Used to live in Japan for more than a year. Heard about this visa a few weeks ago while traveling to said country.
Since they don't give you a residence card, I wonder how easy it would be to get a phone number and bank account. If some government officials didn't get information on this visa, how can we expect companies to have? They will look at your passport with dead eyes and think you are fooling them with a fake stamp.
I'm very interested in applying for that visa, but not being in the Japanese system (e.g. no health insurance, no residence card) is kind of putting me off because that spells more administrative nonsense.
There's at least one company (Mobal) that will give you a "real" (not VoIP prefix) phone number with a passport as a tourist, so that would work for DN too. The data part of their eSIM wasn't great but the voice part worked fine when I tried it.
If you need health care it would definitely be a hassle at least if you don't have a lot of spare cash--you'd have to see if the mandatory travel insurance you purchased has some sort of direct payment arrangement with selected clinics. But it shouldn't be any issue to just receive the service and pay the full cash price, again same as a tourist.
The real issue is going to be a bank account, which would primarily be needed if you tried to rent a "regular" apartment. The best workaround might be to see if the owner would take cash, up front if needed. You'd be within the "treated as nonresident" period at first anyway, so it would already be hard to get an account even with a residence card. If you don't need it for rent/utilities (ex. share house that takes online payments, hotel/airbnb, etc.) then you probably wouldn't want the hassle of opening and closing a local bank account anyway.
Look for 'Nomad travel insurance' and see if it fits your individual needs for health insurance
I use one called safetywing, though thankfully have never had to claim and don't know if they are better or worse than their competitors. (posted as an example and not a recommendation or endorsement)
I don't know for Japan, but it did work during my previous trip to the Philippines (November 2017 - August 2018). The only problem is that you will not be able to pay the exact amount if the source bank does not support the destination bank account's currency, which is quite often the case for Philippine peso.
But JPY is quite popular; I have just checked that Raiffeisen Bank in Russia still allows selecting it online as a currency for a foreign transfer. It's too bad I won't be able to do the same online from my Metrobank account in the Philippines.
They don't? Then what use is the visa? You cannot live here without a residence card. As a non-citizen, you're actually legally required to carry your residence card with you whenever you're in public, and present it to a police officer upon request.
Something doesn't seem right here.
Edit: apparently you can live here, without a residence card, in a temporary apartment, for up to 6 months with this visa. Just be sure to carry your passport everywhere you go.
That's for foreign tourists who have a visa stamp in their passport. So I guess for these digital nomads, that would work too, as long as they don't overstay whatever date is on that visa.
It's not going to help them find a place to live though: they'll be stuck in hotels the entire time they're here.
I see now. Looking at the site, those kinds of apartments are called "monthly mansions"; I stayed in one when I first came here before I could find a real apartment. These places are very small, and furnished, so perfect for someone only staying 3 or 6 months. But they're quite expensive for what you get. But if you're only staying 6 months, it's perfect.
Rented a flat in Tokyo for a month too as a tourist. But it wasn't cheap. Around $1500/month, in 2011. But it was 3 rooms, and very nice. So maybe not so bad, actually? But then again, it was many years ago.
For whatever reason, people in our generation seem completely unaware of how often they cite things from 15-20 years ago.
I've taken to pointing out that it's like if someone in the 90s used advice from the 70s. For whatever reason, it tends to put things in perspective timeframe-wise.
Pretty much all non-luxury housing in Tokyo is built to a much lower standard than equivalent housing built in say Canada or the US in the same time period.
Much thinner wall insulation, single glazed windows (until recently), much smaller elevators in high rises, etc…
So on a quality and square footage adjusted basis it’s still quite expensive.
Not really: the difference is that "lower standard" housing of the same age simply doesn't exist in the US. You want a small, 20-30 year old apartment in a decent building with small elevators and everything is maintained well and isn't broken, and you don't want roommates, and at an affordable price for you on your non-tech job paycheck? You can't have that in a decent American city; it doesn't exist. It's either some very expensive "luxury" apartment (where stuff is still broken, but hey, it has granite countertops and new appliances that'll break down in a year!) where you'll need roommates, or some nasty shithole (where you'll probably still need a rooomate).
I just left an apartment in Shanghai that was two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen for $700 / month. I was advised that prices have come down over the last year, so that if I was planning to renew my lease I should negotiate a lower price.
True, and it generally has better amenities than a hotel too: a kitchen (though tiny), fridge, microwave, stove (no oven though), clothes washer, maybe a vacuum, etc. Also importantly, a mailbox, so you can receive deliveries (and in newer places, there's an automated delivery box system).
Those are "grills". If you want to bake stuff, you can get real ovens, but they're fairly small, and not built into the apartment, and usually combined with a microwave oven. Any decent appliance store sells them for around 30,000 yen. You're not going to cook a turkey in it, but if you want to bake a small cake it's perfect.
Yes, they are meant for grilling fish but they can be the world's tiniest oven if you believe enough(or just use a thermometer probe for temperature adjustment!)
My recollection of the countertop oven is that it would fit half a small size turkey...for we did do that one year.
Yes, unlike Americans who apparently absolutely need to bake a whole turkey on a regular basis, Japanese don't normally bake stuff at home, so Japanese homes (at least in the big cities) don't normally come with built-in ovens. There's no space in Tokyo apartments for the comically-large ovens that are common in America, and the cuisine people make here doesn't normally need one, just a stovetop. For baked goods, people usually just buy them at the grocery store or bakery or other specialty shop.
Tip: a photo of your passport and the stamp will most likely do in most circumstances. Much better than risking taking your passport with you all the time.
Bad advice. Photos are not accepted and police will expect you to carry your passport at all times, just as you're supposed to carry your residence card at all times if you have one.
Not sure why people want to stick to a rule that could get them in real trouble. I am speaking from real experience. The police is very unlikely to want to arrest/take you to the station for not having your passport. On the other hand, if you do lose your passport and you have a slow/far embassy then you are in real trouble.
The police will stop you for any random reason, including walking alone in the street at an unusual hour or just to check your bike.
From there, if you have nothing to officially prove your identity you might totally spend a while at the station, and potentially have them kindly escort you to your home so they get a look while you're looking for your passport.
All of this is just mild inconvenience, except it will happen a lot more frequently than losing one's passport.
PS: For the real trouble relative to passports, an embassy can reemit an emergency passport within a day, and you can probably reemit the visa at an immigration branch. It's not fun for sure, but I'm not sure it's real troubles.
> The police will stop you for any random reason, including walking alone in the street at an unusual hour or just to check your bike.
Parent was talking about Japan not the US. In most of the world, the police will leave you alone unless they have to intervene. In Japan, they’ll probably want to really help you and not add an arrest to their record.
> From there, if you have nothing to officially prove your identity you might totally spend a while at the station, and potentially have them kindly escort you to your home so they get a look while you're looking for your passport
Again, highly an American perspective where the police is fishing for arrest reasons. The rest of the world doesn’t allocate much resources to the police so they bus around people without very exigent reasons.
I was referring to Japan. Police will very easily stop you [0], the more you diverge from what they expect to see at that time and place, the higher your chances will be to have a chat with them.
As you point out, it's also not heavy and tensed confrontation as it could be in other countries. You won't get shot at a wrong move, officers are polite, they're not there to piss you, don't specially expect you to be in the wrong and really would prefer to get it done and go on with their watch.
That's where keeping credible papers on you makes it a painless 30s interaction and not a long and awkward drag to the station that nobody wants.
> The rest of the world doesn’t allocate much resources to the police
Japan police has a decent HR budget to keep officers around in the communities. Which is a truely good thing, police becomes very integrated to the daily life of the people there, while fully expecting to have nothing to do all day long outside of helping elderlies cross the street and dealing with kids getting lost.
[0] At least I got stopped a decent amount, and that is a pretty shared sentiment I heard a lot. The only exceptions were daily suit people and women.
I carry a locally notarized photocopy of my passport in a similar country. I am not sure if it is fully legal, but people tend to do that here in practice, particularly when the government office needs your passport for processing.
The court was willing to stamp and sign that I have that passport and it matches me, so it is probably good enough for most police if I offer to show them the original at home.
I cannot think of any circumstances where someone would be demanding to see your passport and then accept a photo of your passport instead.
That being said having a photo of your passport and relevant stamps is good advice, but only to make it slightly easier to deal with all the hassel that comes if you do lose your passport.
In most countries you can get what is called a notarized or certified "true copy" of identifying documents (passports being one of them). The intent is for you to submit them with applications so you don't have to submit the original copy. Now how you get a true copy depends on the country. Canadian passports for example can only have true copies made by their embassy or immigrations offices.
Note that this doesn't include your passport stamp pages but Japan hasn't issued passport stamps for several years now and they just look up your passport in a registry instead. So for that purpose, a true copy should be effectively the same thing.
That's where it comes down to what is essentially a technicality but given they carry an embossed seal and signature with the words "TRUE COPY" on them, they look very official and officials are very rarely going to push back on it even if whether they are to be treated as a full substitute for a passport (for identification purposes) is technically a grey area.
I don't think so. My passport is somewhere around the house so I can't just grab it to check but last time I came in they just put it on a scanner and took a photograph of me when I went through immigration.
Disappointing, but inevitable I suppose. Thank you for the ground truth. I’ll try to make Japan an intentional segment during my next international trip to confirm and report back.
> I cannot think of any circumstances where someone would be demanding to see your passport and then accept a photo of your passport instead.
Unless you are involved with a particular interaction, they just want to check your visa status. A passport photo/stamp will do if their system is digitized. Arresting someone (except for the US where the police likes to arrest people) is a major hassle.
No you just need your residence card, fill a form, sign (no hanko required) and you can open a bank account at the Post Bank. At least that's how it went 10 years ago as a student. It's easier to open an account as a foreigner there than opening an account as a citizen in France... (no appointment bullshit, no proof of residency asked)
I became a client of Sony Bank (yes, that Sony) but they would accepted "financial resident of Japan" which means people that have either 1) a work contract or 2) lived for 6 months in Japan.
It absolutely blows my mind why Japan Post is the only one to not have those restrictions.
Getting a bank account via SMBC Olive was a painless experience for me. It can all be done an app and a phone call later confirming some details. I was not employed at the time.
Pretty hard, there are some services like sakura sim card and another that just uses your passport, but the rates/services are pretty meh. But it is a softbank sim card, a JP number (thay may not be used for line verification sometimes) and the lowest priority data - meaning if you're in shibuya or shinjuku, sometimes you have no signal.
Getting a credit card as a long term resident alone is hard. Getting a phone number can be troublesome for some people fresh off the boat. One longstanding issue has been people who come to Japan expecting to settle down, then quickly realize it's not for them and take a flight home without telling anybody. Debts left unpaid and landlords not even contacted.
People who come here with the intention of milking some cash and living in a "cheap" country have even less reason to be loyal to it. The consequence will be companies being even stricter, but parasites like AirBnB and similar companies making a killing off offering apartments 5x above normal asking price to rich nomads who will say "wow, it's so cheap!" without realizing they're being ripped off, and killing neighborhoods by driving rent prices up. Owners of multiple homes stand to gain, but typical companies have been doing the math for a long time and see nothing but losses. The general sentiment by locals towards this policy has been "So we're really becoming like Vietnam and Thailand, huh?", so the vast majority of people will not be welcoming nomads with open arms, or at all. There's already massive controversy over new apartments being bought up by foreign investors and locals being pushed farther out of Tokyo.
People can downvote because they don't like hearing this. But it's the state of things here. It's a system forced against the citizens against their will. In a country with a noted history of centuries of distrust of foreigners, this visa scheme is not helping.
It's quite common for apartment blocks to forbid "holiday" rentals. Mine has visible signage about this in the lobby and the building manager also looks out for it. Your typical apartment owner has zero interest in all the trouble these arrangements bring.
That's for regular apartments. The blog author went to a monthly mansion, which are used for holiday rentals and other short-duration stays of a few months or so (such as people moving to a new city and needing a place before they can find a permanent apartment, or maybe people on temporary work assignments in a new city).
They do. But lots of people buy homes just to rent them out. That removes a home from the market, and the competition pushes prices up.
The problem isn't signage.
Plus evicting/canceling a contract is an arduous process. It almost always favors the renter. And in the case of actually buying a home, there isn't much anyone can do.
> One longstanding issue has been people who come to Japan expecting to settle down, then quickly realize it's not for them and take a flight home without telling anybody. Debts left unpaid and landlords not even contacted
This really sounds like one of those not-quite-racist "problems with foreigners" that every country likes to pretend they have. Every "knows" it's a problem, there's no way to prove it right or wrong, but hey, it gives people something to complain about.
It might be racism. But those thoughts aren't going to be undone with visas for rich nomads/tourists who'll stay for 6 months and dip. It's only accelerating justification for racism amongst locals.
And lumping any sort of economic concerns a country has into racism, then considering it something that shouldn't even be talked about because it's "racism", is how these issues start to snowball fast and more extreme racist reactions grow. A few European countries have taken hard right swings because people who said anything about immigration policies were shut down as racists. Now people don't even care about being called racist because the word is normalized. And that's a dangerous path to have started treading down. Japan is a country where being said to have some prejudice isn't something people will shamefully back away from; things could snowball much faster than in Europe.
It’s exactly the same in Germany. It’s not that the system is designed against foreigners, but that it’s not designed for them at all. It’s a sort of “Falsehoods states believe about people” situation . This leads to a lot of Catch-22 situations where you need A to get B and B to get A, and the only way to fix it is to go through expensive loopholes.
It's not a 'Japan thing'. I pay a higher rate on my mortgage because my spouse was not a citizen of where we live when we took it out. There are fewer providers willing to offer mortgages in this situation but, presumably, there's still enough of a price incentive that the premium isn't pulled out of thin air.
It's also common for landlords to ask for higher deposits or months paid up-front.
It's also possible that the banks have less legal requirements to non-citizens so they make up a bullshit reason for charging you higher. Which is absolutely something a bank would do.
> but parasites like AirBnB and similar companies making a killing off offering apartments 5x above normal asking price to rich nomads who will say "wow, it's so cheap!" without realizing they're being ripped off, and killing neighborhoods by driving rent prices up.
The parasites in this case are the landlords, not AirBnB. And they're the one driving the rent prices up, not the renters.
Why does everybody refuse to adress the elephant in the room? Because they have parents and uncles who live by exploiting young workers for rent, and don't want to hurt their feelings?
> The parasites in this case are the landlords, not AirBnB. And they're the one driving the rent prices up, not the renters.
What about considering both as parasites, just different methods for achieving basically the same thing: "More money for me".
Obviously, the landlords are the ones who raise the prices. But I think it'd be ignoring reality if you didn't consider the fact that AirBnb made all of this so much easier and simpler from the landlords. There are platforms that let you sync to many portals, and even see what weeks you should raise the prices to optimize for as much profit as possible. AirBnb and the other platforms are contributing to a constant, collaborative raise of prices.
AirBnB plays a very minor role in this. Yes, they make short-term rentals possible for landlords who are too dumb and lazy to be able to do it otherwise. There were other simliar platforms before AirBnB, there will be others after them.
> There were other simliar platforms before AirBnB, there will be others after them.
That's true, but it wasn't a huge industry like it is now, at least not here where I live (Barcelona, Spain). Once AirBnb appeared on the market, it kind of blew up in popularity. And while hotels/hostels needed permission from the government to make properties into hotels, the vacation rental market didn't (initially) so they ended up buying a lot of property meant for residents, but used it for tourists.
I'm not saying AirBnb is the sole party to blame here, but vacation rental companies do carry some responsibility for this.
What does that have to do with my comment? The blame is squarely on the landlords, blaming AirBnB or other similar websites is just because people can't deal with the fact that the persons harming them are nearby. So they need an outside force to put the blame on.
Good on NYC to ban short term rentals of residential properties. Short term visitors should stay in buildings especially made for that purpose, such as hotels.
Saying "I didn't do it. I just facilitate it" doesn't absolve them of responsibility for killing cities. And AirBnB is lobbying to get their city destroying service legalized in more areas. They know what they're doing. They deserve the criticism. They could back off at any moment, but choose not to for personal gain.
Except there's not enough hotels in NYC for tourists, because the city is paying them to house homeless people. If you want to stay in NYC for an affordable price (as a non-American), then you have to stay in an AirBNB outside the city and take a train in every day.
When the girlfriend was living in Japan I stayed for 89 days and then went to Taiwan (amazing country, highly recommended) and came back for another 87 days and nobody cared. I guess if you did this a lot it would be an issue but you’re reasonably fine to do it once I think. I was not working but I did have “free” accommodation in the smallest apartment I’ve ever been in so I’d be more concerned about this if I was actually breaking the rules and didn’t have a reason to be there.
"You are only allowed to stay as a "Temporary Visitor" for a total of 180 days during a 12-month period."
Similarly, the EU has a 90/180 day rule, so it doesn't work long term.
As the sibling comment noted, you were within the legal prescribed boundaries.
The flag is automatic if something is off. No person (I think/in general/most countries) sits and counts days. The computer does.
In fact if they note they can not track exactly how many days you were in and out of the country that is a separate flag, that would likely in most jurisdiction lead to questioning.
(Source: friend had to pull his tickets and explain his travel path, when following unusual route via Schengen in between his entry/exit.)
Currently in the countries of the Schengen area - a person is supposed to do preciesly that at border control, the electronic entry-exit system, targeted for launch in 2022 is (was) supposed to be that computer however.
And a world of difference in stability and perception. If you have $35k+ to dedicate to this (and note that it does not cost $35k, these are more like initial capital requirements), you should 100% go the investor route.
People underweight how amazing it is to be able to pay less than $50k for the equivalent of a golden visa to a top 5 GDP nation that is well regarded, safe, has some opportunity and is generally easy to live in.
Eh, I ran a business in Japan and have had that visa. I still tell most people who just want to dip their feet in that the digital nomad visa is totally fine and a good way to go.
That stability and perception only matters if you _truly_ want to live here, and quite a number of people spend ~3 months here [1] and realize that it's got issues past the honeymoon period (like anywhere else). There's also no reason you can't change your visa type if you find you actually like it after the DN trip.
[1] "here" because I'm back in Japan for a few weeks for friends at the moment, but you get the idea
While this is purely anecdotal, the friends I have that ended up bailing earlier than planned got really annoyed by nonsensical things like ATMs having operating hours and having to use a fax machine to do something. They probably weren't the main problem but more straw that broke the camel's back.
The ATM working hours can be annoying but honestly I understand the reasoning, it's to prevent drunk guys from being taken advantage of or threatened into making withdraws.
Other than those who have built up Japan as a magical place in their head and are inevitably disappointed that it fails to match, I think that the reason that people end up bailing out of any country is one where they are unable to adapt to a culture and it's nuances.
Most people would get annoyed when you have to take a document to city hall, get it stamped at one desk thane take it 5 desks over for the stamp there as well. Or you can try and understand why their workflow may be this way. Or just not care.
If you are the kind of person who gets annoyed, then you will end up leaving.
>got really annoyed by nonsensical things like ATMs having operating hours and having to use a fax machine to do something.
The ATM operating hours are silly, but 1) you don't need cash that much here anyway, and 2) any decent bank has an ATM with reasonable hours. What are they doing trying to get cash at midnight?
Fax machines are a myth today. I've lived here for several years and have never used one for anything. How long ago was this, over a decade ago? Businesses still use them for some dumb reasons, but regular people don't. People don't even have landlines any more, and usually not even printers at home (you can print stuff at your local konbini).
Yes, you run the company. IIRC the visa is about management not investment and the company is expected to be profitable for the visa to be renewed. That's quite a different bunch of requirements than just buying a visa and sleeping on it.
The golden visas usually have no strings attached. I am not sure about this particular visa but last time I checked Japan they demand that you have a certain amount of activity on the company to keep your residence.
> People underweight how amazing it is to be able to pay less than $50k for the equivalent of a golden visa to a top 5 GDP nation that is well regarded, safe, has some opportunity and is generally easy to live in.
The Japanese are incredibly racist and xenophobic. Numerous businesses outright place signs barring foreigners (particularly russians, chinese, etc)
Japanese citizens are almost always completely trusted by police over anyone, say, white or black. So Japanese who want to fuck with someone will bait them into a confrontation (or just outright lie) so they're arrested - and Japan has a nearly 100% conviction rate, with the worst prison conditions in the developed world.
Some of those assertions are true, some half true, and some are twisting the truth so much that I'd like to note (been living here for 7+ years):
- The Japanese are incredibly racist and xenophobic
Half true, some Japanese are those, but not all and "incredibly" is stretching it a lot (also, it's not good to generalize a negative trait to a whole country, I wonder what that's called). There's also famously a lot of "positive racism" towards Westerners.
- Numerous businesses outright place signs barring foreigners
There's been a handful of places in a country with 120M people, and each and every one of those has made the news, exactly because of how rare they are!
- Japanese citizens are almost always completely trusted by police over anyone, say, white or black.
Sure, this is true.
- So Japanese who want to fuck with someone will bait them into a confrontation (or just outright lie) so they're arrested.
While I don't have any number against it, this feels like such an incredibly bizarre event that I'd like to ask for some sources since it sounds very unbelievable given my personal experiences.
- Japan has a nearly 100% conviction rate
Absolutely not true in that this statement is grossly misconstruing a narrative of "arrested => 100% convicted". ONCE the police decide to pursue a matter, then it's true, but they only do so with incredibly strong evidence. See wikipedias' notes: "If measured in the same way, the United States' federal conviction rate would be 99.8%." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate#Japan
- With the worst prison conditions in the developed world
Fairly true, if we consider only the handful of countries that can be called "the developed world".
Scholars say the biggest reason for Japan's very high conviction rate is the
country's low prosecution rate and the way Japan calculates its conviction rate
is different from other countries. According to them, Japanese
prosecutors only pursue cases that are likely to result in convictions, and not
many others. According to Professor Ryo Ogiso of Chuo University,
prosecutors defer prosecution in 60% of the cases they receive, and conclude the
remaining 30% or so of cases in summary trials. This summary trial is a trial
procedure in which cases involving a fine of 1,000,000 yen or less are examined
on the basis of documents submitted by the public prosecutor without a formal
trial if there is no objection from the suspect. Only about 8% of cases are
actually prosecuted, and this low prosecution rate is the reason for Japan's
high conviction rate.
Also worth noting that, when evaluated equally, the US justice system has a similarly high rate:
According to Bruce Aronson of New York University School of Law, Japan's conviction rate is
misleading because it is the rate at which defendants admit guilt in the cases they are
charged with. According to him, if the method of calculating the conviction rate in Japan is
applied to the United States, the conviction rate of federal defendants in the United States
in 2018 was also over 99%. According to him, when there is a discussion about Japan, it
is easy to misunderstand because people quickly rely on broad cultural generalizations and
stereotypes.
None of which is to say that there aren't serious problems with the Japanese justice system (or the US one, for that matter).
I am glad they prioritize and look out for their own. That's how it should be. Not everywhere needs to be in love with globalism. And yes, I would say the same should be the case in other places as well.
> My first thought was to work remotely and use the 90 days permitted by the tourist visa. Yet working in Japan on this visa is a gray zone at best and a practice I would stay away from. In fact, the US Embassy in Japan strictly advises against this
I’ve always wondered why countries care about this. If I’m employed in my home country, earning money there and paying taxes, what difference does it make if I happen to sit in another country?
Or if I save up 6 months of PTO, then go to another country for those six months. I’m very much earning money and paying tax in my home country. Why is it ok for me to open my laptop and spend 10 hours a day on random stuff, but not “work stuff”?
> If I’m employed in my home country, earning money there and paying taxes, what difference does it make if I happen to sit in another country?
Why does "home country" have tax priority over "sitting in" country? How does that make sense vs having the taxes paid in "sitting in" country instead of "home country"?
with perhaps the strongest argument being jurisdiction. What gives "home country" the legal right to claim taxes on income earned in "sitting country"?
and that's where things get complicated. In order to pay taxes in "sitting country" you need a "sitting tax ID number" and other admin, also if the taxes involve wage withholding, who does the withholding and ensures compliance, etc, etc.
How does this align, in the US, with state-level taxes? If you were born in MN and moved to FL, do you pay MN or FL state income taxes (noting that FL does not have state income tax)?
Is "home country" the state with the home office of the company which employs you, or the state you live in? Should employees of a California company pay California state income tax even when working remote from Texas (another no income tax state)? Or the classic Washington/Oregon divide?
> with perhaps the strongest argument being jurisdiction. What gives "home country" the legal right to claim taxes on income earned in "sitting country"?
Usually a treaty. At least here in Canada the government has tax treaties with most other countries whereby both countries agree the citizen should pay taxes to the country they reside in the majority of the year.
The relevant portion of the US-Japan treaty is Article 14(2). As the IRS explains:
> Paragraph 2 sets forth an exception to the general rule in paragraph 1 that employment
income may be taxed in the Contracting State where the employment is exercised. Under
paragraph 2, the Contracting State where the employment is exercised may not tax the income
from the employment if three conditions are satisfied: (1) the individual is present in the other
Contracting State for a period or periods not exceeding 183 days in any 12-month period that
begins or ends during the relevant (i.e., the year in which the services are performed) calendar
year; (2) the remuneration is paid by, or on behalf of, an employer who is not a resident of that
other Contracting State; and (3) the remuneration is not borne by a permanent establishment that
the employer has in that other Contracting State. In order for the remuneration to be exempt
from tax in the source State, all three conditions must be satisfied. This exception is identical to
that set forth in the U.S. and OECD Models.
Scenario B is amazing for the US. I don't see how it's clearly better for Japan. I don't know about you but I pay far more in income tax than sales tax. You spend money but you also consume government services and infrastructure while paying less in tax to Japan than a resident employed in Japan would.
But in scenario (B) you're spending money in Japan, basically you're directly injecting US money (your US salary) into the Japanese economy. Don't see why it's "amazing" for the US and not for Japan.
Because you're paying US income taxes while consuming next to no US government services or infrastructure.
> But in scenario (B) you're spending money in Japan
Anyone who lives and works in Japan spends money in Japan. What's great about that? Most of those people also pay taxes.
> basically you're directly injecting US money (your US salary) into the Japanese economy
Japan might say: if this US company doesn't mind someone working from Japan and paying them an American salary, why not a person who already lives there and pays taxes there? That's obviously better than someone new who doesn't pay taxes there.
I think you both are right in a way and what is maybe relevant is the duration.
If someone lives full time permanently in another country working remotely, they probably are already actually a tax resident of that country and would typically pay tax to that country.
What the country doesn't want is someone traveling and in the country for a few months and then taking a local job that could have been taken by a citizen while also not being a tax resident, which is what the work restrictions on visas are intended to prevent.
But if someone is traveling and in the country for a few months, and works remotely while there, it really makes little difference to the country compared to another tourist other than the fact that the visitor now has access to more funds to be spending in their country while there; but visas don't support this well.
When you put it that way, the answer seems obvious. You're not paying taxes to the country you're residing in. You're not paying taxes for the infrastructure you're using.
Why is it ok for pure tourism? Because tourism is expected to be shorter-term, and you're likely to be putting more money into the local economy as a tourist.
So they need to register this at the very least. I don't know if they tax digital nomad work but they do obviously want to have some control over it.
Those laws where designed before you had the relativelly new phenomenon of digital nomads.
They were created so the local companies wouldn't hire foreign citizens under the table, skirting taxes and depressing wages for local workers, which would be an unpopular outcome amongst voters.
I know. I am telling you why the laws were created on the first place. Nobody though about putting an exception.
And frankly, even if they did think about it, they would probably still do the same, to avoid the legal loophole of local companies using a foreign employer of record to hire cheaper foreign workers.
For every petit-bourguoise privileged nomad software engineer there are thousands of potential low-skill foreign workers that companies are eager to employ to pay less and circumvent local worker protection laws.
All the fiscalization and enforcement structure along with the law is designed for this use case and any seemingly innocuos exception on the law can be exploited by bad actors, so, govern are relutant to do so just because a few rich kids from sillicon valley want to play modern colonial dandy.
> I’ve always wondered why countries care about this. If I’m employed in my home country, earning money there and paying taxes, what difference does it make if I happen to sit in another country?
Based on the practical enforcement I get the feeling that most countries don't really care about this, but this situation started happening much faster than visa law changes. Hence the grey area.
Well, they probably want to double-tax your wages[0]. But that's why the digital nomad visa class was established.
But the real explanation is mostly just that it's how the law was written. In general, laws are brokered agreements between those who are currently in power, so they have no principles. More specifically, when countries[1] started implementing categories-and-quotas based immigration control, they decided leisure travel should have its own category, and wrote a restrictive definition of a tourist into the law.
It's important to remember that at the time these laws were written, remote workers didn't exist. If you were entering a country and doing work, it was going to be for a local business, and that visa category had far more restrictive visas intended to privilege native workers over foreign in the labor market. Ergo, the tourism visa has to exclude any work at all. This separation was carried forward into the various reciprocal[2] visa-free travel arrangements that made it so you don't have to physically go to an embassy and file paperwork to get a tourist visa.
Of course, all of this is silly in the Internet age, but good luck convincing every country in the world to allow worldwide labor rights.
[0] Fun fact: the US taxes based on citizenship, not residency, so you will always be double-taxed as a US emigrant, even if you're not remotely working for a US company.
[1] I realize Japan is probably a bad example for this discussion, because they used to be completely closed to both immigration and emigration for over a century. This policy even has a name: "sakoku". In contrast, America used to have an extremely racialized immigration policy, which is what was replaced with the (deracialized) categories and quotas. Before that policy, we actually had a really liberal immigration policy.
Hoping to apply for this visa soon without too many issues. I know people just go and work remotely on tourist visas but I'd rather not take the risk, especially as I want to use coworking spaces.
It's unfortunate that the visa is only 6 months and not extendable, but if I really end up liking Japan maybe I'll go to language school so I can stay for longer.
That was covered in the article, but as the author was already older than 30 years, it wouldn’t have been applicable for them. It also seems the Working Holiday visa is intended for “employment as an incidental activity of their holidays for the purpose of supplementing their travel funds” [1], whereas the author rather appeared to be looking for a “working full-time with some incidental holidays alongside” situation.
Is you are on a tourist visa then you cannot work. Actively working as a nomad ok a tourist visa waiver is breaking the law.
Of course, nomads often did come and with in this status. They would exist in a grey area, arguing their with was more incidental in nature and bit the reason to be in Japan (just like replying to a few with emails while in holiday).
The nomad visa is essentially formalizing this grey area. As other commentors have mentioned, it's not a particularly useful status as you don't get a residence card and you can enroll in national health insurance too. You'll also find it harder to find apartments to rent too
Apparently they do, from the article quoting the US Embassy:
Japanese Immigration officials are aware of the pattern of people staying for 80-90 days as “tourists,” spending a few days in Korea, Guam or some other nearby area and then seeking to re-enter Japan for another 90 days. Persons with such a travel pattern can expect to face questions at Japanese Immigration and may be denied entry with the suspicion that they have been or will work illegally in Japan. In that Japanese Immigration records are computerized, a “lost” passport does not serve to mask long stays in Japan.
I think it’s mostly for the visa runs, not the woking per se. (I would still not recommend it, especially not if you are planning on getting a permanent residence status later on.)
Well, EU prevents this kind of workaround by restricting stays to 90 days within 180 days period, so leaving EU for a couple of days after a stay of 90 days and coming back to stay another 90 days won't work, you will go over your quota.
I'm guessing your opinion is that western immigration policies, shall we say "unique" vs the rest of the world, are "sane". Maybe you're not aware on which side of the asylum walls you're standing.
There is technically a “hidden” six month tourist visa if you can show you have a significant amount of money in your bank account. In practice all it does is save you an entry/exit.
Rather than just visiting on a tourist visa and relying on the fact that no immigration officer is going to come bust in your hotel door and yell "hey are you doing work on that laptop!", you go through a bunch of tedious bureaucratic hoops to get the assurance that they definitely for certain won't come inspect what you're doing on your laptop.
People are being too individualistic here - Japan or any other country is never going to go after individuals who happen to work for remote companies or freelance while they globe trot working on tourist visas.
But when companies like Shopify go fully remote, if they suddenly have a lot of employees who are frequenting Japan, they are painting a giant target on their back and exposing themselves to legal risk. A company is never going to expose themselves to this kind of legal risk so HR will very quickly (and understandably) clamp down on this. This is why even the most progressive "work from anywhere" policies tend to have fine print that amounts to "your country of residence and any home countries you can legally work in". This is then why we often see "remote" coming with all kinds of conditions like US remote or EU remote etc because the reality of legal compliance for HR is a huge headache.
These nomad visas are a baby step in the right direction towards unburdening companies from this liability.
Also, while they're unlikely to spend resources toward going after individuals who happen to work remotely on a tourist visa, it's comparatively trivial to pull people out at entry (and that's going to be a regular and well-documented occurrence because the alternative of overstaying your visa is absolutely something countries with governments tend to care about).
> This is then why we often see "remote" coming with all kinds of conditions like US remote or EU remote etc because the reality of legal compliance for HR is a huge headache.
Could they just hire those individuals as contractors instead? It should be up to the contractor to ensure compliance then. (IANAL)
First of all, that's complicated and employees can easily fuck it up.
I once worked at a tiny company, and their first 'contractor' employee didn't realise he had to set aside money for certain taxes, and didn't realise he'd have to record certain details to be able to fill out certain forms, and things like that.
This ended up being a bunch of hassle for the company as he... thought? hoped? expected? that they were paying those taxes, as they would have done if he was a regular employee. Now the guy's resentful, feels you've ripped him off, and is constantly distracted.
Secondly, there can still be local laws you have to comply with. Some countries have problems with sham contractor arrangements, where they insist their normal, regular employees are 'self-employed contractors' to avoid giving them sick pay, holiday, pension, maternity leave, minimum wage, redundancy pay, complying with safety rules, and so on. So they have laws saying that under certain circumstances, contractors effectively turn into regular employees.
As I can't read Kazakh, how am I supposed to know if the Kazakhstani tax code has similar rules?
> I once worked at a tiny company, and their first 'contractor' employee didn't realise he had to set aside money for certain taxes
It's a valid concern. Should be easy to solve though: add a reminder to the employee handbook, and also remind them to check out local tax codes and set aside money.
> Some countries have problems with sham contractor arrangements
This usually doesn't apply to cross-border relationships though (which we implicitly focus on here I think, given this is a thread about moving to Japan). It is possible in theory, of course, for tax authorities to go after international contractors clayming they are international employees, but I haven't heard about such cases yet.
But there's an easy way to distinguish employment and contractor relationships: if you set a specific goal and a deadline, and do not tell them how to do the job, you have a contractor. (The goal does have to be specific, though, but you can say in your contract that you will use Jira tickets for that, I believe.)
I think that overlaps pretty well with most remote work. Specifics might differ, but as a general rule this is it what tax authorities pretty much everywhere will look for.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer nor a tax advisor, just doing a lot of freelance and run an Estonian LLC for fun
Some do but from observation lawyers/HR find reasons to resist this.
The most likely explanation is there could be risk but there is zero risk associated with saying no so legal and HR say no to this arrangement because they don't want more work and legal and HR are cost centres so they can't magically pull budget out of thin air to appease some annoying digital nomads. A company is also not going to let their entire workforce of full time employees transition to contractors overnight either, which would be a giant headache for both HR and senior management.
For example VCs prefer "headcount" over contractors for a number of reasons so there is pressure from the top to incentivise full time employees. Large multinationals have a lot of considerations around taxation (its always taxes...)
These are some of the practicalities I've uncovered that provide inertia towards remote working
> A company is also not going to let their entire workforce of full time employees transition to contractors overnight either
This could actually look like tax evasion (in countries with lower taxes for sole proprietors / self-employed people), so not a great idea in any case.
Long story short, it's a complete quagmire, especially since you're bringing cross-border tax issues into play.
A small company that doesn't know much about compliance may be happy to call it "freelance", but any bigger company with a professional HR person is going to balk at it, because they want certainty they're compliant, e.g. no misclassification.
They're much more likely to be happy about it if you can stick a local LLC between you and them though.
Well whole contractor status is very murky in many places. Either very strict like in UK. Or then you need all sorts of agreements in between, meaning that you might need to give cut to some third company. And then those companies have same problems.
Even inside EU with freedom of movement spending more than 180 days in single country can lead to tax implications. Doing this globally is even bigger mess as ways of counting time might not be the same.
> Or then you need all sorts of agreements in between, meaning that you might need to give cut to some third company. And then those companies have same problems.
It could be a viable solution actually. There’s a bunch of companies that can both employ or subcontract a person on behalf of another company.
I think if the company is not against it in principle, it becomes just another negotiation point, e.g. you can agree to a lower net salary so that the gross amount the company has to pay is the same (including the middleman fee).
It's like this: basically everyone who's ever driven a car has broken the law, gone over the speed limit etc.
But if you video it, broadcast it on social media that "OMG I'm driving so fast LOL!", encourage others to do the same, and tag the account of the local police, the situation is different.
It also avoids differentiating on two very different scenarios: coming to Japan without a work visa to work illegally for a local company, and doing work for an employer or client not in Japan while being in Japan.
On paper, all laws are strict. In practice, some of them, and some interpretations of them, are considered a higher priority than others (which can range to straight up ignoring them or even violating them themselves).
The point I'm making is I don't get why they've bothered with such a pointless visa, and it sounds like some PR stunt. If it extended to a year or was a residence permit then it'd be an actual valuable visa worth the effort.
The only thing I can think of is maybe they hoped it'd be used by digital nomads to come work for local companies for 6 months, but that doesn't sound likely. PR gimmick or "we're doing things" purpose more likely.
Can someone please explain to me why it is called “Visa” in some languages and “Visum” in others? My understanding is that “visum” means “that which has been seen” in Latin. What does “visa” mean then?
> My understanding is that “visum” means “that which has been seen” in Latin. What does “visa” mean then?
Basically the same thing, from the same root verb “vidēre”; vīsum is “that which has been seen” (noun), vīsa is “which has been seen” (adjective), from which English and some other languages have derived a noun “visa” as a shortening of the modern Latin “charta vīsa” (“paper/document which has been seen”) possibly through a french intermediary before English (different sources I’ve seen disagree on this.)
They're both forms (perfect passive particle in particular) of the latin verb "video". So they both mean "having been seen". The difference is in gender. visa = feminine; visum = neuter; visus = masculine.
with US passport I can stay in Japan for 90 days without a visa, if I want to work occasionally remotely for jobs at US part time, do I still need go through all the paperwork to get a Nomad visa? what's the purpose of Nomad visa when everyone has a laptop and can work remotely if they want to?
> My first thought was to work remotely and use the 90 days permitted by the tourist visa. Yet working in Japan on this visa is a gray zone at best and a practice I would stay away from. In fact, the US Embassy in Japan strictly advises against this:
> Persons found working illegally are subject to arrest and deportation.
> Persons believed to be entering Japan without a working visa but who intend to work here can be denied entry into Japan. This means that you will not exit the airport and will be required to return directly to the U.S.
Did more quick reading, Nomad visa gives you 6 month(tourist is 90 days), as long as you don't take local jobs you're fine, and there is no need to pay tax to Japan as well. now it seems just like a visa double the duration of tourist visa to me.
>> what's the purpose of Nomad visa when everyone has a laptop and can work remotely if they want to?
Because you are working in a country, consuming its services, but not paying the local income tax. A work permit either officially ops you out of this or allows you to properly file/pay taxes.
And fyi to Americans reading this: you still owe taxes to the IRS for work done overseas. There are all sorts of deductions and such, but only if you actually file. Not filing in either country could see you owe a huge amount to both, even if that means paying more than 100% tax. Don't risk it.
If you read the article the author does quote the US embassy in Japan strictly advising against this and that you risk arrest and deportation, that immigration officials do crack down on digital nomads, especially re-entering Japan to renew 90 day tourist visas to work.
A lot of countries have laws against working remotely without a visa, although apart from the US few actively enforce them.
Seems like the restriction would only make sense in the context of working for a Japanese company. Similar to US visas for visitors where the traveler cannot visit the US for work purposes with a US-based employer.
Otherwise, opening a work laptop and answering some work emails for your foreign employer would be risky.
It is a mixed bag: apartments can be pretty expensive, especially in Greater Tokyo area. Food is pretty cheap IMO. Taxis are prohibitively expensive, but railroad system is really really good and compensates for that pretty well.
But people don’t go to Japan because it’s cheap – it’s just a really nice place to live for some.
Apartments even in Tokyo are still quite cheap compared to today's rents in major American cities, and not needing to own a car also cuts living expenses massively compared to living in the US.
Someone coming from a German city with good public transit might not think it's that cheap though. But a lot of digital nomads are Americans.
Poking around sites online it was quite easy to find apartments fairly centrally in Tokyo for $1000-1300/month if you were staying for 3-6 months. While that is far from cheap, I certainly wouldn't call it expensive in the grand scheme of major international cities.
My relatives built a house in Tokyo which was absurdly cheap (£300K), but maybe I'm just used to London prices. As you get out of the major cities, akiyas can be basically "free", although will require a huge amount of time and effort to make habitable again.
Apartments are way cheaper compared to other major US cities. They're probably smaller though but the convenience makes up for it. You can also find something as low as $300 in Tokyo if you are fine with a very long commute to the station. I used to have a sharehouse apartment in Shibuya for $600. Shared kitchen, bathroom and shower. It was pretty good considering I didn't spend much time at home other than to sleep.
Maybe it’s selection bias, but pretty much anywhere I’ve been lately taxi (or actually ride hailing) is at least pretty affordable. E.g. a half hour ride I took late at night in HK was US$30, and about US$10 in Singapore. In Tokyo it was $60.
Depends on how much space you need to live. If you are fine with very little space, Japan is actually pretty affordable. Cheap food is good/health. Public transport is cheap and good/great. Lots of activities to kill time for cheap. Not sure about health care though.
Japanese salaries are very low (compared to the US). So if you’re coming from North America, local prices combined with exchange rates make it super affordable.
I visited Tokyo from London recently and found it to be much cheaper. A decent meal is half, or less than half of what you would pay here, not to mention healthier. Another comment mentioned taxis are expensive, but I found the opposite, my journey was cheaper than it would have been in London, and the drivers are much more professional. As for apartments, you can live much cheaper and more centrally (~£1500 is the minimum you need to play with if you want to live in central London.) Public transport is also cheaper, faster, and more reliable.
So yeah, on the whole, Tokyo is like half the cost of London and you get more for your money.
I had never felt so safe while I was there. I knew I didn't have to check over my shoulder, or walk down a side road if I wanted to use my phone so as to avoid having it grabbed from my hands. When I rented a bike, I could simply park it up without a lock, and knew I would come back to see it exactly where I left it. I forgot my bag in a taxi and got it back the next morning by going to the taxi office. I left my umbrella on a chair and came back to see it exactly where I left it.
It's how living in a civilised, first world country should be.
Yes, phone theft is rampant in London. The thieves are rarely caught and if they are, they get off lightly. Or released early from prison, because our prisons are full.
Answering your comment seriously, with an appropriate level of flippancy:
On the Tokyo metro this year I saw many advertisements for hair issues; lots of ads with balding noggins, contrasted with thick gorgeous heads of hair that you can acquire by making an appointment through a (naturally!) Japanese domain. In London, meanwhile, I saw zero ads for any hair-related products or services on the tube. Though if there were, I would imagine most would be advertised with a UK TLD.
Used to live in Japan for more than a year. Heard about this visa a few weeks ago while traveling to said country.
Since they don't give you a residence card, I wonder how easy it would be to get a phone number and bank account. If some government officials didn't get information on this visa, how can we expect companies to have? They will look at your passport with dead eyes and think you are fooling them with a fake stamp.
I'm very interested in applying for that visa, but not being in the Japanese system (e.g. no health insurance, no residence card) is kind of putting me off because that spells more administrative nonsense.
There's at least one company (Mobal) that will give you a "real" (not VoIP prefix) phone number with a passport as a tourist, so that would work for DN too. The data part of their eSIM wasn't great but the voice part worked fine when I tried it.
If you need health care it would definitely be a hassle at least if you don't have a lot of spare cash--you'd have to see if the mandatory travel insurance you purchased has some sort of direct payment arrangement with selected clinics. But it shouldn't be any issue to just receive the service and pay the full cash price, again same as a tourist.
The real issue is going to be a bank account, which would primarily be needed if you tried to rent a "regular" apartment. The best workaround might be to see if the owner would take cash, up front if needed. You'd be within the "treated as nonresident" period at first anyway, so it would already be hard to get an account even with a residence card. If you don't need it for rent/utilities (ex. share house that takes online payments, hotel/airbnb, etc.) then you probably wouldn't want the hassle of opening and closing a local bank account anyway.
Look for 'Nomad travel insurance' and see if it fits your individual needs for health insurance
I use one called safetywing, though thankfully have never had to claim and don't know if they are better or worse than their competitors. (posted as an example and not a recommendation or endorsement)
Can't you do international wires to Japanese bank accounts for paying rent?
I don't know for Japan, but it did work during my previous trip to the Philippines (November 2017 - August 2018). The only problem is that you will not be able to pay the exact amount if the source bank does not support the destination bank account's currency, which is quite often the case for Philippine peso.
But JPY is quite popular; I have just checked that Raiffeisen Bank in Russia still allows selecting it online as a currency for a foreign transfer. It's too bad I won't be able to do the same online from my Metrobank account in the Philippines.
>Since they don't give you a residence card
They don't? Then what use is the visa? You cannot live here without a residence card. As a non-citizen, you're actually legally required to carry your residence card with you whenever you're in public, and present it to a police officer upon request.
Something doesn't seem right here.
Edit: apparently you can live here, without a residence card, in a temporary apartment, for up to 6 months with this visa. Just be sure to carry your passport everywhere you go.
Technically you would be expected to bring your passport everywhere you go.
That's for foreign tourists who have a visa stamp in their passport. So I guess for these digital nomads, that would work too, as long as they don't overstay whatever date is on that visa.
It's not going to help them find a place to live though: they'll be stuck in hotels the entire time they're here.
The author was able to get an apartment and shared the website and the reddit thread be used to find it.
I see now. Looking at the site, those kinds of apartments are called "monthly mansions"; I stayed in one when I first came here before I could find a real apartment. These places are very small, and furnished, so perfect for someone only staying 3 or 6 months. But they're quite expensive for what you get. But if you're only staying 6 months, it's perfect.
> they'll be stuck in hotels the entire time they're here.
Eh, Tokyo has plenty of monthly apartment rentals that are effectively corporate rentals that you can do without a residence card.
(I used to do this before having an actual visa there)
It's functionally better than a hotel, insofar as it doesn't read or act as one.
Rented a flat in Tokyo for a month too as a tourist. But it wasn't cheap. Around $1500/month, in 2011. But it was 3 rooms, and very nice. So maybe not so bad, actually? But then again, it was many years ago.
I feel like everyone is missing "in 2011".
For whatever reason, people in our generation seem completely unaware of how often they cite things from 15-20 years ago.
I've taken to pointing out that it's like if someone in the 90s used advice from the 70s. For whatever reason, it tends to put things in perspective timeframe-wise.
I'd still like the data point. Disclaimer: I was the old fart who posted that.
Yeah, that's $2,102.58 in 2024 dollars due to a 40.2% cumulative rate of inflation since then according to usinflationcalculator.com
We're talking about apartments in Japan, not the US. The high inflation rate in the US doesn't apply here.
It does since we're using US dollars to describe it since each dollar is not worth less than it used to relative to other objects.
3 rooms, in Tokyo, for a month, is bloody cheap unless I miss something.
Pretty much all non-luxury housing in Tokyo is built to a much lower standard than equivalent housing built in say Canada or the US in the same time period.
Much thinner wall insulation, single glazed windows (until recently), much smaller elevators in high rises, etc…
So on a quality and square footage adjusted basis it’s still quite expensive.
Not really: the difference is that "lower standard" housing of the same age simply doesn't exist in the US. You want a small, 20-30 year old apartment in a decent building with small elevators and everything is maintained well and isn't broken, and you don't want roommates, and at an affordable price for you on your non-tech job paycheck? You can't have that in a decent American city; it doesn't exist. It's either some very expensive "luxury" apartment (where stuff is still broken, but hey, it has granite countertops and new appliances that'll break down in a year!) where you'll need roommates, or some nasty shithole (where you'll probably still need a rooomate).
There are no middle class to upper middle class condominiums in the urban areas of any US city?
Families settling down in a decent 3 or 4 bedroom condo is rarer in the US than Canada, but it can’t possibly be zero.
Indicative: try and find a US apartment with crown moulding.
My studio apartment in California is $1500/month. At the same price, I would be in a 3-room Tokyo flat yesterday!
I just left an apartment in Shanghai that was two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen for $700 / month. I was advised that prices have come down over the last year, so that if I was planning to renew my lease I should negotiate a lower price.
And that's on the cheaper end of California!
It really is! I got very, very lucky for the area I'm in, believe me. I'm not moving out until I'm out of the area for good.
Studio in BC for over $2500 a month.
Well, yeah, I bet that studio was substantially cheaper in 2011, though, which was the date on the Tokyo apartment.
That is comically cheap.
True, and it generally has better amenities than a hotel too: a kitchen (though tiny), fridge, microwave, stove (no oven though), clothes washer, maybe a vacuum, etc. Also importantly, a mailbox, so you can receive deliveries (and in newer places, there's an automated delivery box system).
They have ovens...just super tiny and meant for fish only https://www.yamada-denkiweb.com/category/202/006/001/
Those are "grills". If you want to bake stuff, you can get real ovens, but they're fairly small, and not built into the apartment, and usually combined with a microwave oven. Any decent appliance store sells them for around 30,000 yen. You're not going to cook a turkey in it, but if you want to bake a small cake it's perfect.
Yes, they are meant for grilling fish but they can be the world's tiniest oven if you believe enough(or just use a thermometer probe for temperature adjustment!)
My recollection of the countertop oven is that it would fit half a small size turkey...for we did do that one year.
> stove (no oven though)
Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought that was typical for Japanese homes?
Yes, unlike Americans who apparently absolutely need to bake a whole turkey on a regular basis, Japanese don't normally bake stuff at home, so Japanese homes (at least in the big cities) don't normally come with built-in ovens. There's no space in Tokyo apartments for the comically-large ovens that are common in America, and the cuisine people make here doesn't normally need one, just a stovetop. For baked goods, people usually just buy them at the grocery store or bakery or other specialty shop.
Tip: a photo of your passport and the stamp will most likely do in most circumstances. Much better than risking taking your passport with you all the time.
Bad advice. Photos are not accepted and police will expect you to carry your passport at all times, just as you're supposed to carry your residence card at all times if you have one.
Not sure why people want to stick to a rule that could get them in real trouble. I am speaking from real experience. The police is very unlikely to want to arrest/take you to the station for not having your passport. On the other hand, if you do lose your passport and you have a slow/far embassy then you are in real trouble.
The police will stop you for any random reason, including walking alone in the street at an unusual hour or just to check your bike.
From there, if you have nothing to officially prove your identity you might totally spend a while at the station, and potentially have them kindly escort you to your home so they get a look while you're looking for your passport.
All of this is just mild inconvenience, except it will happen a lot more frequently than losing one's passport.
PS: For the real trouble relative to passports, an embassy can reemit an emergency passport within a day, and you can probably reemit the visa at an immigration branch. It's not fun for sure, but I'm not sure it's real troubles.
> The police will stop you for any random reason, including walking alone in the street at an unusual hour or just to check your bike.
Parent was talking about Japan not the US. In most of the world, the police will leave you alone unless they have to intervene. In Japan, they’ll probably want to really help you and not add an arrest to their record.
> From there, if you have nothing to officially prove your identity you might totally spend a while at the station, and potentially have them kindly escort you to your home so they get a look while you're looking for your passport
Again, highly an American perspective where the police is fishing for arrest reasons. The rest of the world doesn’t allocate much resources to the police so they bus around people without very exigent reasons.
I was referring to Japan. Police will very easily stop you [0], the more you diverge from what they expect to see at that time and place, the higher your chances will be to have a chat with them.
As you point out, it's also not heavy and tensed confrontation as it could be in other countries. You won't get shot at a wrong move, officers are polite, they're not there to piss you, don't specially expect you to be in the wrong and really would prefer to get it done and go on with their watch.
That's where keeping credible papers on you makes it a painless 30s interaction and not a long and awkward drag to the station that nobody wants.
> The rest of the world doesn’t allocate much resources to the police
Japan police has a decent HR budget to keep officers around in the communities. Which is a truely good thing, police becomes very integrated to the daily life of the people there, while fully expecting to have nothing to do all day long outside of helping elderlies cross the street and dealing with kids getting lost.
[0] At least I got stopped a decent amount, and that is a pretty shared sentiment I heard a lot. The only exceptions were daily suit people and women.
I carry a locally notarized photocopy of my passport in a similar country. I am not sure if it is fully legal, but people tend to do that here in practice, particularly when the government office needs your passport for processing.
The court was willing to stamp and sign that I have that passport and it matches me, so it is probably good enough for most police if I offer to show them the original at home.
I cannot think of any circumstances where someone would be demanding to see your passport and then accept a photo of your passport instead.
That being said having a photo of your passport and relevant stamps is good advice, but only to make it slightly easier to deal with all the hassel that comes if you do lose your passport.
In most countries you can get what is called a notarized or certified "true copy" of identifying documents (passports being one of them). The intent is for you to submit them with applications so you don't have to submit the original copy. Now how you get a true copy depends on the country. Canadian passports for example can only have true copies made by their embassy or immigrations offices.
Note that this doesn't include your passport stamp pages but Japan hasn't issued passport stamps for several years now and they just look up your passport in a registry instead. So for that purpose, a true copy should be effectively the same thing.
That's where it comes down to what is essentially a technicality but given they carry an embossed seal and signature with the words "TRUE COPY" on them, they look very official and officials are very rarely going to push back on it even if whether they are to be treated as a full substitute for a passport (for identification purposes) is technically a grey area.
I loved the QR code passport stamps Japan previously used. Are those no more?
I don't think so. My passport is somewhere around the house so I can't just grab it to check but last time I came in they just put it on a scanner and took a photograph of me when I went through immigration.
Disappointing, but inevitable I suppose. Thank you for the ground truth. I’ll try to make Japan an intentional segment during my next international trip to confirm and report back.
> I cannot think of any circumstances where someone would be demanding to see your passport and then accept a photo of your passport instead.
Unless you are involved with a particular interaction, they just want to check your visa status. A passport photo/stamp will do if their system is digitized. Arresting someone (except for the US where the police likes to arrest people) is a major hassle.
I am a resident of Japan. This is extremely bad advice. Do not follow this advice.
To csomar: you are willingly spreading harmful advice. Stop it. Stop making people reply to clean up your mess.
You won't be getting a phone number or bank account without one. You might also have problems getting prescriptions filled.
In my experience, you need more than a residence card to get a bank account here: you also need a certificate of employment from your employer.
No you just need your residence card, fill a form, sign (no hanko required) and you can open a bank account at the Post Bank. At least that's how it went 10 years ago as a student. It's easier to open an account as a foreigner there than opening an account as a citizen in France... (no appointment bullshit, no proof of residency asked)
This is still how it goes.
I became a client of Sony Bank (yes, that Sony) but they would accepted "financial resident of Japan" which means people that have either 1) a work contract or 2) lived for 6 months in Japan.
It absolutely blows my mind why Japan Post is the only one to not have those restrictions.
>No you just need your residence card...
>no appointment bullshit, no proof of residency asked)
Your residence card IS your proof of residency in Japan, hence the name. It even has your most up-to-date residence printed on the back.
Shinsei sorted me out without one. But wouldn't surprise me for any of the "respectable" banks.
Getting a bank account via SMBC Olive was a painless experience for me. It can all be done an app and a phone call later confirming some details. I was not employed at the time.
Pretty hard, there are some services like sakura sim card and another that just uses your passport, but the rates/services are pretty meh. But it is a softbank sim card, a JP number (thay may not be used for line verification sometimes) and the lowest priority data - meaning if you're in shibuya or shinjuku, sometimes you have no signal.
Getting a credit card as a long term resident alone is hard. Getting a phone number can be troublesome for some people fresh off the boat. One longstanding issue has been people who come to Japan expecting to settle down, then quickly realize it's not for them and take a flight home without telling anybody. Debts left unpaid and landlords not even contacted.
People who come here with the intention of milking some cash and living in a "cheap" country have even less reason to be loyal to it. The consequence will be companies being even stricter, but parasites like AirBnB and similar companies making a killing off offering apartments 5x above normal asking price to rich nomads who will say "wow, it's so cheap!" without realizing they're being ripped off, and killing neighborhoods by driving rent prices up. Owners of multiple homes stand to gain, but typical companies have been doing the math for a long time and see nothing but losses. The general sentiment by locals towards this policy has been "So we're really becoming like Vietnam and Thailand, huh?", so the vast majority of people will not be welcoming nomads with open arms, or at all. There's already massive controversy over new apartments being bought up by foreign investors and locals being pushed farther out of Tokyo.
People can downvote because they don't like hearing this. But it's the state of things here. It's a system forced against the citizens against their will. In a country with a noted history of centuries of distrust of foreigners, this visa scheme is not helping.
It's quite common for apartment blocks to forbid "holiday" rentals. Mine has visible signage about this in the lobby and the building manager also looks out for it. Your typical apartment owner has zero interest in all the trouble these arrangements bring.
That's for regular apartments. The blog author went to a monthly mansion, which are used for holiday rentals and other short-duration stays of a few months or so (such as people moving to a new city and needing a place before they can find a permanent apartment, or maybe people on temporary work assignments in a new city).
They do. But lots of people buy homes just to rent them out. That removes a home from the market, and the competition pushes prices up.
The problem isn't signage.
Plus evicting/canceling a contract is an arduous process. It almost always favors the renter. And in the case of actually buying a home, there isn't much anyone can do.
> One longstanding issue has been people who come to Japan expecting to settle down, then quickly realize it's not for them and take a flight home without telling anybody. Debts left unpaid and landlords not even contacted
This really sounds like one of those not-quite-racist "problems with foreigners" that every country likes to pretend they have. Every "knows" it's a problem, there's no way to prove it right or wrong, but hey, it gives people something to complain about.
It might be racism. But those thoughts aren't going to be undone with visas for rich nomads/tourists who'll stay for 6 months and dip. It's only accelerating justification for racism amongst locals.
And lumping any sort of economic concerns a country has into racism, then considering it something that shouldn't even be talked about because it's "racism", is how these issues start to snowball fast and more extreme racist reactions grow. A few European countries have taken hard right swings because people who said anything about immigration policies were shut down as racists. Now people don't even care about being called racist because the word is normalized. And that's a dangerous path to have started treading down. Japan is a country where being said to have some prejudice isn't something people will shamefully back away from; things could snowball much faster than in Europe.
It’s exactly the same in Germany. It’s not that the system is designed against foreigners, but that it’s not designed for them at all. It’s a sort of “Falsehoods states believe about people” situation . This leads to a lot of Catch-22 situations where you need A to get B and B to get A, and the only way to fix it is to go through expensive loopholes.
It's not a 'Japan thing'. I pay a higher rate on my mortgage because my spouse was not a citizen of where we live when we took it out. There are fewer providers willing to offer mortgages in this situation but, presumably, there's still enough of a price incentive that the premium isn't pulled out of thin air.
It's also common for landlords to ask for higher deposits or months paid up-front.
It's also possible that the banks have less legal requirements to non-citizens so they make up a bullshit reason for charging you higher. Which is absolutely something a bank would do.
> but parasites like AirBnB and similar companies making a killing off offering apartments 5x above normal asking price to rich nomads who will say "wow, it's so cheap!" without realizing they're being ripped off, and killing neighborhoods by driving rent prices up.
The parasites in this case are the landlords, not AirBnB. And they're the one driving the rent prices up, not the renters.
Why does everybody refuse to adress the elephant in the room? Because they have parents and uncles who live by exploiting young workers for rent, and don't want to hurt their feelings?
> The parasites in this case are the landlords, not AirBnB. And they're the one driving the rent prices up, not the renters.
What about considering both as parasites, just different methods for achieving basically the same thing: "More money for me".
Obviously, the landlords are the ones who raise the prices. But I think it'd be ignoring reality if you didn't consider the fact that AirBnb made all of this so much easier and simpler from the landlords. There are platforms that let you sync to many portals, and even see what weeks you should raise the prices to optimize for as much profit as possible. AirBnb and the other platforms are contributing to a constant, collaborative raise of prices.
AirBnB plays a very minor role in this. Yes, they make short-term rentals possible for landlords who are too dumb and lazy to be able to do it otherwise. There were other simliar platforms before AirBnB, there will be others after them.
> There were other simliar platforms before AirBnB, there will be others after them.
That's true, but it wasn't a huge industry like it is now, at least not here where I live (Barcelona, Spain). Once AirBnb appeared on the market, it kind of blew up in popularity. And while hotels/hostels needed permission from the government to make properties into hotels, the vacation rental market didn't (initially) so they ended up buying a lot of property meant for residents, but used it for tourists.
I'm not saying AirBnb is the sole party to blame here, but vacation rental companies do carry some responsibility for this.
That's why the original post says "like Airbnb", and laws like those in NYC ban all of them.
What does that have to do with my comment? The blame is squarely on the landlords, blaming AirBnB or other similar websites is just because people can't deal with the fact that the persons harming them are nearby. So they need an outside force to put the blame on.
Good on NYC to ban short term rentals of residential properties. Short term visitors should stay in buildings especially made for that purpose, such as hotels.
AirBnB is a middle man for an awful activity.
Saying "I didn't do it. I just facilitate it" doesn't absolve them of responsibility for killing cities. And AirBnB is lobbying to get their city destroying service legalized in more areas. They know what they're doing. They deserve the criticism. They could back off at any moment, but choose not to for personal gain.
Except there's not enough hotels in NYC for tourists, because the city is paying them to house homeless people. If you want to stay in NYC for an affordable price (as a non-American), then you have to stay in an AirBNB outside the city and take a train in every day.
When the girlfriend was living in Japan I stayed for 89 days and then went to Taiwan (amazing country, highly recommended) and came back for another 87 days and nobody cared. I guess if you did this a lot it would be an issue but you’re reasonably fine to do it once I think. I was not working but I did have “free” accommodation in the smallest apartment I’ve ever been in so I’d be more concerned about this if I was actually breaking the rules and didn’t have a reason to be there.
"You are only allowed to stay as a "Temporary Visitor" for a total of 180 days during a 12-month period." Similarly, the EU has a 90/180 day rule, so it doesn't work long term.
Curious what the source of the quoted portion is, if I may ask?
As the sibling comment noted, you were within the legal prescribed boundaries. The flag is automatic if something is off. No person (I think/in general/most countries) sits and counts days. The computer does.
In fact if they note they can not track exactly how many days you were in and out of the country that is a separate flag, that would likely in most jurisdiction lead to questioning.
(Source: friend had to pull his tickets and explain his travel path, when following unusual route via Schengen in between his entry/exit.)
Currently in the countries of the Schengen area - a person is supposed to do preciesly that at border control, the electronic entry-exit system, targeted for launch in 2022 is (was) supposed to be that computer however.
There's also the option of spending around $35k to purchase a Japanese business and use that to get an investor visa.
There's a world of difference in the level of effort between this and the digital nomad visa.
And a world of difference in stability and perception. If you have $35k+ to dedicate to this (and note that it does not cost $35k, these are more like initial capital requirements), you should 100% go the investor route.
People underweight how amazing it is to be able to pay less than $50k for the equivalent of a golden visa to a top 5 GDP nation that is well regarded, safe, has some opportunity and is generally easy to live in.
Eh, I ran a business in Japan and have had that visa. I still tell most people who just want to dip their feet in that the digital nomad visa is totally fine and a good way to go.
That stability and perception only matters if you _truly_ want to live here, and quite a number of people spend ~3 months here [1] and realize that it's got issues past the honeymoon period (like anywhere else). There's also no reason you can't change your visa type if you find you actually like it after the DN trip.
[1] "here" because I'm back in Japan for a few weeks for friends at the moment, but you get the idea
While this is purely anecdotal, the friends I have that ended up bailing earlier than planned got really annoyed by nonsensical things like ATMs having operating hours and having to use a fax machine to do something. They probably weren't the main problem but more straw that broke the camel's back.
The ATM working hours can be annoying but honestly I understand the reasoning, it's to prevent drunk guys from being taken advantage of or threatened into making withdraws.
Other than those who have built up Japan as a magical place in their head and are inevitably disappointed that it fails to match, I think that the reason that people end up bailing out of any country is one where they are unable to adapt to a culture and it's nuances.
Most people would get annoyed when you have to take a document to city hall, get it stamped at one desk thane take it 5 desks over for the stamp there as well. Or you can try and understand why their workflow may be this way. Or just not care.
If you are the kind of person who gets annoyed, then you will end up leaving.
>got really annoyed by nonsensical things like ATMs having operating hours and having to use a fax machine to do something.
The ATM operating hours are silly, but 1) you don't need cash that much here anyway, and 2) any decent bank has an ATM with reasonable hours. What are they doing trying to get cash at midnight?
Fax machines are a myth today. I've lived here for several years and have never used one for anything. How long ago was this, over a decade ago? Businesses still use them for some dumb reasons, but regular people don't. People don't even have landlines any more, and usually not even printers at home (you can print stuff at your local konbini).
Not sure if you are aware, but you described Germany as well. ;)
Well, I do describe Japan as "Kawaii Germany".
Lord almighty, at-least the ATM machines here don't have opening hour restrictions.
Though ... https://www.ft.com/content/2778b6c4-4be7-4f38-acee-78f38feca...
Yes, you run the company. IIRC the visa is about management not investment and the company is expected to be profitable for the visa to be renewed. That's quite a different bunch of requirements than just buying a visa and sleeping on it.
They’re just totally different scenarios. Someone looking at a digital nomad visa isn’t looking to stay somewhere in the long term.
But the actual article is about someone trying to live in Japan, the Digital Nomad visa was just seemingly their best option.
They were trying out living in Japan. "I needed more time to judge whether I should take the leap to move there or not."
The golden visas usually have no strings attached. I am not sure about this particular visa but last time I checked Japan they demand that you have a certain amount of activity on the company to keep your residence.
> People underweight how amazing it is to be able to pay less than $50k for the equivalent of a golden visa to a top 5 GDP nation that is well regarded, safe, has some opportunity and is generally easy to live in.
The Japanese are incredibly racist and xenophobic. Numerous businesses outright place signs barring foreigners (particularly russians, chinese, etc)
Japanese citizens are almost always completely trusted by police over anyone, say, white or black. So Japanese who want to fuck with someone will bait them into a confrontation (or just outright lie) so they're arrested - and Japan has a nearly 100% conviction rate, with the worst prison conditions in the developed world.
Some of those assertions are true, some half true, and some are twisting the truth so much that I'd like to note (been living here for 7+ years):
- The Japanese are incredibly racist and xenophobic
Half true, some Japanese are those, but not all and "incredibly" is stretching it a lot (also, it's not good to generalize a negative trait to a whole country, I wonder what that's called). There's also famously a lot of "positive racism" towards Westerners.
- Numerous businesses outright place signs barring foreigners
There's been a handful of places in a country with 120M people, and each and every one of those has made the news, exactly because of how rare they are!
- Japanese citizens are almost always completely trusted by police over anyone, say, white or black.
Sure, this is true.
- So Japanese who want to fuck with someone will bait them into a confrontation (or just outright lie) so they're arrested.
While I don't have any number against it, this feels like such an incredibly bizarre event that I'd like to ask for some sources since it sounds very unbelievable given my personal experiences.
- Japan has a nearly 100% conviction rate
Absolutely not true in that this statement is grossly misconstruing a narrative of "arrested => 100% convicted". ONCE the police decide to pursue a matter, then it's true, but they only do so with incredibly strong evidence. See wikipedias' notes: "If measured in the same way, the United States' federal conviction rate would be 99.8%." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate#Japan
- With the worst prison conditions in the developed world
Fairly true, if we consider only the handful of countries that can be called "the developed world".
This is heavily tilted.
The Japanese conviction rate is high, but this is largely in part because the authorities are extremely reluctant to try cases unless they have a slam-dunk case. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...
Also worth noting that, when evaluated equally, the US justice system has a similarly high rate: None of which is to say that there aren't serious problems with the Japanese justice system (or the US one, for that matter).I am glad they prioritize and look out for their own. That's how it should be. Not everywhere needs to be in love with globalism. And yes, I would say the same should be the case in other places as well.
> My first thought was to work remotely and use the 90 days permitted by the tourist visa. Yet working in Japan on this visa is a gray zone at best and a practice I would stay away from. In fact, the US Embassy in Japan strictly advises against this
I’ve always wondered why countries care about this. If I’m employed in my home country, earning money there and paying taxes, what difference does it make if I happen to sit in another country?
Or if I save up 6 months of PTO, then go to another country for those six months. I’m very much earning money and paying tax in my home country. Why is it ok for me to open my laptop and spend 10 hours a day on random stuff, but not “work stuff”?
> If I’m employed in my home country, earning money there and paying taxes, what difference does it make if I happen to sit in another country?
Why does "home country" have tax priority over "sitting in" country? How does that make sense vs having the taxes paid in "sitting in" country instead of "home country"?
with perhaps the strongest argument being jurisdiction. What gives "home country" the legal right to claim taxes on income earned in "sitting country"?
and that's where things get complicated. In order to pay taxes in "sitting country" you need a "sitting tax ID number" and other admin, also if the taxes involve wage withholding, who does the withholding and ensures compliance, etc, etc.
How does this align, in the US, with state-level taxes? If you were born in MN and moved to FL, do you pay MN or FL state income taxes (noting that FL does not have state income tax)?
Is "home country" the state with the home office of the company which employs you, or the state you live in? Should employees of a California company pay California state income tax even when working remote from Texas (another no income tax state)? Or the classic Washington/Oregon divide?
> with perhaps the strongest argument being jurisdiction. What gives "home country" the legal right to claim taxes on income earned in "sitting country"?
Usually a treaty. At least here in Canada the government has tax treaties with most other countries whereby both countries agree the citizen should pay taxes to the country they reside in the majority of the year.
The relevant portion of the US-Japan treaty is Article 14(2). As the IRS explains:
> Paragraph 2 sets forth an exception to the general rule in paragraph 1 that employment income may be taxed in the Contracting State where the employment is exercised. Under paragraph 2, the Contracting State where the employment is exercised may not tax the income from the employment if three conditions are satisfied: (1) the individual is present in the other Contracting State for a period or periods not exceeding 183 days in any 12-month period that begins or ends during the relevant (i.e., the year in which the services are performed) calendar year; (2) the remuneration is paid by, or on behalf of, an employer who is not a resident of that other Contracting State; and (3) the remuneration is not borne by a permanent establishment that the employer has in that other Contracting State. In order for the remuneration to be exempt from tax in the source State, all three conditions must be satisfied. This exception is identical to that set forth in the U.S. and OECD Models.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/japante04.pdf
https://www.mof.go.jp/tax_policy/summary/international/tax_c...
> go to another country for those six months
> paying tax in my home country
Don't you think you've answered your own question?
This makes no sense... consider these scenarios:
A) You work for a US company, earn money from the US company, pay income taxes in the US, live and spend money (and thus sales taxes) in the US
B) You work for a US company, earn money from the US company, pay income taxes in the US, but live and spend money (and thus sales taxes) in Japan
Clearly (B) is better for Japan economically? I think these laws are mostly enforced out of inertia and not any rational reason.
> Clearly (B) is better for Japan economically?
Scenario B is amazing for the US. I don't see how it's clearly better for Japan. I don't know about you but I pay far more in income tax than sales tax. You spend money but you also consume government services and infrastructure while paying less in tax to Japan than a resident employed in Japan would.
But in scenario (B) you're spending money in Japan, basically you're directly injecting US money (your US salary) into the Japanese economy. Don't see why it's "amazing" for the US and not for Japan.
> Don't see why it's "amazing" for the US
Because you're paying US income taxes while consuming next to no US government services or infrastructure.
> But in scenario (B) you're spending money in Japan
Anyone who lives and works in Japan spends money in Japan. What's great about that? Most of those people also pay taxes.
> basically you're directly injecting US money (your US salary) into the Japanese economy
Japan might say: if this US company doesn't mind someone working from Japan and paying them an American salary, why not a person who already lives there and pays taxes there? That's obviously better than someone new who doesn't pay taxes there.
I think you both are right in a way and what is maybe relevant is the duration.
If someone lives full time permanently in another country working remotely, they probably are already actually a tax resident of that country and would typically pay tax to that country.
What the country doesn't want is someone traveling and in the country for a few months and then taking a local job that could have been taken by a citizen while also not being a tax resident, which is what the work restrictions on visas are intended to prevent.
But if someone is traveling and in the country for a few months, and works remotely while there, it really makes little difference to the country compared to another tourist other than the fact that the visitor now has access to more funds to be spending in their country while there; but visas don't support this well.
When you put it that way, the answer seems obvious. You're not paying taxes to the country you're residing in. You're not paying taxes for the infrastructure you're using.
Why is it ok for pure tourism? Because tourism is expected to be shorter-term, and you're likely to be putting more money into the local economy as a tourist.
So they need to register this at the very least. I don't know if they tax digital nomad work but they do obviously want to have some control over it.
> what difference does it make if I happen to sit in another country?
Because you're breaking the law in that country and your country is actually trying to be help you not do that.
But why is the law this way? Why not permit it?
Those laws where designed before you had the relativelly new phenomenon of digital nomads.
They were created so the local companies wouldn't hire foreign citizens under the table, skirting taxes and depressing wages for local workers, which would be an unpopular outcome amongst voters.
Working for a local company is an entirely different thing, and not what I’m asking about at all.
I know. I am telling you why the laws were created on the first place. Nobody though about putting an exception. And frankly, even if they did think about it, they would probably still do the same, to avoid the legal loophole of local companies using a foreign employer of record to hire cheaper foreign workers.
For every petit-bourguoise privileged nomad software engineer there are thousands of potential low-skill foreign workers that companies are eager to employ to pay less and circumvent local worker protection laws.
All the fiscalization and enforcement structure along with the law is designed for this use case and any seemingly innocuos exception on the law can be exploited by bad actors, so, govern are relutant to do so just because a few rich kids from sillicon valley want to play modern colonial dandy.
Because the laws were created before the idea of working remotely.
> I’ve always wondered why countries care about this. If I’m employed in my home country, earning money there and paying taxes, what difference does it make if I happen to sit in another country?
Based on the practical enforcement I get the feeling that most countries don't really care about this, but this situation started happening much faster than visa law changes. Hence the grey area.
Well, they probably want to double-tax your wages[0]. But that's why the digital nomad visa class was established.
But the real explanation is mostly just that it's how the law was written. In general, laws are brokered agreements between those who are currently in power, so they have no principles. More specifically, when countries[1] started implementing categories-and-quotas based immigration control, they decided leisure travel should have its own category, and wrote a restrictive definition of a tourist into the law.
It's important to remember that at the time these laws were written, remote workers didn't exist. If you were entering a country and doing work, it was going to be for a local business, and that visa category had far more restrictive visas intended to privilege native workers over foreign in the labor market. Ergo, the tourism visa has to exclude any work at all. This separation was carried forward into the various reciprocal[2] visa-free travel arrangements that made it so you don't have to physically go to an embassy and file paperwork to get a tourist visa.
Of course, all of this is silly in the Internet age, but good luck convincing every country in the world to allow worldwide labor rights.
[0] Fun fact: the US taxes based on citizenship, not residency, so you will always be double-taxed as a US emigrant, even if you're not remotely working for a US company.
[1] I realize Japan is probably a bad example for this discussion, because they used to be completely closed to both immigration and emigration for over a century. This policy even has a name: "sakoku". In contrast, America used to have an extremely racialized immigration policy, which is what was replaced with the (deracialized) categories and quotas. Before that policy, we actually had a really liberal immigration policy.
[2] COVID-19 notwithstanding
Hoping to apply for this visa soon without too many issues. I know people just go and work remotely on tourist visas but I'd rather not take the risk, especially as I want to use coworking spaces.
It's unfortunate that the visa is only 6 months and not extendable, but if I really end up liking Japan maybe I'll go to language school so I can stay for longer.
You can also get a Japanese Working Holiday Visa which allows you to work in Japan and stay for a year. https://yoyogi.io/en/how-to-get-a-japanese-working-holiday-v...
That was covered in the article, but as the author was already older than 30 years, it wouldn’t have been applicable for them. It also seems the Working Holiday visa is intended for “employment as an incidental activity of their holidays for the purpose of supplementing their travel funds” [1], whereas the author rather appeared to be looking for a “working full-time with some incidental holidays alongside” situation.
[1]: https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/w_holiday/index.html
Also, Working Holiday is a reciprocal visa category and the US doesn't have an equivalent visa, so Americans can't get Japanese Working Holiday visas.
Now, if it was called Working Vacation...
(Americans can’t)
Otherwise yes
What's the difference between this and just visit twice on a tourist visa?
Is you are on a tourist visa then you cannot work. Actively working as a nomad ok a tourist visa waiver is breaking the law.
Of course, nomads often did come and with in this status. They would exist in a grey area, arguing their with was more incidental in nature and bit the reason to be in Japan (just like replying to a few with emails while in holiday).
The nomad visa is essentially formalizing this grey area. As other commentors have mentioned, it's not a particularly useful status as you don't get a residence card and you can enroll in national health insurance too. You'll also find it harder to find apartments to rent too
No one will ever know or care if you’re working remotely while in Japan on a tourist visa. Just AirBnB and get ordinary travel insurance.
For a paltry 6 months this nomad visa seems like a massive amount of paperwork for no benefit.
Apparently they do, from the article quoting the US Embassy:
Japanese Immigration officials are aware of the pattern of people staying for 80-90 days as “tourists,” spending a few days in Korea, Guam or some other nearby area and then seeking to re-enter Japan for another 90 days. Persons with such a travel pattern can expect to face questions at Japanese Immigration and may be denied entry with the suspicion that they have been or will work illegally in Japan. In that Japanese Immigration records are computerized, a “lost” passport does not serve to mask long stays in Japan.
I think it’s mostly for the visa runs, not the woking per se. (I would still not recommend it, especially not if you are planning on getting a permanent residence status later on.)
Well, EU prevents this kind of workaround by restricting stays to 90 days within 180 days period, so leaving EU for a couple of days after a stay of 90 days and coming back to stay another 90 days won't work, you will go over your quota.
Imagine if they just had a sane immigration policy instead ?
I'm guessing your opinion is that western immigration policies, shall we say "unique" vs the rest of the world, are "sane". Maybe you're not aware on which side of the asylum walls you're standing.
Well, the USA and EU are also equally (if not more) strict about not working on tourist or business visas. You have to get a work visa.
There is technically a “hidden” six month tourist visa if you can show you have a significant amount of money in your bank account. In practice all it does is save you an entry/exit.
Who do you show the significant amount of money to and how?
This page appears to have more information:
https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page22e_000738.html
The amount seems to be 30 million yen or just under $200k.
What is the definition of work?
If you mainly passively own a business in a different country, is that work?
If you mainly passively manage your portfolio of foreign assets, is that work?
Seems like a question better directed to the relevant country's authorities.
Right so it's a compliance thing.
Rather than just visiting on a tourist visa and relying on the fact that no immigration officer is going to come bust in your hotel door and yell "hey are you doing work on that laptop!", you go through a bunch of tedious bureaucratic hoops to get the assurance that they definitely for certain won't come inspect what you're doing on your laptop.
People are being too individualistic here - Japan or any other country is never going to go after individuals who happen to work for remote companies or freelance while they globe trot working on tourist visas.
But when companies like Shopify go fully remote, if they suddenly have a lot of employees who are frequenting Japan, they are painting a giant target on their back and exposing themselves to legal risk. A company is never going to expose themselves to this kind of legal risk so HR will very quickly (and understandably) clamp down on this. This is why even the most progressive "work from anywhere" policies tend to have fine print that amounts to "your country of residence and any home countries you can legally work in". This is then why we often see "remote" coming with all kinds of conditions like US remote or EU remote etc because the reality of legal compliance for HR is a huge headache.
These nomad visas are a baby step in the right direction towards unburdening companies from this liability.
Also, while they're unlikely to spend resources toward going after individuals who happen to work remotely on a tourist visa, it's comparatively trivial to pull people out at entry (and that's going to be a regular and well-documented occurrence because the alternative of overstaying your visa is absolutely something countries with governments tend to care about).
What circumstance are you referring to with "at entry"?
Leaving and coming back on a new tourist visa within a short time frame, as opposed to just overstaying your initial tourist visa in the first place.
> This is then why we often see "remote" coming with all kinds of conditions like US remote or EU remote etc because the reality of legal compliance for HR is a huge headache.
Could they just hire those individuals as contractors instead? It should be up to the contractor to ensure compliance then. (IANAL)
First of all, that's complicated and employees can easily fuck it up.
I once worked at a tiny company, and their first 'contractor' employee didn't realise he had to set aside money for certain taxes, and didn't realise he'd have to record certain details to be able to fill out certain forms, and things like that.
This ended up being a bunch of hassle for the company as he... thought? hoped? expected? that they were paying those taxes, as they would have done if he was a regular employee. Now the guy's resentful, feels you've ripped him off, and is constantly distracted.
Secondly, there can still be local laws you have to comply with. Some countries have problems with sham contractor arrangements, where they insist their normal, regular employees are 'self-employed contractors' to avoid giving them sick pay, holiday, pension, maternity leave, minimum wage, redundancy pay, complying with safety rules, and so on. So they have laws saying that under certain circumstances, contractors effectively turn into regular employees.
As I can't read Kazakh, how am I supposed to know if the Kazakhstani tax code has similar rules?
> I once worked at a tiny company, and their first 'contractor' employee didn't realise he had to set aside money for certain taxes
It's a valid concern. Should be easy to solve though: add a reminder to the employee handbook, and also remind them to check out local tax codes and set aside money.
> Some countries have problems with sham contractor arrangements
This usually doesn't apply to cross-border relationships though (which we implicitly focus on here I think, given this is a thread about moving to Japan). It is possible in theory, of course, for tax authorities to go after international contractors clayming they are international employees, but I haven't heard about such cases yet.
But there's an easy way to distinguish employment and contractor relationships: if you set a specific goal and a deadline, and do not tell them how to do the job, you have a contractor. (The goal does have to be specific, though, but you can say in your contract that you will use Jira tickets for that, I believe.)
I think that overlaps pretty well with most remote work. Specifics might differ, but as a general rule this is it what tax authorities pretty much everywhere will look for.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer nor a tax advisor, just doing a lot of freelance and run an Estonian LLC for fun
Some do but from observation lawyers/HR find reasons to resist this.
The most likely explanation is there could be risk but there is zero risk associated with saying no so legal and HR say no to this arrangement because they don't want more work and legal and HR are cost centres so they can't magically pull budget out of thin air to appease some annoying digital nomads. A company is also not going to let their entire workforce of full time employees transition to contractors overnight either, which would be a giant headache for both HR and senior management.
For example VCs prefer "headcount" over contractors for a number of reasons so there is pressure from the top to incentivise full time employees. Large multinationals have a lot of considerations around taxation (its always taxes...)
These are some of the practicalities I've uncovered that provide inertia towards remote working
Makes sense, thanks!
> A company is also not going to let their entire workforce of full time employees transition to contractors overnight either
This could actually look like tax evasion (in countries with lower taxes for sole proprietors / self-employed people), so not a great idea in any case.
Long story short, it's a complete quagmire, especially since you're bringing cross-border tax issues into play.
A small company that doesn't know much about compliance may be happy to call it "freelance", but any bigger company with a professional HR person is going to balk at it, because they want certainty they're compliant, e.g. no misclassification.
They're much more likely to be happy about it if you can stick a local LLC between you and them though.
Well whole contractor status is very murky in many places. Either very strict like in UK. Or then you need all sorts of agreements in between, meaning that you might need to give cut to some third company. And then those companies have same problems.
Even inside EU with freedom of movement spending more than 180 days in single country can lead to tax implications. Doing this globally is even bigger mess as ways of counting time might not be the same.
> Or then you need all sorts of agreements in between, meaning that you might need to give cut to some third company. And then those companies have same problems.
It could be a viable solution actually. There’s a bunch of companies that can both employ or subcontract a person on behalf of another company.
I think if the company is not against it in principle, it becomes just another negotiation point, e.g. you can agree to a lower net salary so that the gross amount the company has to pay is the same (including the middleman fee).
There are cases of this being enforced against individuals in the USA and UK after posting on social media though.
It's like this: basically everyone who's ever driven a car has broken the law, gone over the speed limit etc.
But if you video it, broadcast it on social media that "OMG I'm driving so fast LOL!", encourage others to do the same, and tag the account of the local police, the situation is different.
I have to assume that’s pretty rare but I probably wouldn’t post that I’m working remotely or use a co-working space.
It's mentioned in the article, the US embassy advises against unauthorized employment. https://jp.usembassy.gov/services/visas-japan-u-s-citizens/
It also avoids differentiating on two very different scenarios: coming to Japan without a work visa to work illegally for a local company, and doing work for an employer or client not in Japan while being in Japan.
On paper, all laws are strict. In practice, some of them, and some interpretations of them, are considered a higher priority than others (which can range to straight up ignoring them or even violating them themselves).
The point I'm making is I don't get why they've bothered with such a pointless visa, and it sounds like some PR stunt. If it extended to a year or was a residence permit then it'd be an actual valuable visa worth the effort.
The only thing I can think of is maybe they hoped it'd be used by digital nomads to come work for local companies for 6 months, but that doesn't sound likely. PR gimmick or "we're doing things" purpose more likely.
Working on tourist visas is illegal... ?
What's the difference between buying an iPhone and taking one from the Apple store? You get an iPhone at the end of both.
Can someone please explain to me why it is called “Visa” in some languages and “Visum” in others? My understanding is that “visum” means “that which has been seen” in Latin. What does “visa” mean then?
> My understanding is that “visum” means “that which has been seen” in Latin. What does “visa” mean then?
Basically the same thing, from the same root verb “vidēre”; vīsum is “that which has been seen” (noun), vīsa is “which has been seen” (adjective), from which English and some other languages have derived a noun “visa” as a shortening of the modern Latin “charta vīsa” (“paper/document which has been seen”) possibly through a french intermediary before English (different sources I’ve seen disagree on this.)
They're both forms (perfect passive particle in particular) of the latin verb "video". So they both mean "having been seen". The difference is in gender. visa = feminine; visum = neuter; visus = masculine.
with US passport I can stay in Japan for 90 days without a visa, if I want to work occasionally remotely for jobs at US part time, do I still need go through all the paperwork to get a Nomad visa? what's the purpose of Nomad visa when everyone has a laptop and can work remotely if they want to?
The article addresses this.
> My first thought was to work remotely and use the 90 days permitted by the tourist visa. Yet working in Japan on this visa is a gray zone at best and a practice I would stay away from. In fact, the US Embassy in Japan strictly advises against this:
> Persons found working illegally are subject to arrest and deportation.
> Persons believed to be entering Japan without a working visa but who intend to work here can be denied entry into Japan. This means that you will not exit the airport and will be required to return directly to the U.S.
Did more quick reading, Nomad visa gives you 6 month(tourist is 90 days), as long as you don't take local jobs you're fine, and there is no need to pay tax to Japan as well. now it seems just like a visa double the duration of tourist visa to me.
Right, “working illegally” here means taking local jobs, not working for your own employer located in a foreign country.
>> what's the purpose of Nomad visa when everyone has a laptop and can work remotely if they want to?
Because you are working in a country, consuming its services, but not paying the local income tax. A work permit either officially ops you out of this or allows you to properly file/pay taxes.
And fyi to Americans reading this: you still owe taxes to the IRS for work done overseas. There are all sorts of deductions and such, but only if you actually file. Not filing in either country could see you owe a huge amount to both, even if that means paying more than 100% tax. Don't risk it.
If you read the article the author does quote the US embassy in Japan strictly advising against this and that you risk arrest and deportation, that immigration officials do crack down on digital nomads, especially re-entering Japan to renew 90 day tourist visas to work.
A lot of countries have laws against working remotely without a visa, although apart from the US few actively enforce them.
Seems like the restriction would only make sense in the context of working for a Japanese company. Similar to US visas for visitors where the traveler cannot visit the US for work purposes with a US-based employer.
Otherwise, opening a work laptop and answering some work emails for your foreign employer would be risky.
Precisely this - countries protecting their job markets against foreigners working illegally (not paying taxes, undercutting wages, etc).
This has nothing to do with you working for your own foreign employer while on vacation.
Isn't Japan an expensive country?
It is a mixed bag: apartments can be pretty expensive, especially in Greater Tokyo area. Food is pretty cheap IMO. Taxis are prohibitively expensive, but railroad system is really really good and compensates for that pretty well.
But people don’t go to Japan because it’s cheap – it’s just a really nice place to live for some.
Apartments even in Tokyo are still quite cheap compared to today's rents in major American cities, and not needing to own a car also cuts living expenses massively compared to living in the US.
Someone coming from a German city with good public transit might not think it's that cheap though. But a lot of digital nomads are Americans.
apartments can be pretty expensive
Poking around sites online it was quite easy to find apartments fairly centrally in Tokyo for $1000-1300/month if you were staying for 3-6 months. While that is far from cheap, I certainly wouldn't call it expensive in the grand scheme of major international cities.
Actually yeah, sounds pretty reasonable. I haven't looked into it much yet myself – could you share some links where to start, please?
My relatives built a house in Tokyo which was absurdly cheap (£300K), but maybe I'm just used to London prices. As you get out of the major cities, akiyas can be basically "free", although will require a huge amount of time and effort to make habitable again.
Apartments are way cheaper compared to other major US cities. They're probably smaller though but the convenience makes up for it. You can also find something as low as $300 in Tokyo if you are fine with a very long commute to the station. I used to have a sharehouse apartment in Shibuya for $600. Shared kitchen, bathroom and shower. It was pretty good considering I didn't spend much time at home other than to sleep.
I don't know what you are comparing against, but taxis are not expensive, though I wouldn't call them cheap either.
> I don't know what you are comparing against
Maybe it’s selection bias, but pretty much anywhere I’ve been lately taxi (or actually ride hailing) is at least pretty affordable. E.g. a half hour ride I took late at night in HK was US$30, and about US$10 in Singapore. In Tokyo it was $60.
Depends on how much space you need to live. If you are fine with very little space, Japan is actually pretty affordable. Cheap food is good/health. Public transport is cheap and good/great. Lots of activities to kill time for cheap. Not sure about health care though.
If you come with USD you basically double your money the moment. Its yen has crashed.
Japanese salaries are very low (compared to the US). So if you’re coming from North America, local prices combined with exchange rates make it super affordable.
I visited Tokyo from London recently and found it to be much cheaper. A decent meal is half, or less than half of what you would pay here, not to mention healthier. Another comment mentioned taxis are expensive, but I found the opposite, my journey was cheaper than it would have been in London, and the drivers are much more professional. As for apartments, you can live much cheaper and more centrally (~£1500 is the minimum you need to play with if you want to live in central London.) Public transport is also cheaper, faster, and more reliable.
So yeah, on the whole, Tokyo is like half the cost of London and you get more for your money.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
Serious question, and not being flippant: crine in .jp vs .uk? Noticeable?
I had never felt so safe while I was there. I knew I didn't have to check over my shoulder, or walk down a side road if I wanted to use my phone so as to avoid having it grabbed from my hands. When I rented a bike, I could simply park it up without a lock, and knew I would come back to see it exactly where I left it. I forgot my bag in a taxi and got it back the next morning by going to the taxi office. I left my umbrella on a chair and came back to see it exactly where I left it.
It's how living in a civilised, first world country should be.
> walk down a side road if I wanted to use my phone so as to avoid having it grabbed from my hands.
Is this really a thing in London?
Yes, phone theft is rampant in London. The thieves are rarely caught and if they are, they get off lightly. Or released early from prison, because our prisons are full.
Japan is absurdly safe and law-abiding, even by developed country standards.
They're 12th on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
The top 10 are mostly microstates or Pacific Island nations.
Answering your comment seriously, with an appropriate level of flippancy:
On the Tokyo metro this year I saw many advertisements for hair issues; lots of ads with balding noggins, contrasted with thick gorgeous heads of hair that you can acquire by making an appointment through a (naturally!) Japanese domain. In London, meanwhile, I saw zero ads for any hair-related products or services on the tube. Though if there were, I would imagine most would be advertised with a UK TLD.
OP is not getting paid in yen, so frankly it doesn’t matter. The Yen’s abysmal at the moment.
Lucky you )