The fiancee visa

im moving to osaka in nov. to get married and to live was going to enter on a tourist visa and switch to spouse visa. i called the jap. counsulate today and was told there is a fiancee visa. i called 6 diff. ones and was told by 2 that there is a fiancee visa and that you cannot switch statuses on a tourist visa. the problem is there is nowhere i can find info on the required paperwork. the 2 that tried to explain it to me were very confusing and i am not clear on what is needed. can anyone give me a clear answer? if i have to get it then fine, but i am confused about the process.

Your best option would be to physically go to the Japanese consulate where they have all paperwork and you can submit that paperwork right away. Because English isn't the first language for some folks working there, you may have difficulty with miscommunication.

Hi,

There is no such visa in Japan

As posted earlier, there's no such thing as a fiancee visa.

Here's an earlier post from the always trustworthy Dave in Saitama.

http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+26994

Hi there you can go to the town hall immigration office when you get here.
I did the same thing but in Akita.
I came on a tourist visa and got married here. I then went to the townhall and applied for a gaijin card, I took this to the local immigration office where I had to fill out two forms one was a form where my wifes dad had to sign to say he was my trustie until I got a job, the other we had to send copies of our family register and that got me the visa we had to pay a fee and also hand in my passport this came back in about 2 weeks with my visa I then paid a little more money to change it to a reentry visa.

Terry

Four out of six where right, there is no such thing as a fiancee visa.

Here is the official list of all visas:
http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/04.html
Fiancee is not one of them.
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If you come to Japan on a temporary visitor status (unofficially known as a tourist visa)
When you get married in Japan, its a matter of getting a affidavit saying you are free to marry, and fulfilling other various items, if you are an American the US Embassy Japan has information on this., after you get all the right paperwork from the City Hall in Japan (of whatever town you live in), fill out the paperwork with your spouse and wala you're married.

With those documents you then have to go to the regional immigration office that services the area you live in (Osaka area) and you can apply for a Spouse visa, and change while in Japan. This process is a bit time consuming and can only be done after you get married.

my girlfriend called the immigration office in japan and they told her i can get a tankitaizai visa and then switch status in japan to a spouse visa. i just called the counsulate and they told me they do not issue this to americans. they also said there is no fiancee visa. so im getting three different answers and no resolution. the posts from dave were 2 years ago. is the law the same? anyone got married recently?

fsr20det,

The rules haven't changed, and there is still no such thing as a Fiancee Visa.
As an American citizen, you would enter Japan on a tourist visa (properly called a "Temporary Visitor Visa") and then switch to a "Spouse of Japanese National Visa" once you are married. I'm afraid I can't offer details on the exact procedure for changing from tourist visa status to a spouse visa, and while I am not aware of any reason why it should not be possible, you might want to wait until someone who has actually done the same as you can comment on how easy/difficult it was.

We had a bit different experience, but this is what we did:

I am from a US citizen, and I married my wife (who is Japanese) in the US roughly five years ago. We decided to move to Japan this year. Before we did that we had her family apply at the embassy for a Certificate of Eligibility which basically states that we are financially able to take care of ourselves even without employment (short term). If your spouse already has a job in Japan you probably won't need something like this, since your spouse can support the two of you.

Then we came to Japan, with me having a tourist (3 month) visa. We went to immigration in Japan and filed paperwork, then our certificate of eligibility came and we had to go again to bring that with us. Finally we had to go back a third time to actually change the visa status to spouse-based once everything was approved.

Then I had to go to the ward office and register for a foreign registration card, which took about a month to process.

There was some confusion because honestly we got different answers from different people in the same office, so there may have been some extra trips we could have avoided.

The CoE took about 5-6 months maybe to arrive (4 months of which we were in the US). Once we applied for the spouse visa it took about a month or so, maybe a little less.

If you get married in Japan and your spouse has a job, this would be much easier I think. Instead of taking months it would probably take weeks.

What you need to do now is to go to the official web site.

http://www.moj.go.jp/ONLINE/IMMIGRATION/16-2.html

If you cannot read Japanese, ask your gf to read it.

Also it's important to understand that visa is different from the resident status. What you will need to do is to change your status from ''short visit'' to ''spouse of Japanese natinal, etc'', after your marriage.

And of course, you won't be issued with short visit visa, as being an American, you don't need to obtain visa to obtain short visit status upon entry to Japan.


In case of my wife (she is a German), the status change was granted one week after the application. It was easy.