Acquisition of a status of residence

Whether this route applies at all is settled at the moment of birth, by one fact: whether either parent is a Japanese national then. If one is, the child is Japanese wherever they are born and needs no application. If neither is -- which for a couple here means the child was born before the marriage, or before the Japanese father acknowledged them, or is the foreign spouse's child by an earlier relationship -- the clock below starts at the birth.

A child is born in Japan without Japanese nationality, or a person loses it. The clock starts here -- not when anybody notices, and not when the paperwork arrives.

A birth is registered at a municipal office within fourteen days. That is a separate duty under a separate law from anything immigration requires, and doing it does not start or satisfy the immigration application.

The application must be made within thirty days of the event. It is filed at the immigration bureau with jurisdiction over the child's address, by a parent as legal representative, and there is no fee.

The Agency's published aim is a decision within sixty days of the event -- not of the application. File on day twenty-nine and you have left it thirty-one days to decide; file on day three and you have left it fifty-seven. The same page adds that a decision may be made on the day, so it is worth attending prepared to finish rather than expecting a postcard.

The day a person born in Japan without a status may no longer remain without one. There is no grace period on this route and no 特例期間 (grace period during examination): sixty days is the whole of it.

A residence card is issued for a child granted a status of more than three months. From then the child is a mid-to-long-term resident like any other, with the same address-registration and renewal duties.

Nationality follows the parents, not the place. A child born in Japan while one parent is a Japanese national is a Japanese national and needs no status of residence and no application. Couples who assume that a foreign parent means a foreign child arrive at an immigration counter with thirty days of unnecessary worry behind them. The Agency states the converse plainly: where both parents are foreign nationals, a child born in Japan does not acquire Japanese nationality.

Two duties, two deadlines, two counters, two laws. Fourteen days to register the birth at the municipal office; thirty days to apply to the immigration bureau. Families who have registered the birth reasonably assume the child is now on the record, and the immigration deadline passes while they wait to hear something.

The application cannot be assembled without a passport for the child, and the Agency's own page says to obtain one. Getting a newborn's first passport means an appointment at their country's embassy plus that country's processing time. For several nationalities that alone exceeds thirty days.

Both figures on this route are measured from the event. Thirty days to apply, sixty days before a status is required -- and the Agency's own target is a decision within sixty days of the event. Filing late does not move any of them; it only shortens what is left.

Two cases reach a spouse file. A child born to the foreign spouse before the marriage, or before the Japanese father acknowledged them, is applying on facts that may change again -- acknowledgement can bring Japanese nationality by notification afterwards. A child of the foreign spouse by an earlier relationship, with no Japanese parent at all, is applying for whatever fits the parents' statuses. The evidence differs, and so does the checklist.

The 特例期間 (grace period during examination) exists for a pending change or renewal, and the Agency's page on it says so in its opening line. Nothing equivalent is published for this route, and the acquisition page does not mention one. Sixty days after the birth, a child in Japan without a status and without a decision is simply here without one.