It was time to apply for my COE (Certificate of Eligibility)
Before we get into it, if you need some basic background on what the COE is and it's relationship to Visa's, please read my earlier post here.
You need a COE to be able to apply for a lot of different Visa's. In my case it's for a 'Spouse of Japanese National' Visa. You then must enter Japan within 3 months of the COE being issued, as well as applying for and receiving your entry Visa within that time. This dictates your timeline for moving to Japan more than any other factor which is a challenge in itself. See my previous post here for my thoughts on how the overall logistics fit together.
This is how my COE application panned out, and I hope you find some of it useful if you are planning to move to Japan.
January - Checking the requirements
At the turn of the year I could finally say we are 'Moving to Japan this year' and so it's time to actually see what we are up against in a bit more detail, the COE being one of those things.
The COE differs depending on your intended Visa type, so mine being for a Spouse Visa will be different from a COE for a Student Visa.
The best resource I found for the requirements happens to be the official page too: MOH page for spouse visa COE . This page is available in English, has a clear bullet pointed list of what is needed and links to download the required forms. See further down the page for my notes on each item that you may find useful.
February - Panic stations
Originally the plan was to apply for the COE sometime in March assuming it would be processed in around a month. Because you have to enter Japan within 3 months of the COE being issued, this plan would have put my entry window to Japan as May/June/July which is perfect. But then I read somewhere recently that the COE can take 1-3 months so it was panic stations all of a sudden to get the ball rolling and to get everything sorted otherwise my entry window could shift as far out as July/August/September; far from ideal considering I've been eagerly counting down this move for nearly 2 years already and I want to be in Japan yesterday.
My mother In-law is visiting in February to see a bit of New Zealand whilst we still live here, and the goal is to have all the documentation ready for her to take back to Japan. She will be then get the last documentation from the Local Ward Office and then onto the Immigration Office to do the application on my behalf.
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| (Click to enlarge) COE form - English version |
Completing the forms
This was my first introduction I suppose to Japanese bureaucracy. The forms for the COE are daunting. I don't know if it's just the English versions of them but a lot of the questions / fields to complete are vague enough that you have no idea what sort of answer to provide or to what level of detail. There is very little detailed English guidance out there, from what I could tell anyway. Given the timeline and what's at stake you can neither take your time or afford to get it wrong. You definitely need native Japanese support of some kind and my Wife thankfully ended up doing most of it as I really struggled.
I had one potential issue with my application - my nationality on the Koseki (Family Register) in Japan is British, yet my application will be done with a New Zealand passport. I let my British passport expire and have since received Citizenship in New Zealand. To help with this we are sending my Birth Certificate. Hopefully this doesn't cause a problem.
Onto the nitty-gritty of what you need for the application:
Completed COE application formA horrible form in all honesty. Things are vague and there's not a lot of space. Best done on a computer rather than handwritten and by a Japanese speaker. Thank you to my lovely wife for doing this :-)
https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930004054.pdf
Printed Passport Photograph
You can get this from just about anywhere that does passport photos. I note though the size requirement is 40x30mm which differs from what you need for your Visa later which is 45x35mm, mildly annoying that I'll have to go get another set done for the Visa.
Copy of your spouse's Koseki (Family Register)
Preferably it includes the record of your Marriage in Japan (otherwise you have to submit a Marriage Acceptance Certificate). The Family register (Koseki) is available from your Japanese Family's local Ward Office, my Mother-in-law will get this for me.
Marriage certificate
Needed if you were married in a country other than Japan. This was easily ordered online from the NZ government.
Documents to prove your expenses can be covered
By the person(s) who will be covering your expenses. My in-laws will provide their tax certificates from their local ward office and for good measure we are supplying our bank statements showing we have plenty of savings. It wasn't entirely clear in our case who we should show as supporting us as to what would be the 'safest' in terms of application acceptance, In the end we went with our own finances saying we can support ourselves.
Letter of guarantee
Must be completed by a family member living in Japan who basically is declaring they are responsible for your expenses and that you will behave. My Mother-in-law will complete this.
Family Residence Certificate
A Copy of the residence certificate of the Japanese spouse and all members of the household listed. My mother-in-law will get this from their local ward office.
Completed Questionnaire
This largely centers around proving your marriage is genuine. Although a much less daunting form than the COE one, the whole time I was filling it out it was not clear if it was me or my wife that was supposed to complete it. My wife did it in the end as ultimately she is the one who has to sign it, so it must have been for her to complete in the first place.
Documents that confirm the relationship
We've been married 9 years and the marriage was registered in Japan back then, so that and a tonne of photographs dating back before we were married. You can also send call/message logs too. I managed to find our Google chat message logs from over 9 years ago, which ended up being hundreds and hundreds of pages, so we just included some random pages across the time frame before and after marriage.
A return envelope
Standard size, with the address written on it clearly and adequate return postage paid.
Application updates
25th February - My mother in Law returned to Japan from NZ and took our prepared documents to the immigration office in Kumamoto. They reviewed the documents and advise a number of issues to resolve. Firstly, photos of us as a couple were not adequate. Despite being married for 9 years with plenty of photos of us as a couple, we did not supply any with other people in them. We aren't very social people let alone the types to take selfies with other people regularly. Photos also need to be stuck on paper with statements written for each one providing context along with names of people present. We managed to dredge some up from our archives fortunately.
Next issue was my nationality on the family register being different from my passport (which we anticipated) so we sent a scan of my NZ Citizenship Certificate along with a signed statement explaining the situation. They accepted they scan it seems, so I could have saved the $200 DHL that I did in a hurry to ship the originals!
27th February - The immigration office called my mother-in-law to ask when I'm planning on entering Japan, we said June. They responded that the application won't be processed until after April. We were left wondering if we had said we were planning to travel earlier whether the application would get done earlier but I suppose we will never know!
April is still fine, in fact it's what we planned around originally - apply in March, received in April, gives me until July to enter Japan.
10th April
My Mother-In-Law called the immigration office to get an update on the COE application as originally they had said 'after April'. It turns out they can't give updates, it's done when it's done.
The quoted time frame is 1-3 months with the official number is at 98 days on average - that average includes immigration offices that are notoriously busy and often take 6+ months so we were hoping that quiet little Kumamoto would be at the faster end. It's only been 6 weeks and I'm getting impatient!
A point worth making is that all correspondence with the immigration office has to be done by your Japan based 'sponsor' wether this be your In-laws, school, employer or lawyer.
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| My 5 year COE |
SUCCESS!
21st April
Just when I was on my way back from the supermarket I was rehearsing a little speech to Tomomi about how we will get to Japan faster If she just goes without waiting for my COE, because I would have to wait for her to work her notice period at work and organise a lot of stuff after she's gone - Instead I was greeted by a screenshot of my fresh COE! I also somehow got 5 years, which from what I gather is absolutely unheard of and a stroke of good fortune.
All I can surmise as to the reason I got 5 years was the length of time that we have been married and that we have a child, a good family in Japan and financial stability. Of course they don't actually provide criteria or explain why they issued a length of Visa - in many other's experiences that I have read, it can seem almost whimsical as to what immigration will issue.
From making the application to receiving the COE in Kumamoto was 2 months.
Now that the COE is issued, I need to get it back to NZ as fast as humanly possible so I can apply for my Spouse Visa and have all this tied up so we can start setting dates in concrete.
What's next
Now that's the hard bit completed. The COE does most of the immigration heavy lifting but it's not actually a Visa, that's the next thing to obtain. Once you have your COE in hand you apply for the Visa in your home country at the local Embassy or Consulate. The turnaround time is around 2 weeks and approval is basically a formality. Stay tuned!
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