About and sources

What this site does, where its facts come from and what the dates on each page mean.

What this site does

A free site for people who want to live, work or study in Japan. It sets out the published requirements of Japanese residence statuses, lets you compare your situation with them (the route finder) and add up Highly Skilled Professional points. It compares; it does not recommend a status and does not decide anything.

This is not a government site and it does not give legal advice. Always check the official source and consult the Immigration Services Agency or a licensed administrative scrivener (行政書士) before you decide.

Where the facts come from

• Laws and ordinances: e-Gov law search (laws.e-gov.go.jp). Official pages, forms and tables: the Immigration Services Agency (moj.go.jp/isa), the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Every rulebook entry cites a source document, quotes it, and shows the date we read it and a status: confirmed (we read the original text and it matches), partly confirmed, or not confirmed. Only confirmed entries are treated as fact.
• A status page that is not yet linked to rulebook entries says so. Treat it as an overview and check the official source.

What the dates mean

• Every page shows an “as of” date: the day its content or the rulebook behind it was last checked. Rules change, so a date does not mean the rule is still the same today.
• The news page links to official announcements. An announcement is not a rule change by itself; check the Rulebook page and the original text.

Languages

English and Korean are reviewed by a person. Vietnamese, Chinese (Simplified), Nepali and Indonesian were translated by AI and have not yet been reviewed; those pages are marked and are not indexed by search engines. Source documents stay in Japanese, and quotes in the Rulebook are shown in the original language.

Using this information

• Everything here is general information based on official sources. It is not legal advice, not an official service, and creates no relationship with any government office or adviser.
• Rules and practice change, and an office may decide differently from what we describe. We make no promise about the outcome of any application. The official text always prevails.
• Before you apply, check the official source and, where needed, ask the Immigration Services Agency, the Foreigners’ Residence Support Center (FRESC) or a licensed administrative scrivener.
• We link to official announcements and do not copy them. You may link to any page or quote briefly with a credit, but please do not copy the site wholesale or collect it automatically.