Registration of nationality of child

Hi, my child was born more than 3 months ago, during which time I failed to register him for Japanese nationality. I want to give him Japanese nationality if it's possible.

What options do I have now? Should I seek a lawyer? I was told by the consulate that the only way is to live in Japan for a few months after which time I can apply to the court for an order. Does that mean that both of us have to live there? I'm thinking that in the future he may stay there on a student exchange for a year and would it be possible for him to apply then?

Is the mother/father japanese? if none of you is japanese the kid cannot be japanese.

Hi, The father is a Japanese citizen. I'm thinking of seeking the advise of a lawyer here.

are you married?

regardless, the father needs to add the baby on his koseki touhon, regardless of time limit. did he already?


and then the baby can get a child of japanese national 'visa' or status.

And, all the people who are on koseki's now and without citizenship, are eligible for citizenship. immigration passed some laws recently, but i think it will only be until 2012 that people who didnt claim citizenship before, can claim it now. so even some people who's fathers died some years ago, can claim the citizenship now.

probably it wont be necessary to even go through of process of getting 'child of Japanese national' visa. just bypass and go for citizenship.

i cant find the links now, but just make sure the kid is on the koseki tohon (family registry)

I was married 4 years ago, baby was born 6 months ago and will just be registering the marriage with the Japanese consulate today.

Following your advice I will try to get him added to koseki and then apply for his citizenship. When I asked at the consulate what the options were they said that the only option is if we lived in Japan for a few months, we could then apply for a court order.

I've found this translation of part of the legislation on the web:

Acquisition of nationality in accordance with Article 3 of the amended Nationality Act
The amended act permits a person whose parents are not married to each other to acquire Japanese nationality through a notification to the Minister of Justice, provided that he/she meets the following requirement:

Requirements for acquiring nationality
The person who intends to acquire nationality must:
* Be acknowledged legally by his/her father or mother,
* Be under 20 years of age,
* Not have previously been a Japanese national.
* The father/mother who acknowledged the person who intends to acquire nationality must have been a Japanese national when the person was born. The father/mother who acknowledged the person must presently be a Japanese national (or must have been a Japanese national at the time of death, if he/she died).

http://www.tokyowithkids.com/fyi/moj_citizenship_kids.html

Hopefully this means that the child can be granted Japanese citizenship although the staff at the consulate don't seem to be aware of the new law.

I'm pretty sure that new law doesn't apply to your situation.

That law is intended to give citizenship to children whose parents tried to get them citizenship but was unable to because they weren't married. It doesn't apply if the parents failed to give their children citizenship due to procrastination or ignorance of the law.

have told me that unfortunately, as you said, it doesn't apply to us since we were married.

in that case, you still need to add him to the koseki-tohon, so that s/he? can get the 'child of Japanese national' visa. he basically will have the same rights as japanese if he lived in japan, and there is no restriction on work activities. but before we even get that far into the future, he should have acquired citizenship by then if you can just go to japan following the advice that the counsulate gave.


if youre waiting too long, to do that though, they might say some bull crap like... 'well he should wait until he's 20 so that he can choose if he really want to be japanese. ' lol. i dont know if they would really say that, but ... yeah.

I asked the consulate whether I can add him to the koseki but they said it's too late. I think the 3 month deadline is way too short. When you have a baby, especially the first, you are too busy making sure s/he is getting enough sleep and food for the first few months at least to start thinking about his nationality.

BTW, did you ask the consulate how many months your child has to live in Japan to get citizenship? I'm curious to know the answer to that.

and im curious, if you were registering the marriage, why he couldnt register the baby today as well.

and why he didnt want to add baby to the koseki tohon in the first place? or just no one cared if he will be a citizen or not at the time?

japanese guys are a flight risk... and also have tendency to take the koseki tohon thing seriously, and they wont add anyone unless they are sure the kid is theirs. and sometimes.. they just wont add them because they plan to divorce and dont want their new wife to know about a kid.


so.. if your hubby ran back to japan, you have his contact info? even if they try to enforce child support in america, it wont be enforced in japan because the kid isnt on the koseki. so you cant apply to the japan government either to make him pay child support.

anyway.
those are just sad storieds i know about.

hopefully none of this will ever apply to you... just add to kid to the koseki. lol

its weird.. never heard that even after 3 months, you cant add anyone.

because some people adopt kids, and people are moved from a koseki to another one.. well.. if you re-married a different japanese, and they adopted your kid, he would acquire citizenship. lol.


sorry for the loss. :(

i was thinking about the citizenship since i was pregnant, so that was always on my mind. my kid is 7 months old now. i applied about 2 weeks before the deadline.

my plan was always for her to live in japan for a few years at some point so that she can learn about her other heritage and speak japanese.


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since now your baby isnt even eligible for a 'child of Japanese' visa... better come to japan sooner rather than later, and petition the courts. otherwise its pretty much useless and he just acquire it when he's older, the way other foreigners acquire it...

live it japan for 10 years, (5 if he marries a japanese) and then apply naturalization.

if he was eligible for the 'child of japanese national' it required less time.

they said he can apply after living in Japan for 6 months.

in the future maybe when he's in high school i'd like him to live in Japan for a year (or more), so I think he will be able to get nationality then. We were just ignorant of the law and had our hands full at the time, that's why he wasn't registered in time but unfortunately that's no excuse.