In general, if you are living in Japan and wish to obtain permanent residence status, you must live in Japan for a minimum of ten years. Although this period can be shortened in cases where you are married to a Japanese person, married to someone who already has their permanent residence status, etc.
What if you have a dependent visa and wish to obtain permanent residence status?
In this case if your supporter meets the criteria of constantly living in Japan for 10 years, you are able to apply for Permanent Residence status at the same time with your supporter, even if you have not lived in Japan for 10 years.
Let’s review the specific criterial.
If you are a spouse of your supporter
- Have been married for more than 3 years
- Have lived over 1 year in Japan
- Having a dependent visa with a period of stay of 3 years or more
If you are a child of a supporter
- Have lived over 1 year in Japan
- Having a dependent visa with a period of stay of 3 years or more
The important point is that those with a dependent visa must apply for Permanent Residence Status at the same time as your supporter. Those with a dependent visa cannot apply for permanent status by themselves.
Supporters however can apply for permanent resident status themselves. A supporter who has residence status of Business Manager, Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Service, Skilled Labor etc., is able to apply for Permanent Residence Status by himself/ herself.
However, what will happen to a person who has a dependent visa, once the supporter obtained Permanent Residence status? In this case the person with his/her dependent visa is no longer eligible to have the dependent visa, so they must change their status of residence. If you are a spouse, you can obtain residence status of Spouse of Permanent Resident. If you are a child, you can obtain residence status of long-term Residence.
In most cases if the supporter obtained his/her Permanent Residence status first, dependents will be able to obtain Permanent Residence status if they apply after the supporter has obtained Permanent Residence status. However as stated above, persons with a dependent visa may not apply for permanent resident status by themselves. Immigration tends to ask to change residence status first, such as Spouse of Permanent Residence status, Long-term residence, etc. Once a dependent has changed their dependent visa over, they may then apply for Permanent Residence.
So my advice here is if you would like to save time and do less paper works, it’s better to apply for Permanent Residence status at the same time as your supporter.
