It opened the door, 90 points. But from April 2027 permanent residence can be revoked over unpaid taxes and contributions, including for people who already hold it.
For a salaried specialist, Japan is one of the easiest entries in our sample. The main route has no income threshold, only a rule that you are paid no less than a Japanese employee in the same job. The employer files online, there are no months-long queues, the government is widening work visa quotas and certificate applications are up by half. There are no mandatory integration courses or language tests for work statuses, and children attend state school free of charge.
The weak spot is transparency: the state does not publish refusal statistics for work statuses. The other is the policy direction. Since autumn 2025 the signals of tightening keep coming: permanent residency revocation guidelines (September 2025), a sixfold rise in capital for the business visa that also applies to renewals, stricter driving licence conversion, a minister for "orderly coexistence" in the new cabinet and a package of measures on foreign nationals of 23 January 2026 focused on control. There is no coercion of legal residents so far: we found no revocations or expulsions.
The main risk lies ahead. A 2024 law allows permanent residency to be revoked over unpaid taxes and contributions; enforcement starts in April 2027 and covers some 918,000 people who already hold it. From June 2027 every renewal includes an electronic check of pension and health contributions, and arrears mean refusal.
Losing your job does not take away your status at once. It can be cancelled only after more than three months without activity under the status, and the law expressly treats job hunting as a valid reason. You can change employers within the same status freely, with a notice to immigration within 14 days. But if the status is revoked and the agency sees a risk of absconding, no time to leave is given, and detention during deportation proceedings is routine.
Daily life has friction: the big banks open a full account only after 6 months of residence, with Japan Post Bank as the workaround. Registering at the city office within 14 days is mandatory and done the same day. A spouse on dependent status may work only with a separate permission and for no more than 28 hours a week.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa for up to 90 days. For living and working there, the same procedure as for everyone: a work status sponsored by a Japanese employer.
The working holiday visa is open only to citizens of countries with bilateral agreements. Nurses and care workers from Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam have separate channels under economic partnership agreements.
A visa is needed for short trips: Ukraine is not on the visa exemption list. Since 1 December 2023 Japan has offered complementary protection to people fleeing war who do not meet the refugee definition: those recognised generally receive long-term resident status and easier conditions for permanent residency.
When we checked on 9 August 2026 we found no direct nationality restrictions on work statuses. A visa is needed for short trips: neither country is on Japan's visa exemption list.
The place interval 6-15 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Access to entry: 90 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.7. The weakest is Agency processing: 67 against 48.7. Above the world average: 7 out of 7.
Since 2023, people who qualify by income or by degree no longer need to collect points. Family reunification takes the one to three months the law promises, the immigration service accepts a bachelor's degree itself with no separate recognition procedure, and ten years of experience can replace it. There are no integration exams.
DownsideA spouse on a dependant visa cannot work straight away; a separate permit is needed, and even with it the ceiling is 28 hours a week. Only spouses of highly qualified specialists have a full right to work.
Stability of the rules scores just 25 out of 100. An immigration service instruction of 29 September 2025 takes effect in 2027 and introduces revocation of permanent residence over unpaid taxes and mandatory pension and health contributions. It contains no protection for people who already hold it, and that is around 918 thousand people.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
The certificate of eligibility takes 1-3 months under the standard, then 5 working days for the visa. In 2026 some cases, especially family ones, stretch to 100 days or more.
Practically no. The business manager visa needs ¥30 million in capital, and the digital nomad visa gives up to 6 months with no residence card or extension. J-Find gives graduates of top universities up to two years to find a job, but it is a delay, not a substitute for an employer.
From 1 October 2026 the fee depends on the length of the permit: ¥10,000 to ¥75,000 in person, up to ¥65,000 online. Applications accepted by 30 September 2026 pay the old rates; permanent residency now costs ¥200,000.
A work status is cancelled after more than three months without activity under it and without a valid reason; job hunting counts as one. From April 2027 permanent residency can also be revoked over unpaid taxes and contributions, with no exemption for existing holders.
Under the points system, permanent residency after 1 year with 80 points or 3 years with 70, otherwise after 10 years. Citizenship after 5 years of residence, with elementary-level Japanese and giving up your previous citizenship.
The state wants specialists: many routes, no income threshold, fast agencies. But since 2025 policy has shifted towards control, and from 2027 your status will depend on paying taxes and contributions on time.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.