What happens if visa extension is denied? What is a designated activities visa for preparations to return home country?

When the extension or change of your visa is denied

What should you do if extension or change of your visa has been denied even though you have plans to still stay in Japan?

You may still have a few years left until you graduate from a Japanese school, or you may have already found a job. Even in such a case, do you have to return to your home country immediately?

Even if you decide to return to your home country, since you have lived in Japan for a while, you will probably need to move out of your house, pack your belongings, and make various preparations. How can you manage to do that if you have to leave Japan soon?

If your visa has not been expired

If you have enough time left until the expiration of your visa, you can try applying for visa extension or change again. Please ask the immigration official in charge to explain the reasons for the rejection, and after properly improving and correcting them, reapply within the period of residence of your visa.

If your visa has expired or there is almost no time left until expiration

The designated activities visa for preparation for returning to home country

Even if your visa has expired or is about to expire, the immigration office will not say, “Your visa extension (change) has been denied, so please return to your home country immediately!” but rather, they will say,

“Please return to your home country within 30 (or 31) days, or file an objection or a lawsuit for cancellation.”

These 30 or 31 days are the period of stay granted for the designated activities visa for preparation for returning to home country. (In this column, we will not go into filing objections and lawsuits.)

How to obtain the designated activities visa for preparation for returning to home country

We will explain the details later, but if your visa would expire before the permission or rejection of visa extension or change, you can use a special extension period system (tokurei-kikan). (The system is applied automatically, so no separate application is required.)

The special extension period allows you to extend your period of stay either until

①　the time of permission or denial; or

②　two months after the expiration of your period of stay,

whichever comes first.

For example, if your visa extension is rejected before two months have passed since the expiration of your period of stay, the special extension period will expire at the time of denial.

Therefore, if you don’t immediately switch to a designated activities visa after the rejection of visa extension, you will end up staying illegally, so it will be too late if you start preparing new application after such rejection for the immigration bureau to review from scratch.

(By the way, in case where above ② comes first, you would have to leave Japan without waiting for the result, but usually immigration bureaus, which are the reviewing agencies, seem to take this special extension period into consideration and issue the reviewing result within two months.)

So, in practice, you will change the rejected application for visa extension (or change) to the application for the designated activities visa for preparation for returning home country, and then obtain a designated activities visa (for the period of 30 or 31 days) on the same day.

Specifically, the rejection notice will say, something like, “We cannot approve the application as it is, but if you would like to change the application to an application purpose of which is preparation to leave the country, please submit the attached application form,” so you can proceed accordingly.

Types of designated activities visas for preparation to return home

There are “30-day” and “31-day” versions of this designated activities visa for preparation to return home. What is the difference between these? In terms of the number of days, there is only a difference of one day, but whether it is more than 30 days or not is very significant.

Before explaining the difference between the 30th and 31st, let’s take a look at the special period, which is an important premise.

Special extension period (tokurei-kikan)

The Immigration Bureau’s website explains the special extension period as follows:

If a person who holds a residence card applies for extension of the period of stay or for change of the status of residence, and the disposition for the application is not made by the expiration date of the period of stay, the person may continue to reside in Japan with his or her previous status of residence until when the disposition is made or until two months after the expiration date of the period of stay, whichever comes first.

(Reference: “What is the special extension period?“)

In other words, if you have applied for extension or change of your visa, but your visa expires before its results, you can continue to stay in Japan in the same manner until the result is given or until two months have passed since your visa expires, whichever comes first. (If you don’t receive the result before two months pass from visa expiration, you have to leave Japan, but as we explained earlier, the application review is usually conducted relatively fast to prevent such situation.) The special extension period is automatically applied, so no special application is required.

Thanks to this system, even if your visa is about to expire, you can stay in Japan legally as long as you apply for extension or change before your visa expires.

This is a very convenient system, but this special extension period is available only when the foreigner has a visa with a period of stay of 31 days or longer.

Only in such cases, foreigners can apply for visa change or extension and receive results even after expiration of visa or stay in Japan for up to two months after visa expiration.

30-day designated activities visa for preparation to return home 

In case that your visa change or extension is rejected and you change to a designated activity visa for preparation to return home country, if you are granted a 30-day visa, you must make preparations and leave Japan within 30 days.

As mentioned above, the special extension period system is for visas the period of which is 31 days or longer, so the 30-day designated activities visa does not qualify.

Therefore, you cannot reapply for visa change or extension and stay in Japan until the result or until two months pass from expiration by using the special extension period.

Even if you reapply, there is no special extension period, so if you don’t leave Japan within 30 days, which is the period of stay of the designated activities visa for preparation to return home country, you will be considered an illegal resident.

In practice, the one with 30 days is often granted if there is only low possibility of approval even if you reapply, or if it is impossible to fix the reasons for rejection due to their nature.

31-day designated activities visa for preparation to return home

If you have been granted a 31-day designated activities visa, you can reapply after checking the reasons for rejection and fixing them.

As mentioned above, during the special extension period, you can stay in Japan from the time of reapplication until the result or until two months pass from the time of visa expiration.

Even if the review period is prolonged, you can stay in Japan for a maximum of two months from the visa expiration. (However, since this is a visa for preparation to return home, you cannot work during this period even if you previously held a work visa.)

It can also be assumed that the immigration bureau believes that you have a chance if you reapply, so they have given you a 31 day-visa for you to reapply within 31 days and use the special period to wait for the review.

According to the Immigration Services Agency,

the following standard processing period for applications for extension of status of residence: 2 weeks to 1 month

(see https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/procedures/16-3.html)

Standard processing period for applications for change of status of residence: 2 weeks to 1 month

(see https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/procedures/16-2.html)

However, these are only standard guidelines, so we recommend that you check with the immigration bureau about the reviewing status earlier before the expiration of the special extension period.

Summary

Visa change or extension is always stressful. Even if your application is unfortunately denied, you will not be forced to return to your home country immediately, but will be given a preparation period of 30 or 31 days, so you will have some time to prepare for your return.

Also, if you are given a preparation period of 31 days, you may be able to reapply, so don’t be too pessimistic, but please make sure to check the reason for the denial and improve or correct any necessary parts. You only have one chance to ask the immigration official directly about the reason for the denial. It is important to prepare in advance by consulting a professional and finding out what points you should check with the immigration official.

If you are worried about rejection of the visa extension or change, or if your application has been denied but you would like to reapply, please feel free to contact our office.

We are Yanagi group, which have offices in Osaka (Abeno and Tennoji), and our affiliated offices in Tokyo (Shibuya and Ebisu) are also available for an on-site consultation. We have handled many applications for permanent residence permits, naturalization permits, work visas, college student visas, management visas, etc., as well as visa renewal procedures related to the status of residence with the Immigration Bureau (Immigration Bureau) as a one-stop service. Our experienced administrative scriveners are also available to help you with any problems you may have.

We also have staff members who can speak each of the native languages and can assist you in obtaining a visa.

※If you wish to be consulted in Nepali or Bengali, please inform us in advance via our website or social media, and the translator will contact you ahead of time.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about your status of residence or visa, even if they are trivial.

Toll free number: 0120-138-552 

For English speaker: 080-9346-2991

For Chinese speaker: 090-8456-6196