PR: 10-year route

ISA’s current PR guideline says that taxes and premiums paid by the time you apply still count against you, as a rule, if they weren’t paid within the original period. The October 2026 guideline keeps that approach: past non-payment can count even if nothing is unpaid on the day you apply.

The self-check sheet you hand in with a PR application asks about on-time payment over the years your route looks back on, and one No makes refusal more likely. Asked how far back it looks at arrears, ISA said it checks as far as payment records can be confirmed, and that it can’t give a single rule because it looks at each applicant’s circumstances.

Due dates depend on the bill:

• Resident tax on slips comes in four instalments a year. Your notice shows the dates. In Shinjuku, for example, they fall at the end of June, August, October and January.
• National Pension is due on the last day of the month after the month it covers.
• National Health Insurance follows a schedule your city sets.

Renewals are less strict for now. ISA’s renewal guideline counts large or long-running arrears in serious cases, but the government plans to give ISA electronic access to health insurance and pension records.

Registering as a resident at the city office counts as your notice to ISA, so you only file once. There’s no fee.

Health insurance, pension and tax letters all go to this address, so a missed letter can turn into a missed payment.

ISA’s document lists say to keep your receipts for as many years as you’ll need, because they’re how you show you never paid after the due date.

What to keep:

• Resident tax: proof of payment for any period it wasn’t deducted from your salary. If your employer deducted it for the whole period, you don’t need this.
• National Pension: a receipt (領収証書) for every month you were enrolled during the period.
• National Health Insurance: a receipt for every month you were enrolled during the period.

For resident tax, bank records count, including a printout of your online banking history, as long as it’s printed in a form that can’t be edited. Excel files aren’t accepted. If you can’t supply every pension or health insurance receipt, ISA asks for a written explanation of why.

Konbini receipts fade, so photograph or scan each one the day you pay, and keep the paper too.

The number of years depends on your route. Keep them all anyway. Your route can change, and ISA says it checks as far as records can be confirmed.

If your employer deducts resident tax, health insurance and pension from your salary, there’s nothing to set up. Your payslip shows it: look for 住民税, 健康保険 and 厚生年金.

If any of them reaches you as a paper slip, ask to move it to direct debit. Your city office handles resident tax and National Health Insurance, and your pension office handles National Pension.

A debit that fails is a missed payment, so keep the money in the account on the debit date. Keep your bank statements too, since they show the date each payment went out. After a move, ask your new city office how to set the debits up again.

If you work for a company, check your payslip for 健康保険 and 厚生年金. If they aren’t there and you think they should be, ask your employer.

If you’re not covered through work, register for National Health Insurance at your city office within 14 days of becoming eligible. If you’re 20 to 59, join National Pension there too. A spouse supported by someone on the Employees’ Pension may be covered as a Category 3 member instead, through that person’s employer.

ISA asks for payment records from every pension and health scheme you were in over the period it checks, so a gap in enrolment will show there too.

Not carrying it can bring a fine of up to ¥200,000. Refusing to show it can bring up to 1 year in prison or the same fine.

If you lose it, apply for a new one at a regional immigration office within 14 days of finding out. If you lose it abroad, the 14 days start on the day you return to Japan.

Write down the day you left and the day you came back, every time. The window runs back 10 years from the day you apply, so a long posting abroad this year will still be inside it a decade from now. ISA hasn’t listed what counts as a reasonable cause.

Keep expired passports too. Tokyo’s Legal Affairs Bureau asks naturalisation applicants for copies of all of them.

If you use the face recognition gates you may not get a stamp, so your own log matters. If your records have gaps, you can ask ISA for your entry and exit records. It costs ¥300 in revenue stamps per request, and ISA warns that requests are taking a while, so ask well before you need them.

From April 2027, these don’t count as a work status for the 5 years:

• Technical Intern Training and 育成就労
• Specified Skilled Worker (i)
• Intra-company Transferee
• some Designated Activities, including Working Holiday and internships

Some Designated Activities don’t count toward the 10 years either, such as staying on to look for work or waiting to start a job you’ve been offered. The guideline lists the main examples.

If your history includes any of these, ask ISA before you plan around a date.

ISA says it will announce the accepted tests and how it will check before the rule starts. Since the December 2025 test, JLPT score reports show a CEFR level: an N3 pass with 104 points or more counts as B1, and any N2 pass counts as B1 or higher. The JLPT runs only in July and December, so plan around those dates.

People with 6 or more years of primary or secondary schooling in Japan are exempt. Spouses of Japanese nationals aren’t. The full list is in the tracker.

ISA hasn’t said whether the check will be a test, an interview or something else. As written it has no exemptions, so it applies on every route, including Highly Skilled Professional.

The guidebook also covers tax, insurance and pensions, so it’s worth reading early anyway.

The guideline names 小学校 and 中学校. In the public comments, someone asked for reasonable exceptions and mentioned foreign schools and family circumstances. ISA didn’t list any. It said this is a factor to consider, and that no decision rests on one factor alone.

If your child goes to an international or foreign school, ask ISA how that will be treated before you apply.

The guideline names prison sentences and fines. It says nothing about traffic penalty payments (反則金), and we haven’t found ISA saying how it treats them. Naturalisation applicants in Tokyo are asked for a 5-year driving record (運転記録証明書), so traffic history is looked at there.

Past breaches of immigration duties, such as a missed notification, also count as a rule, even if the problem is over by the time you apply.

This covers side jobs as well as part-time work. Students and Dependents normally get a blanket permission for up to 28 hours a week. For students, the limit rises to 8 hours a day during long school holidays.

ISA’s PR guideline counts work outside your status against you, including past breaches that have ended.

The projection uses your whole enrolment history and your income at the time you apply, so gaps and unpaid months lower it. ISA doesn’t plan to publish the benchmark or the savings amounts.

Only financial assets can fill a shortfall, and ISA says it won’t count money held briefly for the application. It plans to ask for documents showing that, so build savings over time and keep the statements.

If you’ve used a National Pension exemption or student deferral, you can pay those months back within 10 years, which brings your pension closer to the full amount. We haven’t found ISA saying how exempt months are treated in the projection.

Each year’s certificate comes out around the start of summer. In Shinjuku the 2026 one was available from mid-May if your tax is all deducted from salary, and from 10 June otherwise.

It’s issued by the city where you lived on 1 January of that year, so after a move you’ll need to ask your old city. Not every city issues all the years ISA asks for. If yours doesn’t, ISA’s lists tell you to submit as many as it will issue.

Check the income against your 源泉徴収票. If something looks wrong, ask the city tax office while the year is still recent.

Register on the Japan Pension Service site. ISA notes that ねんきんネット is in Japanese only, and that your user ID comes by post about 5 business days after you register.

Look for months marked unpaid and any period that’s missing. You can pay a missed National Pension month within 2 years of its due date. That fills the gap in your pension record, but it’s still a payment made after the due date.

The ねんきん定期便 postcard you get each year doesn’t show your full record, so ISA doesn’t accept it as proof.

This part of the guideline already applies. ISA looks at whether income has stayed at that level, so one good year isn’t the whole picture.

Your household is you plus the people you share a home and finances with. Income from someone on a non-work status, such as Dependent, doesn’t count. The tracker has the full rules.

Self-employed PR applicants prove their work with a copy of their tax return (確定申告書控え). Naturalisation applicants in Tokyo are asked for their latest withholding slip, and one from each employer if they changed jobs that year.

If you leave a job, ask for your slip before you go.

The National Tax Agency says employees generally have to file if any of these apply, unless filing would only bring a refund:

• salary over ¥20 million in the year
• one employer, and over ¥200,000 of other income
• two or more employers, and over ¥200,000 in total of other income plus pay that wasn’t year-end adjusted

Anyone self-employed should expect to file too.

ISA’s revocation guideline treats not filing a return you clearly had to file as a form of not paying. PR applicants also have to show that no national tax is unpaid.

ISA adds relatives you support to your household size even if they live abroad. For households of five or more, the income level goes up again.

For income tax, since 2023 a dependant living outside Japan only counts if they’re 16 to 29, or 70 or over, or 30 to 69 and either studying abroad, disabled, or receiving at least ¥380,000 a year from you for living or education costs.

Only claim people you really support, and keep your remittance records.

Filing your move-in notice at the new city office, with your residence card, also counts as telling ISA.

A move also changes who bills you:

• Resident tax is charged by the city where you lived on 1 January, so keep paying the slips you already have.
• Set up National Health Insurance and any direct debits again at the new city.
• Tax certificates for past years still come from the city you lived in on 1 January of that year.

This covers Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, Skilled Labor, Highly Skilled Professional, Specified Skilled Worker, Business Manager, Student and others. You also report it if the organisation changes its name or address, or closes. You can file online at any hour, at a regional immigration office, or by post.

A late notification can bring a fine of up to ¥200,000, and ISA’s renewal and PR guidelines both look at whether you’ve kept up with these duties.

If you’re out of work, your status can be revoked after 3 months without doing the activity it’s for, unless you have a good reason. ISA gives actively looking for a new job as an example, so keep a record of your applications and interviews.

If you aren’t going straight to a new employer:

• Join National Pension at your city office within 14 days of leaving.
• Join National Health Insurance within 14 days.
• Watch the post for resident tax. What’s left for the year usually moves to a tax notice your city sends you, and those dates are yours to meet. There are exceptions: if you start a new job straight away, you can ask to keep it deducted from your salary, and if you leave between January and April it can usually be taken from your final pay.

You’ll need proof for these months later. ISA asks for payment records for any period resident tax wasn’t deducted from your salary, and for every pension and health scheme you were in.

Tell the officer when you leave that you’re using special re-entry (みなし再入国). It lasts 1 year from departure, or until your period of stay ends if that’s sooner, and you can’t extend it from abroad.

If you might be away longer, get a regular re-entry permit before you go. It can last up to 5 years, within your period of stay. Leave without either and your status and period of stay end.

Bills keep coming while you’re away. Set up direct debit before you go, or arrange for someone to pay them.

If you’re working toward PR or naturalisation, check the limits on time abroad first.

A payment plan doesn’t erase a late payment, but ISA’s PR revocation guideline treats a plan or deferral as a sign that non-payment isn’t deliberate, as long as you keep to the agreed dates. It also doesn’t treat non-payment as deliberate when there’s an unavoidable reason such as illness, a disaster or losing your job.

For National Pension, you can apply for an exemption or deferral up to 2 years and 1 month back. Apply early: the Japan Pension Service warns that a late application can leave you without disability or survivors’ cover.

ISA’s Q&A for Specified Skilled Workers gives a similar order: go to the pension office, tax office or city office first, and if there’s a real reason you can’t pay before an application, talk to ISA before you apply.

Apply at your regional immigration office. If both parents are foreign nationals, being born in Japan doesn’t make the child Japanese, so report the birth to your home country as well.

Applications filed by 31 March 2027 are assessed under the February 2026 guideline plus the new income and public-burden sections. A 3-year permit still counts as the longest period, and the spouse route is still 3 years of marriage and 1 year in Japan.

Work back from the date. Certificates have to be under 3 months old when you apply, and a full pension record by post takes about 2 months.

If you can’t make it, see what starts on 1 April.

If you apply in time and there’s no decision by the expiry date, you can stay on the same status until the decision or for 2 months after the expiry date, whichever comes first. If you leave Japan during that time, you have to come back and get the decision within those 2 months.

ISA looks at tax, insurance and your notifications at renewal. Fees now depend on the length of the permit you’re given.

From 1 April 2027, a 3-year permit still counts only if you held it on 31 March 2027, it’s your first PR application, and the decision comes before that permit expires.

This applies on the shorter routes too. The tracker has the details.

It asks about your years in Japan, your period of stay, any fines or prison sentences, and whether you’ve paid resident tax, national tax, pension and health insurance on time. Reading it early shows you what you’re aiming for. A clean sheet doesn’t guarantee a permit.

The sheets are Excel files in Japanese: work statuses and HSP, spouses and children, and Long-Term Residents. They reflect the rules up to 31 March 2027, so look for a new version if you file later.

Most applicants need:

• resident tax certificates for the years your route looks back on, from each city involved
• a national tax certificate (納税証明書 その3) covering all five listed taxes, from your tax office or through e-Tax
• your pension record. A full-period ねんきん定期便 by post takes about 2 months, so ねんきんネット printouts or the pension office are quicker
• a 住民票 for your whole household, showing everything except My Number
• proof of your job, such as an employment certificate (在職証明書)
• bank book copies or other proof of assets

ISA’s list for your status is the final word, and it may ask for more during review.

Black out your basic pension number and health insurance numbers on anything you copy. ISA asks for this.

Ask early, since they have to sign the form. ISA’s document lists have it, with an English version.

Most lists also ask for a letter in your own words saying why you want PR (理由書), though the spouse list doesn’t. Everyone signs an undertaking (了解書). If you have evidence of contributing to Japan, such as awards or recommendation letters, you can add it.

Applying for PR doesn’t extend your permit. If your expiry date falls during the review, file a normal renewal by that date.