▲ Streets of Kyoto, Japan (The photo above is not related to the article contents.)
The Japanese government, which has been strengthening the management of foreign nationals, has decided to significantly tighten requirements for permanent residency, such as demanding annual incomes and projected pension benefits that exceed the Japanese national average, according to reports by the Asahi Shimbun and other media outlets.
According to the reports, the Immigration Services Agency of Japan has drawn up a draft revision to the guidelines for granting permanent residency reflecting these measures.
Under the new guidelines, applicants must have an annual income exceeding the average for Japanese households, alongside a projected pension benefit amount equivalent to what one would receive after enrolling in the Employees' Pension Insurance for 30 years to qualify for permanent residency.
If the Employees' Pension amount falls short, applicants must hold sufficient financial assets to make up for the difference.
Japan's current Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act stipulates requirements for permanent residency as follows: having good conduct, maintaining an independent livelihood, and serving the interests of Japan. The new guidelines serve to strengthen the second of these provisions.
The new guidelines are interpreted as having been formulated in response to a succession of cases where individuals who obtained permanent residency subsequently applied for livelihood protection.
Additionally, regarding the third requirement under the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act concerning the "interests of Japan," the revision includes the establishment of specific evaluation criteria. It outlines that "negative evaluations" will be given if applicants lack an understanding of systems including Japanese lifestyle habits, or fail to enroll children of compulsory education age in school.
The annual income requirement among the new guidelines is slated to take effect starting next October, while the rest are planned to be implemented beginning in April of next year.
In principle, a period of stay of 10 years or more is required to apply for permanent residency in Japan.
However, while permanent residency was previously granted even if the marriage period was 3 years and the period of stay was 1 year for spouses of Japanese citizens or permanent residents, these criteria are also being raised to 5 years and 3 years, respectively.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government has begun considering plans to establish numerical upper-limit targets for foreign residents staying in the country.
The previous day, the government established a new panel of experts to review these matters and plans to formulate a related basic policy by March of next year.
The upper-limit target for accepting foreign nationals was included in the coalition government agreement between the Liberal Democratic Party and its ruling coalition partner, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), with Ishin having demanded that an upper-limit target be set for the proportion of foreigners in the population.
Foreign residents staying in Japan reached 4.12 million at the end of last year, showing an upward trend of about 1.5 times the figure at the end of 2021.
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