Family in Japan

Bringing your family to Japan means getting them the Dependent status of residence, and the provision names only a spouse and children. Parents are not covered. The status you hold also decides it: Engineer/Specialist, Specified Skilled Worker (ii) and Student can bring dependents, while SSW (i) and Technical Intern Training cannot. The order is a Certificate of Eligibility in Japan, sent home, then a visa at the embassy there. A student proves support with a bank balance certificate. Nepalese family members have needed a TB clearance certificate since 23 June 2025; Sri Lanka is not covered.

Japan has no birthright citizenship, so a baby born to foreign parents is a foreign national and needs a status of residence. The trap is the deadlines: the baby may stay 60 days without one, but the application must be filed within 30 days of birth. Birth registration goes to the city office within 14 days. The childbirth lump sum is 500,000 yen per child, with no published nationality condition.

Divorce or bereavement must be reported to immigration within 14 days, but divorce does not end your status of residence on the spot. Revocation attaches to not carrying out activities as a spouse for six months or more, and just cause takes you outside it. Four examples are officially published, including being in divorce mediation and taking refuge from a spouse's violence.

A dependent visa permits no work until you hold a work permit. With it you may work 28 hours a week, but the 8-hours-a-day allowance students get during school holidays does not exist for dependents. Working the same August shifts as a student friend puts only you over the limit. If you exceed it, everything turns on the word solely, which separates Article 73 from Article 70(1)(iv) and deportation.