Visa Renewal 2025

The other day I was withdrawing some money from an ATM, and after the transaction it printed me a reminder to "Don't forget to tell the bank when you renew your residence card".

Renew my residence card? Surely there is still a lot of time before that...

oh shit.

Yeah, after 5 years, it was time for me to renew my residency status (visa) and residence card again. The thing is, when you have a task you only do every 5 years, obviously you will forget everything. Such as:

• What documents do I have to prepare? Where do I take those documents?
• What is the deadline for doing this? Does it take a lot of time?
• Are there different procedures to renew the visa and the residence card, or are they the same?

I looked through my own e-mails and past blog posts, and couldn't find any information, so I'm writing this down for my own reference in the future.

(On the other hand, it is not unlikely that some or all of this information may be outdated, so make sure to double check it before you use the info yourself)

Memo:

All the forms and procedures are available at the Ministry of Justice website, organized by type of residency status, and type of renewal.

In my case, since it was only a time extension on my residency status, with no change, all I needed to provide was a simple form and a letter from my employer confirming that I was still working there. This was easy to get.

Also, I needed to bring a new picture for my new residency card, and my passport as a proof of identity.

I needed to bring these to the local branch of the immigration center responsible for my region (in my case, the Matsudo branch of the Shinagawa immigration center, responsible for Chiba). A list of immigration centers and local branches is available at the MOJ website too..

When I went to the local branch, it was not very full, but I still had to wait almost one hour to submit my docs. They checked that everything was in order, and asked me to write my address in a postcard which would be sent to me when my new residence card was ready. I was told that the immigration center was overworked these days, and that it might take over a month for me to receive the postcard.

They also stamped my current residence card to indicate that I had started the process to get a new one. This would give me a grace period of two months over the end of my residency period, if the renewal process took too long.

Now I just have to wait I guess. According to the clerk, if everything is okay then when I receive the postcard I just need to pay a fee at the post office, and then go to the immigration office again to get my new card. (And probably wait another hour)

Easy Peasy! (But I should just stop procrastinating on my naturalization already...)