kinds of questions.

As far as I know, the immigration authorities always gpreferh the path of (a) apply for Certificate of Eligibility (CoE) from outside Japan, wait till you receive it, and once you receive it you take it to the embassy of Japan in your country to apply for a visa based on CoE, then use that to enter Japan. But it is true it takes quite a long time.

People also go the other path, which is (b) to enter Japan on Temporary Visitor visa (available to German nationals just with their passports), then make an application for change of status from Temporary Visitor to a longer term one, in your case Spouse of Japanese National status, while staying in Japan.
(Please note the terminology - the one you use to enter Japan is gvisa,h and once you are in Japan, it is referred to as gresident status.h)

The second path ((b), application for change of resident status) oftentimes works, particularly if the one you want to change to is based on family basis, such as gspouse of Japanese national,h because they canft really try to deny it/kick out someonefs spouse. However, as the above poster responded, no one but the specific officer knows the answer.



Has your marriage been reported to the Japanese authorities already? (I donft know if the marriage was based on Japanese law; if it is, then itfs already reported. If it was based on German law, it must be reported to the Japanese authorities after-the-fact, be it through the Embassy of Japan in Germany or directly to her city hall in Japan.

If you want to apply for a change to gspouse of resident status,h this report of your marriage to the Japanese authorities must be done first.

Also for the application for change of resident status, there are a lot of documents needed - so please look up what documents are needed, and prepare them in advance so that you can start the process as soon as you arrive in Japan.
Best wishes.