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If you are IT engineers, researcher, lawyers, CPAs and other while color professionals, getting Permanent Residence Permits in Japan is one of the way to make your life in Japan better than now. By getting Permanent Resident, you will gain social credit in Japanese society When you apply for housing loan, some of banks requires you to be Permanent Residents.
It is also worth mentioning that you have no limitation on your activity in Japan once you get Permanent Residence Permit. You no longer need to care about what types of job you can legally do in Japan and you could even start your own business while engaging in your professional jobs.
But here is one problem. If you apply for Permanent Residence Permits as general applicants, you are required to live in Japan continuously for 10 years or more If you are spouse of Japanese or Permanent Residents, you might be able to apply for Permanent Residence with at least 1 year residence in Japan. But the problem if you are not spouse of Japanese or Permanent Residents.
But there is one way that professionals could get Permanent Residence Permits earlier. That is point based system for Highly skilled professionals. By using this system, you could get your Permanent Residence Permits by living in Japan for 1~3 years and meeting some criteria.
In this article, I’ll explain how to apply for Permanent Residence Permits by using poing based system.
What is point-based system
Before talking about how you could apply for PR applications through point-based system, I want to explain what is the point-based system from the beginning.
This is the system to evaluate the professionals like researchers, scientists, engineers and other professionals. The system put 5~40 points for educational background, professional experience, age, patents, academic papers, their employers and other aspects. If you have 70 points for this evaluation, you will be considered as Highly skilled professionals and could apply for residence status named “Highly skilled professionals”(高度専門職).
The guideline for Permanents Residences also has special rules for people who have 70 points or more and the people who have 80 points or more.
Check your score
Then let’s move on how you will prepare for PR applications through point-based system. The first thing you need to do is checking your score on point-based system. The Immigration Services Agency published the point calculation sheet to check how many points you could get through point-based system.
You could download the point calculation sheet from the following website of the Immigration Services Agency.
If you have 70 points or more, or 80 points or more, then you need to check your scores as follows.
The person who have 70 points or more
If you currently have 70 points or more, you need to check whether you has been keeping 70 points or more for current 3 years
The person who have 80 points or more
If you currently have 80 points or more, you need to check whether you keep 80 points or more for current 1 year.
Check whether you meet the requirements of Permanent Residence
After you find that you have enough points to use point-based system, then you need to check whether you also meet the other requirements for PR applications. If you meet these criteria, you will meet the requirements for Permanent Residence.
※Please note that there are some unwritten internal standards inside of the Immigration Services Bureau to find whether you meet these requirements. I recommends you to consult with Immigration law professionals when you check your eligibility
□Not being punished for violation of law before
※If you have the history of several violations of traffic rules, it is better to check whether you meet these requirements carefully.
□Having enough income or asset to sustain your life in Japan
※Immigration authority has their own standard to measure whether you meet this requirements or not
□Having 3 years valid VISA or 5 years valid VISA
□Not being punished for violation of law and fulfill public duty properly
□Making payment for tax and social security within deadline
□Not harming public sanitary
Drafting the application documents and collecting necessary documents
After finding you meet all of the requirements, the next step is preparation of the documents required by the Immigration Services Agency. The agency published the list of required documents on their website. Nomally, the people need to collect the following documents
Application form
Reason Letter
Residence record
Employment certificates
Residence tax certificates
Tax Certificates
Pension documents
Proofs of point calculations
You need to know that there are some documents which is better to file even through it’s not mentioned as required documents. The purpose of submitting documents it to show you meet the requirements of Permanent Residency and has no issue which could result in rejection. So, if you can’t show enough information by just filing the required documents, you should consider submitting other documents.
Getting support from Immigration Professionals is also better way
You could file PR applications by yourself. However, there are some people who use professional services like us to file PR application. You might wonder whether using professional service is better or not.
The answer to this question depends on your condition. But when you consider using professional service for PR application, I strongly recommend to check the following aspects.
□You could understand Japanese as native language speaker.
→Since most of the documents from Japanese public offices are issued in Japanese, you need Japanese proficiency to analyze the documents.
□Having knowledge to analyze tax certificates and pension documents.
→The Immigration Inspectors analyze the tax certificates to check whether the applicants meet the requirements of Permanent Residency. They check not only the amount of income but also the number of dependents and other information. You need to have the knowledge to analyze the tax certificate.
□Checking whether your application does not require additional treatment.
→There are unwritten check points the Immigration inspectors will check when they review the application for Permanent Residency. And the condition of your tax certificates and pension documents could also negatively affect the result. You are required to make additional explanation to reduce the risk of rejection or avoid misunderstanding by the Immigration Authority.
□Whether you want to get advise what to do after filing applications
→Recently Tokyo Regional Immigration Services Bureau tend to take around 18 months for inspection of single application for Permanent Residency. For some of applications, the Immigration Inspectors seek additional documents to check applicant’s condition after the application is filed. So, you need to know what to do and what not do after your application is filed.
Daichi Ito
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