In the latter half of August, we received approvals for a number of applications submitted to the Immigration Bureau.

Notably, five applications for permanent residence were approved. One case involved a family application; while the cost for the four family members was 40,000 yen this time, had the approval come through for an application submitted in October or later, the cost would have skyrocketed to 800,000 yen. The fee structure for permanent residence applications is changing from a flat 10,000 yen per approval to a range of up to 200,000 yen. A sum of 800,000 yen is enough to buy a used car, for instance.

Another case involved an individual applicant. We are now seeing the results of many applications that were rushed through between early spring and this summer. We are currently swamped—our staff included—as many people are eager to submit their applications within September.

At a press conference following the Cabinet meeting on August 4, the Minister of Justice (who oversees the Immigration Bureau) made a surprising announcement regarding income requirements: rules originally scheduled to take effect in October would instead be applied retroactively to April 1.

This was reported in the newspapers; we made inquiries with the Chunichi Shimbun and verified the details directly with the Nagoya Immigration Bureau. However, as of last week, the information on the Immigration Bureau’s website had not yet been updated to reflect this statement. The income requirement in question is that an applicant’s annual income must exceed 5.75 million yen—the average household income for Japanese nationals. While Japanese applicants are assessed based on household income, foreign nationals are assessed based on their individual annual income, creating a sense of unfairness. Furthermore, as a professional working in a legal-adjacent field, I felt deeply uneasy about a statement that overturns the fundamental legal principle against the retroactive application of rules—even if they are technically classified as “guidelines.”

For those currently preparing applications, we are naturally emphasizing this point and limiting our September submissions to clients who wish to proceed despite the situation.

We also handled applications for extensions of the period of stay.

In addition to the permanent residence approvals, we submitted four applications for extensions of the period of stay. All of these cases came to me via referrals; I aim for perfection in every application—naturally with the client’s consent—by incorporating insights from recent requests for additional documentation from Immigration, thereby minimizing the need for such follow-up submissions.

I am keeping a close watch on future developments in immigration administration.