Hacker News Reader

Comment by junon | Hacker News Reader

I've moved myself to Germany and enjoy it here but I also love the idea of Japan, perhaps sometime in the future.

I've heard it's insanely difficult to get a residency visa there, along with of course the language barrier. Was that the case for you?

View on HN

For skilled people it’s one of the easiest places to get a visa. Unlike US, Canada and Europe which are the other places I’m familiar with, there’s no requirement for companies to try to hire locally first.

There’s also a points system to fast track getting a visa. This can also get you a permanent visa in one year.

During Covid all of this is virtually stopped, but starting to open back up starting tomorrow, Nov 8.

It's not hard to get a visa if you get a job or for study. The thing is, it's hard to get those while being outside the country.

Study is pretty easy (assuming the borders open) - anyone can do that tomorrow by joining a Japanese language school. Of course, you have to… actually study and do classes, so it’s not a free pass.

Work visas do depend on finding an employer - I do know of several people who worked for multinational corporations and asked to be transferred to the Japan office.

There’s also the option to self sponsor a work visa by running a business in Japan, though it does have capital requirements and is a little tricky.

A few cities have startup visas now, which give you a year or two to meet the capital requirements.

The work visa is very easy to get if you have an engineering degree, as long as a company will hire/sponsor you.

I transferred to Tokyo though my employer, so they handled the visa.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com