How I Got a Digital Nomad Visa for Japan(tokyodev.com) |
How I Got a Digital Nomad Visa for Japan(tokyodev.com) |
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
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”?
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.
[1]: https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/w_holiday/index.html
Now, if it was called Working Vacation...
Otherwise yes
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.)
> 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.
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.
A lot of countries have laws against working remotely without a visa, although apart from the US few actively enforce them.
Otherwise, opening a work laptop and answering some work emails for your foreign employer would be risky.
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?
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.
> paying tax in my home country
Don't you think you've answered your own question?
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.
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.
Because you're breaking the law in that country and your country is actually trying to be help you not do that.
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.
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
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
For a paltry 6 months this nomad visa seems like a massive amount of paperwork for no benefit.
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?
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.
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.
What's the difference between buying an iPhone and taking one from the Apple store? You get an iPhone at the end of both.
But people don’t go to Japan because it’s cheap – it’s just a really nice place to live for some.
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.
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...
This has nothing to do with you working for your own foreign employer while on vacation.
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.
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.
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.
> 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...
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 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.
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 also common for landlords to ask for higher deposits or months paid up-front.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's how living in a civilised, first world country should be.
Is this really a thing in London?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Could they just hire those individuals as contractors instead? It should be up to the contractor to ensure compliance then. (IANAL)
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?
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page22e_000738.html
The amount seems to be 30 million yen or just under $200k.
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
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).
> 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.
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
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.
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).
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.
- 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".
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Though ... https://www.ft.com/content/2778b6c4-4be7-4f38-acee-78f38feca...
To csomar: you are willingly spreading harmful advice. Stop it. Stop making people reply to clean up your mess.
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.
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.
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.
My recollection of the countertop oven is that it would fit half a small size turkey...for we did do that one year.
Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought that was typical for Japanese homes?
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.
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.
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.