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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Lots of countries have temporary worker status. The requirement to leave the country to re-up it appears to be a distinctively American thing.

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I was recently in Malaysia on a digital nomad visa. When it expired I was required to leave the country and either wait for the renewal to go through or reenter on a tourist visa (and either not work or work illegally). So not distinctively American.

It's definitely not. I know Japan and Korea had a similar process when I was living there, and I was under the impression that most places operate this way. Your visa grants you right to temporarily stay in the country, and if you don't have a visa you have no right to be there. Sometimes there's a bridging visa to cover the gap, but a country isn't under any obligation to provide one.

I've renewed my visa in Japan a bunch of times, including changing work category or visa status, and never had to leave the country for it. It's not standard for working or student visas, though you would have to leave if you were switching from a tourist visa to a different category.

Maybe it was for switching visa types. It was almost 20 years ago, so I may have some of the details mixed up.

No. Japan certainly doesn’t. If you want to renew your visa you go apply at the local immigration department and they mail you your renewal notice a month or two later. No need to leave the country at all.

It was a long time ago, so I might have the details wrong. I suspect it may have been expats from Korea taking a short trip to Japan to renew their visa, or even folks switching the type of visa they were on.

But if you applied already, it's currently unknown whether you have a valid visa or not.

But my point is it’s a known factor up front, and it’s so they can (have the option of) getting you to leave without allowing you back in. The thinking is that if people had visas that expires or revoked, they just wouldn’t leave and enforcement would be difficult (we have a forceful ICE now, but not always). Having them leave first is by design even if unique.

It’s fairly common in destinations for migration, less so elsewhere.

Is extremely common in europe and asia

In which European countries?

All 29 countries in the Schengen Zone require exit to renew tourist visas

Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, and most EU nations generally require non-EU citizens to return to their home country to change visa types.

We're discussing immigration visas here.

Certainly not Germany - I renewed mine at the city's immigration office, which was even helpful enough at one renewal to point out that I was likely eligible for a permanent residence permit and supplied the list of documents to bring back to apply for that.

All students on visas in UK have to leave the country if they want to change to another visa, often involves people either flying home or else getting a cheap flight to a Schengen country

I've known several people on visas in my european country. They don't need to go out of the country to apply for renewal.

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