Japan Digital Nomad Visa

The income condition is that the applicant own personal annual income must be 10 million yen or more, measured at the time of application. This is an individual threshold rather than a household one, so a spouse income cannot be added to it.

It comes paired with an insurance condition: the applicant must hold medical insurance, such as overseas travel accident insurance, covering death, injury and illness and valid for the whole of the intended period of stay, with cover for injury and illness treatment costs also of 10 million yen or more

What is granted is a specified visa under the Designated Activities status for people working remotely in Japan, together with a separate status for an accompanying spouse or child.

The page of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan dated 31 March 2024 places both under one visa heading, with the term recorded in the processing-time cell of this page.

The gate is nationality, and this is where a Vietnamese reader should stop. Only nationals or citizens of the countries and regions named in the chart published by the Immigration Services Agency may apply.

That chart, read on 27 September 2026, does not include Vietnam in either the digital nomad column or the accompanying family column. The reading is controlled: the Republic of Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia all appear in the same chart.

A Vietnamese passport therefore cannot yet travel this route.

An applicant may first obtain a Certificate of Eligibility issued by a regional immigration bureau. With it, three of the visa documents can be omitted, and both the visa application and the landing examination proceed more smoothly. The Ministry states plainly, however, that the certificate does not guarantee the issue of a visa.

The period of stay is six months and cannot be extended. The attached condition is that stays in Japan under the Designated Activities status for digital nomads may not exceed six months within any one year.

After departure, six months must pass from the date of leaving Japan before a stay under this status is possible again. In substance this is a cycle of half a year in and half a year out, not a continuous path of residence.

An accompanying spouse or child is granted a period within six months, also not extendable. A child born in Japan while a parent is staying under this status applies for status through a separate procedure.

Accepted proof of income is a tax payment certificate or income certificate issued by the country where the applicant has worked. Certificates issued in Japan must be dated within three months, and documents in a foreign language must be accompanied by a Japanese translation.

The Immigration Services Agency warns that an incomplete file may be significantly delayed or lead to an adverse decision. It may also request documents beyond the published list during the review.

A holder of this status is not eligible for a residence card.

As to activities, the status permits only two things.

The first is working in Japan by means of information and communications technology for a corporation or other foreign organisation established under foreign law, under an employment contract with that organisation and serving the work of its offices abroad.

The second is providing services for consideration and selling goods to persons abroad by means of information and communications technology.

Activities that cannot be provided or sold without entering Japan are excluded. Work under an employment contract with a Japanese public or private organisation is not permitted, and permission to engage in activity outside the status is in principle not granted

A spouse and children supported by the digital nomad accompany them under a separate status: Designated Activities under notice no. 54, covering everyday activities as a dependant. Their period of stay is within six months and is likewise not renewable, and they too are not eligible for a residence card.

They must satisfy two conditions in their own right: holding the nationality of a country or region on the published list, and holding medical insurance covering death, injury and illness with treatment cost cover of 10 million yen or more.

Nor are they in principle granted permission to engage in activity outside the status, so an accompanying family member cannot take up work

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Japan passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Japan passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Japan passport reaches 204 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The nationality filter has two limbs, not one: the applicant must be a national of a country or region that is both visa-exempt and party to a tax treaty with Japan. The list of eligible countries and regions is published as a separate annex by the Immigration Services Agency.

Bilateral tax relations are therefore a condition of eligibility beyond the applicant's control, not an issue that arises only after arrival.

After arrival, tax status is answered by the National Tax Agency. A person is a non-resident for tax purposes unless they have a domicile in Japan or have resided there continuously for one year or more, so someone staying up to six months under this status is ordinarily a non-resident.

A non-resident is taxed only on Japan-source income. The tax agency treats salaries for work carried out in Japan as Japan-source, even when paid by a company abroad.

The agency's own example: a person working in Japan for some months and paid by the parent company at home must file a quasi-final return and pay tax at 20.42 per cent on that salary before leaving Japan. Each country's tax treaty may provide otherwise; the two agency pages read do not answer that point.

The authority's question-and-answer sheet explains why the insurance requirement exists, and that reason is what anyone costing this route needs: a person staying under this status does not fall within the category of mid- to long-term residents, and is therefore not eligible to enrol in Japan's public medical insurance.

The private cover is not an extra layer but a substitute for a system they are shut out of.

The cover has two parts and only one carries a figure: compensation for the treatment of injuries and illnesses must be JPY 10 million or more, while death cover is mandatory — including transport of the body or a payment in the event of death — but the authority sets no amount for that part.

One further point about the route and what it costs: this status has no Certificate of Eligibility pathway, because there is no one in Japan who can act as agent to file that application.

An applicant outside Japan must apply for the visa directly at the Japanese embassy or consulate in the country where they are staying, skipping the domestic pre-clearance step that most other Japanese residence statuses run through.