If you are working in Japan as a freelancer such as translator or engineer and are considering applying for Permanente Residence status, you may wonder, “Is a freelancer eligible to apply for Permanent Residence status in Japan?”
The answer is “Yes.”
However, compared to a company employee, you may need to be extra careful about how you report your annual income and ensure you are paying into municipal tax, medical insurance fees and pension fees.
Annual income
Although there is no official criteria for the annual income that you need to meet in order to apply for status of permanent residence, ideally your annual salary should be higher than ￥3,000,000 if you are single and not supporting any family members. If you are supporting family members your annual salary should have roughly an additional￥700,000 per dependent.
If you are a company employee, your gross salary will be considered as your annual income when you apply to immigration. Meaning total income including all basic salary and other cash allowances before the deductions of municipal tax, medical insurance fees and pension fees.
If you are a freelancer, your annual income will be after the deductions of cost, provision and blue tax return from your total annual sales. Meaning if this amount is less than ￥3,000,000 (If you are single), your application has a high possibility of being denied.
Paying into municipal tax, medical insurance fees and pension fees
If you are a full-time employee, you are eligible to be enrolled in the Employee’s Health Insurance program and the Employee’s Welfare Pension Insurance program. In this case your company deducts medical insurance and pension fees from your monthly salary and most likely your municipal tax.
On the other hand, if you are a freelancer you are enrolling in the National Health Insurance program and the National Pension Program. In this case those fees and municipal tax are not deducted from your salary and it is your responsibility to pay into them.
You will receive a collection of bills every June after the start of the new tax year, and you must pay by the due date of each bill or if you provide your bank account information, they can deduct these fees from your account every month. As Immigration will strictly check whether you have paid these fees without any delay, any delay could be used as justification to deny your permanent resident application.
