Preferential Treatments to Highly Skilled Professionals

What is the Highly Skilled Professional Visa?

The Highly Skilled Professional visa is a residential status offered to foreigners with outstanding abilities and credentials to work and live in Japan.

This visa has three categories:

• Highly Skilled Professional No. 1 (a) Advanced academic research activities
  • Activities of engaging in research, research guidance, or education based on a contract entered into with a public or private organization in Japan
• Highly Skilled Professional No. 1 (b) Advanced specialized/ technical activities
  • Activities of engaging in work requiring socialized knowledge or skills in the field of natural sciences or humanities based on a contract entered with a public or private organization in Japan
• Highly Skilled Professional No. 1 (c) Advanced business management activities
  • Activities of engaging in the operation or management of a public or private organization in Japan

The Point System

The Highly Skilled Professional visa uses a point system to calculate the accomplishments of the applicant. Each accomplishment is assigned a point value, and the total point will determine whether the applicant is eligible or not.

For example,

When applying for a “Highly Skilled Professional No. 1 (c) Advanced business management activities” visa, and you have a master’s degree, you can get 20 points from that.

If the total points exceed 70 points, then you will be eligible. Furthermore, if the total points exceed 80 points, you will be deemed extraordinary and can enjoy further preferential treatment.

Similarly, when a holder of a Highly Skilled Professional Visa No. 1 meets certain requirements (the main requirement is to hold that visa for 3 years), he/she can apply for the “Highly Skilled Professional Visa No. 2”, which offers additional benefits.

For more information on the point system, please refer to this calculation table.

For how to change to the Highly Skilled Professional Visa No.2, please refer to our previous blog.

Beneficial treatments can be enjoyed by Highly Skilled Professionals

Holders of a Highly Skilled Professional visa are eligible for various preferential treatments

1. Permission of multiple residential activities

Unlike most other visas, which limit their holders to one kind of residential activities, the Highly Skilled Professional visa allows its holder to engage in multiple kinds of residential activities. For example, managing a business while also doing research at a university.

2. Grand a period of stay of “5 Years”

All types of Highly Skilled Professional Visas No. 1 give the legally maximum length of period of stay, which is 5 years. It is also renewable.

3. Relaxed requirement for permanent residence application

In principle, an undisrupted period of stay of 10 years is required to apply for a permanent residence visa. But for a holder of a Highly Skilled Professional visa, a staying period of 3 years is sufficient.

Furthermore, if the total points exceed 80 in the Highly Skilled Professional Point Calculation Table, this staying period requirement can be further reduced to 1 year.

4. About the spouse’s employment

The spouse of a Highly Skilled Professional can engage in activities that fall under the status of residence such as “Education” or “Engineering/Specialist in Humanities/International Services,” which normally have requirements like minimum educational background or working experience.

5. Allow the Highly Skilled Professional to invite his/her parents to Japan under certain conditions

If the Highly Skilled Professional has a child (including a special adoption) under 7 years old, or the Highly Skilled Professional or the spouse is pregnant, then he/she can invite either his/her parents or the parents of the spouse to come to Japan and live together.

The main additional requirements are:

1) Annual household income of highly-skilled foreign professionals must be 8 million yen or more

2) Living together with the Highly Skilled Professional

3) Limited to either the parents of the Highly Skilled Professional or of his/her spouse.

*Please refer to our previous blog for further information

6. Permission to bring a domestic worker along under certain conditions

The Highly Skilled Professional can hire a domestic worker to aid with house chores under certain conditions.

The exact conditions vary depending on the type of domestic worker (Immigration Accompanying Type, Family Situation Type, Financial Personnel Type) please refer to our previous blog for more information.

7. Priority processing when applying

As it is shown below, the time for pre-entry screening and residence examination will be vastly expedited.

[Other Working Visa]

・Applications related to pre-entry screening → 2-3 months

・Applications related to residence examination → 1-2 months

[The Highly Skilled Professional Visa]

・Applications related to pre-entry screening → within 10 days

・Applications related to residence examination → within 5 days

*In cases where it is necessary to confirm the details of submitted materials, etc., the estimated review period may be exceeded.

For holders of the Highly Skilled Professional No. 2 visa:

1. a) In addition to the activities that are permitted under “Highly Skilled Professional No. 1,” you can also engage in almost all activities that are explicated permitted under all current status of residence.
2. b) The period of stay will be “indefinite”.
3. c) All benefits from previously mentioned 3 to 6 still apply

Conclusion

This time we explained the benefits of the Highly Skilled Professional visa. This visa can provide various preferential treatments, thus is one of the visas most wanted by foreigners who want to live in Japan. This popularity also means its application screening and reviewing will be very strict.

If you are considering this visa but unsure about how to prepare your documents, or have any concerns, please feel free to talk to us!

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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.

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