Can I get Married with a Tourist VISA?

[mijonju]

I got a working visa and my company is gonna cancel it soon
so I have to come back again to Japan to get Married with my fiancé.
so I would like to know if its possible to get married with a tourist visa?
since i can come back for 3 months

[Buraku]

Enter Japan with a return ticket but keep your mouth shut at Immigration. Once you're married you can apply for spouse-visa at the j embassy
Getting hitched shotgun weeding style is easy but make sure you understand all that marriage document stuff because you will need it for citizenship

[wuchan]

[quote="mijonju"]I got a working visa and my company is gonna cancel it soon
so I have to come back again to Japan to get Married with my fiancé]
Marry her in YOUR HOME COUNTRY FIRST!!!! Have her come to you, then marry her. Next, submit all your papers to the local japanese consulate. They will help you get all the Japan local stuff taken care of. Then file the paperwork for a spouse visa. All this crap will help when you have a kid, it will make it easier for you to get your kid a passport from YOUR COUNTRY (a.k.a. an exit plan just in case things don't work out). Reminder: Japan still has not signed the Hague Act. The whole point to this is it will give you legal standing outside japan for parental rights. If you are not married back home, you have a kid with her, then get divorced; you are at the mercy of the japanese courts (and being a FG you don't have a chance). But if you have legal standing in a Hague Act country you can at least fuck her over buy not allowing her to leave Japan, and use your kids "home country" passport to get them the fuck out of here. I know this sounds fucked up, but FGs have zero chance of getting anything form the Japanese family courts.

good luck

p.s. this paperwork seems to get processed faster if you do what I said above. If you come here on a tourist visa the guy processing your paperwork may decide to stall long enough for your tourist visa to expire.
p.p.s KEEP YOUR KIDS "HOME COUNTRY" PASSPORT FAR AWAY FROM YOUR WIFE!

[TFG]

I do not think it is possible to marry on a tourist visa as you need all kinds of documents such as Alien registration card, which you won't have on a tourist visa. And, you will also need a certificate of "Non impediment" which you will have to get from your embassy here in Japan.
If you are British like me, the embassy requires copies of the following, your passport with a valid visa, the passport of your spouse to be, if you have been married previously you will also have to supply a certificate of "Divorce absolute" and then the embassy will review the details arrange an interview and then they have to post a sign in the consulate with your name and that of your spouse asking for any voices of opposition, after which they will provide you with a certificate of non impediment.

PS, If your partner is not Japanese, they will also need the same documents, otherwise the Koseki Tohon.

[mijonju]

Thanks for all the information. Im Asian i hold a Hong Kong Passport. I haven't got a kid with her yet. I really love her and really love Japan.

Please if anyone can just give me more information to help me think this through

[TFG]

You are going to have to get a certificate of non impediment from your embassy for sure. Check your embassy website out, it should have all the details up there.

[omae mona]

Mijonju - I'll tell you the golden rule. DO NOT RELY ON IMMIGRATION ADVICE FROM THIS FORUM.

I promise you half the information already in this thread is incorrect (based on personal experience). Instead of spending time guessing who is right and who is wrong, I recommend you do the research yourself. While you're in Japan, ask the immigration office or ward office for advice. It's probably best for your fiance to have this conversation with the local government office. If you're back home, ask the Japanese embassy in Hong Kong.

If you want the safest advice, you should hire an immigration attorney or specialist to explain the process to you.

[james]

Mijonju - I'll tell you the golden rule. DO NOT RELY ON IMMIGRATION ADVICE FROM THIS FORUM.

by far the best advice in this thread. beat me to it. there's definitely some misinformation above. no two situations are exactly the same so get the information from the proper sources.

[TFG]

Well, I can assure you that the information I provided concerning the papers for Chinese nationals is 100% correct. I know it is, as I was at the Chinese embassy in Roppongi yesterday supplying the papers for the very same reason.

[omae mona]

Well, I can assure you that the information I provided concerning the papers for Chinese nationals is 100% correct. I know it is, as I was at the Chinese embassy in Roppongi yesterday supplying the papers for the very same reason.

TFG, I truly admire your self-confidence. 100% is a very high degree of accuracy! Just out of curiosity: are you equally confident your description of the Chinese embassy's location is 100% correct?

[TFG]

Right next door anyway if one goes by car as I do.
Or you can get off the train at Roppongi and walk there in a few mins.

Address: 3-4-33 Moto-Azabu, Minato-Ku, Tokyo, 1060046, Japan

[omae mona]

Ok. So my point was not to nitpick about the official address of the embassy (Moto-azabu, Roppongi, it's all the same to me. Category "places where I can't afford the rent".) I was trying to point out that little inaccuracies and different versions of the story develop as information gets passed from person to person. What seemed 100% right, or what seemed good enough to get approved, might not be applicable for somebody else's situation.

A link to the web site for the actual ward office the OP plans to get married at, describing the documents required for a foreigner, would be the type of material he should be starting from, in my opinion.

[DrP]

Besides the obvious information provided by the repsective Embassies -- the information regarding the child rights aint half bad... You <should> keep this in mind - much the same way as a pre-nup..

http://www.crnjapan.com/marriage/en/marriageprocedures.html

http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-7114a.html

http://www.seiyaku.com/seiyaku/en/discussion/law.html

[TFG]

Well, I suppose the guy is relatively new to Japan and is about to embark on a rather big decision, so I don't think offering him any concrete information about what he will need is too big an effort for anyone in the know to extend to someone asking a legitimate question. Isn't that what this board is for or have you guys been bitching at each other so long you forget?

Give me a fucking break!:eek:

[sillygirl]

I married on a tourist visa. That was in 1994 though, so don't know if anything has changed since then.

After that, just applied for the spouse visa..

[CrankyBastard]

Isn't that what this board is for ?

:

[SIZE="2"]I sincerely hope not.[/SIZE]

[pheyton]

I married on a tourist visa. That was in 1994 though, so don't know if anything has changed since then.

After that, just applied for the spouse visa..

Did the exact same thing in 2003. No problems, just needed documentation. Got my alien status in about 2 months.

In my experience Japanese Immigration made American Immigration look like the 3rd world.

Congratulations on your soon to be marriage. It's been one of the best things that ever happened to me.

[Iraira]

Congratulations on your soon to be marriage. It's been one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Cough once if you wrote the above while the wife was standing next to you?;)

[maraboutslim]

I married on a tourist visa. That was in 1994 though, so don't know if anything has changed since then.

After that, just applied for the spouse visa..

Me, too, with no problems whatsoever. That's the main benefit from marrying a local - to go from tourist to real visa.

(btw, since we're all giving advice that may or may not be accurate depending on the whims of the current immigration officials, here's some more. don't worry about your tourist visa running out after you get married. it doesn't matter how long it takes them to process your spousal visa application: as soon as you put in the application, they stamp your passport and you are free to stay in japan until they decide on your visa. )

[AlbertSiegel]

In my experience Japanese Immigration made American Immigration look like the 3rd world.

LOL!! Tell me about it! Was easy as hell for me to get things done in Japan. When I moved to the USSR (United States Socialist Republic), it took about a year to get my wife her documents. In fact..... it was four days before the one year mark. I could not believe all the crap I had to do. I did do it myself and did not throw away any money on a lawyer though. It took the same amount of time as another person we met who did use a lawyer. In the end it worked out fine.