Tourist Visa Foxtrot

[Anonymous]

Simple question, oh wise and weathered gaijin: how many times can I enter and re-enter Japan on a tourist visa?

I'm from America. I'm thinking of just going to Japan (I've been once before) and looking for work while on my tourist visa. Then I'm hoping to get a work visa and then do the "leave the country (to korea) and re-enter with my work visa started" thing. But I realize with the bad economy that it might take me a while to find a job in japan that will support me with a work visa. So, I'm wondering how long I could tread water by doing the 3month tourist visa thing, leaving for korea, then coming right back to look for work again. How many times am I allowed to do that (excluding the oft mentioned "case by case" scenario). What's the law?

[Taro Toporific]

Simple question, oh wise and weathered gaijin: how many times can I enter and re-enter Japan on a tourist visa?

How much money do you have?
How many times can you repeat the procedure until you decide you need a real job? You can get tourist visa extentions if you claim you want to visit Kyoto, Nara, Hakaido, Bum-fvck Shima, etc. You'll get a 90 day landing (tourist) visa at immigration which you can extend for a further 90 days at any immigration office within Japan. Just tell them you want to travel more in Japan and do more siteseeing. They may want to see proof that you have enough funds to keep you going for another 90 days before they issuse your extension.

PLEASE NOTE: Japanese landlords and stores do not accept frequent flyer credits en lieu of yen. :)

What's the law?

Wrong idea.
Japan does not have visa "laws", only "guidelines".

More than two renewals is "basically prohibited", but your mileage may differ.
I have met people who have claimed to have worked in Japan for seven years on a tourist visa (press guys working out of Hongkong to take advantage of lower income taxes). The third and subsequent entries after a "visa foxtrot" to another country of a couple of days are suspicious from an immigration inspector's point of view and increase your chances of being denied entry.

Of course you could just call Immigration and ask... :lol:
http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/IB/ib-18.html
http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/index.html

[American Oyaji]

I have a friend that did this. He would go to Korea and back out of Misawa.
However he had a military spousal ID, but his wife was in Germany. He had ID and passport with SOFA stamp so no questions.

[Anonymous]

A friend of a friend did this for a couple years. Then finally, they stopped him at Narita and forced him to immediately buy a ticket and leave the country. Needless to say, it wasn't a bargain airfare. Supposedly, he came back a couple days later and got back in without a problem.

A lot of smaller companies may give you a visa runaround, promising you a visa after a trial period of x months then putting it off indefinitely. Basically, if a company isn't willing to sponsor your visa, they're not worth working for.

[Taro Toporific]

Basically, if a company isn't willing to sponsor your visa, they're not worth working for.

Problem is many big companies such as Hitachi do not sponsor visas*--they only hire aliens with a "Pet License" (spouse visa).


*In such large companies, it is the poor bucho who hires an FG who will be forced to do the sponsoring, not the company itself. :roll:

[kamome]

To do it legally and without hassle, you need a special re-entry permit, which cannot be obtained without a proper working visa. Using tourist visas for re-entry is risky business.

[Anonymous]

I just did this last week, let me share my experience.

I was going to go to Shanghai for a few days instead of Korea, but I couldn't find a cheap enough airfare. The "prewar plan" was to go to China for a month and renew, but now that I have two jobs I can't get away long enough. So, I let my China airfare go down the toilet ($375) plus Chinese visa fee ($50). Came in useful later though.

I went to Seoul for two days and was back in Tokyo in slightly less than 48 hours. I'm in the line at Immigration...okay, showtime. I didn't even practice my usual habit of abusing the "free alcoholic beverages on international flights" policy of the airlines, in order to have a clear head at this crucial moment. The sacrifices I make sometimes for Japan...

The late-twenties, early-thirties female immigration clerk takes my passport. Opens it, finds the page with my previous tourist visa (89 days, didn't want to push it) and korean stamps on it. She looks surprised. "Uhh...Oh! Eh!" This is not good. This is the same "Oh...Eh!" you use when you finally spot the dog that has been shitting in your flower beds. She says something to the effect that I have just been in Japan. I put on my best Kathie Lee Crosby fixed smile and tell her I love Japan, and I will only be here for a few more weeks before I leave for Shanghai...see my visa pasted in there? It's only valid for a 30-day window. I am traveling around Asia, you see. She begins talking with the clerk next to her, an older woman. Not good! I maintain my fixed smile. "I really love the Japanese people. I am learning so much from them!," I say, hoping to butter her up. I have learned Japanese people really dig it when you point out really obvious things about their country to them. She wants to know if I am working. "No," I say. She wants to know my job back home. "Computers," I say, "but I lost my job, and the job market in America is bad right now, and I saved money back when the jobs were good, so now I am traveling." "What is this address you have listed here?" she wants to know. "A guesthouse," I answer. Now she knows I'm living somewhere. I had debated if I should have listed the Hotel New Koyo's address, but I feared an inquisitive clerk might call to check for a reservation. Best to tell the truth as much as possible. She chats some more with her fellow clerk. I must keep her attention...the more she thinks, and the longer I stand in front of her desk, the less likely I she is to stamp me. "Japanese food is so good. Do you know I have lost eight kilograms since I have been here? It's true!" I'm really sweating bullets here. I can see the cold interior of the detention room, the $2000 one-way ticket I'm about to buy, the surprised looks on the faces of my family members when I show up at their doorstep three months early. She contemplates my passport once more, and then asks, "How much money do you have?". "$7000, plus a $2500 credit card" (ha, more like $2000 plus the CC, but hey I have a job that pays 15k-20k a week). She ponders once more, and then reaches for her stamp. Bam, bam, bam...the official seal works its beatiful magic. With the most sincerity I have mustered in years, I say, "Thank you." Careful to conceal my rapturous glee, I slowly saunter into the baggage claim. I think in the final analysis, she just stamped me to get me out of there...deporting someone must be a lot of paperwork for her, and this gaijin just wouldn't shut up. Strangely, the customs clerk asks a few of the same questions that the immigration clerk asked. Maybe she called down and told them about me. I give the same answers, and customs looks happy. I just hope they don't search my luggage and find the el cheapo Korean porno VCDs I am smuggling into the country, evil contaminating foreigner that I am. She finally asks, Gollum-style, "What have you got in your pocket?" I reveal the bulge in my pocket to be my bulky car-dashboard Garmin StreetPilot GPS, and go about the business of finding the Keisei line. I will remain in Japan with the permission of the government until March.

It was just a good day altogether. Later that evening I finally bagged a J-chick for the first time. When you're hot, you're hot.

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah, I remember reading somewhere on the Foreign Ministry's website that a tourist visa for Americans cannot be extended while inside the country, only for certain other nationalities. Can't find the cite, sorry.

[Anonymous]

Damn, I got nervous just reading that. My question is, did you do your happy tourist jabbering in english or japanese?? My guess would be english, but I want to be sure in case I try this (I speak some basic japanese).

One thing I don't understand, was it better to say you had "more" money or less? I would have thought it was better to say "less" just in case they tell you to buy a ticket back to your home country you can cop a plea and say, "but I haven't the alms kind sir...!" Hey, there's a question, what happens if they don't buy your story and tell you to buy a ticket home, but you don't have enough money? Do you have to mop airport floors and stay at a local capsule hoteru until you've earned enough? Does the japanese government just say screw it and pay for your ticket back to your home country? Do they just slap you in jail until you can find the cash? What happens?

One other thing, let's say you "don't" do the visa foxtrot and just overstay your tourist visa without leaving to renew it. Let's say this goes on for about 9 months and then you finally find a job willing to sponsor your work visa. Is it then a catch 22? Meaning, okay, now you have got a willing visa sponsor, but if you show up at japan immigration and they see that you've been staying illegally they'll just deport you anyway, despite the fact that you now have a willing work visa sponsor? This is a question I've been trying to ask really, but didn't know how to put it until now.

[Anonymous]

as you can see, I "really" want to be a f-cked gaijin. :roll:

[Steve Bildermann]

If you overstay a tourist visa.

When this is discovered you *will* be detained there and then until you make arrangements to leave the country. I saw this happen to an Australian couple at the Nagoya immigration in July this year. They were very shocked indeed 8O

You must then arrange to leave within three months or you will then be prosecuted and *will* receive a one year sentence. In every situation when you leave your passport will be stamped INELIGIBLE FOR ENTRY with some sort of time limit. Sometimes its 3 years sometimes it’s 5 years.

Ergo - Don’t screw around overstaying a tourist visa unless you want to become a BEEN FUCKED GAIJIN instead of just a regular FUCKED GAIJIN.

[Steve Bildermann]

Undercover immigration officials display captured Australian salmon who overstayed their tourist visa.

http://www.interphysical.com/002/my-images/fish.jpg

[Taro Toporific]

Undercover immigration officials display captured Australian salmon who overstayed their tourist visa.

Nice Santas!
Hey, check out this flock-of-USO.. :lol:

In Japan the presents are brought by 'Hoteiosho' (http://www.global-christmas.com/scripts_en/world/asia/main_japan01.html) who is very similar to Santa Claus.
Originally 'Hoteiosho' was a priest like St Nicholas. He is described as an old man with a big sack on his back as well. The legend says that 'Hoteiosho' has eyes in the back of his head - so he can keep a special eye on the behaviour of children...
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:gZdRBRIymzUC:www.global-christmas.com/images_neutral/main/world/japan02.jpg
See also...http://www.kaumudijalakam.com/WDANGLE/jan12/Santa1.jpg

[Taro Toporific]

See also...http://www.kaumudijalakam.com/WDANGLE/jan12/Santa1.jpg[/quote]

The collection of Asian faux-Santas is mega-kool on this the root of the above site; scroll down for the good pix:
http://www.kaumudijalakam.com/WDANGLE/jan12/album.htm

[Anonymous]

thanks sensei.

regarding your answer before about overstaying a tourist visa...so that means they actually let you go back to your home in japan and give you three months to come up with the money to leave? I just want to be clear.

also, are you saying that even if you have a willing visa sponsor they will 'still' tell you to leave for having overstayed your tourist visa? mind you, based on my situation I don't think I'll ever have to do any of this, I have a couple of companies that seem ready to sponsor my work visa, but I'm one of those persons who likes to have a plan a, b, c, AND d, and in order to strategize I need to know 'all' the angles and what's possible. having been in japan before, I know that once you're there, it's usually every gaijin for himself.

[Steve Bildermann]

No. You are detained until you leave. There are several immigration detention centers around the country.

It does not matter if you have a sponsor or even if you got married to a Japanese - you will be detained and you will have to leave.

It happens to Asians working in Japan all the time.

[Anonymous]

Is "detained" in this context just a polite word for jail? Exactly what is being "detained"?

[Steve Bildermann]

I think you can guess what 'detained' means. However detained is a legal way to keep you as long as they want without formal 'arrest' TAIHO.

In effect it's the same thing and many say the conditions are worse because there is little public interest in immigration detention centers.

Here's a little light reading on the subject

http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar98/asa22.htm

When you leave Tokyo Detention Centre you are not a human being. If you have a dog in your house you don't treat it like this....They do terrible things - I will never forget what they did to me as long as I live," said an Egyptian man who spoke to Amnesty International after his release. He described how prison guards stripped him naked, kicked him hard in the abdomen and sexually assaulted him with a truncheon, while he was held in solitary confinement in 1994.

Zhou Bizhu, from China, was arrested on 3 March 1997 for holding an expired visa. She was seven weeks pregnant. In the following weeks, she complained repeatedly of abdominal pains related to her pregnancy, but was not given adequate medical attention. On 21 April, she was examined by a gynaecologist, who discovered that the foetus had died. Her foetus was aborted only on 26 April, after she had been granted two weeks' release on medical grounds. She is currently awaiting deportation to China.

and the strange case of GaijinNewbie who told reporters that he just wanted to find out what it was like to be detained after overstaying a tourist visa so he public announced he would do so on a popular forum called F*** Gaijin. Authorities refused coment on his horrendous injuries.

[Anonymous]

okay, okay, I'm scared. and by the way, like I said, I'm not even close to trying any such thing, I don't have to. but I've been curious about these questions for some time now. thanks for the info. scary, but doesn't sound any worse than the prison systems here in the U.S.

[Anonymous]

Watch out, they tightened the visa laws circa 2000, don't you remember, all us with "proper" working visas now only have to extend them every 3 years rather than the yearly trawl down to the visa office we had before.

Now, you renew once a year after getting to Japan, and that gives you 3 years.

But I read that to balance this relaxing of the laws for legit. people they tightened up restrictions and laws with over-stayers and visa-trip extenders.

I was also told that Americans can't extend their 90 day period, but Canadians, Australians, English and a few other countries can thanks to reciprocal arrangements with Japan (the japanese can also stay for 6 months in England, but only 3 months max in America).