Oh dear....

[Akito]

I just got a call from my younger FG friend telling me he needs a lift to immigration tomorrow to extend his working holiday visa for another 6 months.
"You haven't done it already? Haven't you already been here for 6 months?" I asked him. He tells me he has 3 days before it expires and he believes that it is only a matter of paying a fee and getting his passport stamped.
I told him it takes at least 2 weeks and he has to fill out a form and apply it but other than that i know very little about the process and if he can stay in the country as long as he has lodged his forms.
Can anyone give me any advice or links to information on this subject. I'm really not sure what to say to him.

[FG Lurker]

He can stay as long as he has applied for an extension. If he does not get the extension though he will have to leave immediately. It is *not* a foregone conclusion that he will get the extension, although most people do.

If he has been working and that is on his gaijin card then he will need to take his bank book along as they will most likely want to see that he has not been earning copious amounts of money -- ie. working far more than his allotted 20 hours per week.

After he has applied he should probably carry his passport with him as well as his gaijin card. This is because if the cops check his card and his visa has expired he will be in for all sorts of shit. The passport will have a stamp in it showing he has applied for his extension.

[madeira]

I don't think the money he has been (putatively) earning could be a problem. Hourly wages for english teaching work go anywhere from 1,200/hr to over 10,000/hr. If he happens to be a dimwit, just tell him not to show his full-time contract to anyone... if he has one.

Not that it's a bad idea to take along a bank book... but I don't have one of those. Some banks don't use them. (Shinsei, for one.)

I think the guy's OK. A bit close to the deadline, but still OK.

[dimwit]

As long as the application procedure has started before the visa is up your ok, althought there is no guarantee of an extension. At worst the immigration officiers will scowl at you and act awfully grumpy.

[FG Lurker]

I don't think the money he has been (putatively) earning could be a problem. Hourly wages for english teaching work go anywhere from 1,200/hr to over 10,000/hr. If he happens to be a dimwit, just tell him not to show his full-time contract to anyone... if he has one.

Not that it's a bad idea to take along a bank book... but I don't have one of those. Some banks don't use them. (Shinsei, for one.)

I'm just saying what immigration typically asks for. Failure to provide what they ask for will likely result in no visa extension. I'm not saying that's fair or right, just that they tend to work that way. (In the case of a bank account with no bank book, he would have to request a printout of his account activity history.)

I think the guy's OK. A bit close to the deadline, but still OK.

As long as he provides what immigration asks for and he hasn't obviously been working massive numbers of hours he will very likely get the extension. The problem with leaving it so long is that if he doesn't get it he will probably only have a few days to leave the country.

[Akito]

Thanks for all the help! I took him yesterday and it was over pretty quickly (no dirty looks). He didn't have to show his bank book but he took it anyways.

[hakuman]

Ive never heard of immigration asking a working holidayer for their bank book, and I used to have to assist people on that visa in renewing them a few times a year.