Name: Japan Hikes Visa Fees by 400% — but why and WHEN?
Uploaded: 2025-11-27T17:59:11.000Z
Duration: 17 min 58 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

If you don't know a stop from Roppongi, I like to come here.

It's a really big foreign population in this area because of the embassies and consulates that are in this area, mostly embassies, because this is Tokyo is the capital of Japan.

That means there's a lot of foreign supermarkets.

That means I can get most stuff for Thanksgiving here.

So happy Thanksgiving to everybody who's watching here.

I've gotten a ton of direct messages from people on Instagram, on Patreon, on Facebook, a lot of social media about this.

First of all, if you haven't already, this is the newest drop on the main channel.

This is from a hiking trail, mountain villages, from the Shin Etsu Trail.

It's an edited video, about 25 minutes that will take you to another world that shows why this country is just so amazing.

If you haven't had a chance, go check this out right after this.

somebody was telling me about it the other day, so I appreciate that very much.

Visa fees look like they're going to be exploding, but

it's all just a proposal now, so hang on.

They raised the fees in April, like marginally.

This is for residents in particular, hadn't gone up in 40 some years.

We're talking the 1980s when the yen was quite strong back then, and now it's not.

But there are reasons behind the visa hike proposal and it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon, but

However, 2026 doesn't look like the year.

It looks like these proposals will be ratified and put into effect in 2027.

So there is some time before that happens.

However, it is really good to know that there are some issues with this and we will talk about it in this live stream.

First off, what we already know for sure, the recent and upcoming fee increases.

It says the signal might be unstable in this region.

So we do know in April that the fee went from 4,000 to 6,000 yen.

Also, applying for permanent residency went from 8,000 to 10,000 yen.

That's not really that it's a lot of money, but

it's not that much money considering these fees hadn't changed in like 40 years or something.

Every time the street crosses, I think the signal gets weird.

However, the new proposals being considered is to raise much more steeply in the future.

The government has reportedly laid out plans to raise fees for visa renewal from to 30 to 40,000 yen.

That's going from 4000 yen, which is about $30 to 30,000 yen, which is about $200.

I would say that would represent a 5 to 7% increase over renewals from the current post2025 fee and 10 times more for permanent residency.

They want to charge juma yen or 100,000 yen for that.

But if you compare this to other countries, it's about on par.

Actually, it's just Japan has been keeping the fees just so low.

The Japan Rail Pass had not risen its fees in like decades.

And when they rose the fees, they didn't just do it in small increments like the post office does does with postage stamps.

They did it like ripped the bandage right off.

Get right from like 1980 prices to 2025 prices like right away.

Get the media and everybody out of the way, get everybody up to speed and then release these prices like this.

That seems to make a lot of sense, right?

I'd like to hear what all of you think about that as well.

But there's a lot of misconceptions about the media reports right now.

That said, for short term visas, tourist days and stuff, the government is reporting reportedly preparing to raise fees during the 2026.

So if you're coming here on like you're visa free, there might be fees for you to depart or to come in.

But those look like they're going to be taking effect before the residency fees take effect.

So if you're thinking of getting permanent residency, you probably want to do it now.

In other words, if you hold a residence visa and you're thinking about renewal extensions, they're likely in 2027.

So 2026 does not seem like the year, but who knows.

I see a lot of people here from the US writing in here.

As of April 1, 2025, they raised the fees slightly, but obviously it's not enough.

I'm going to show you why the fee raising is probably really important.

The new proposal is being considered to raise more steadily in the future.

The government has repeatedly laid out plans to raise fees.

So basically what we're still uncertain about is how much the fees are going to be.

I'm pretty sure they're going to raise the fees, but we don't exactly know how much and when.

So with that it becomes a sort of a media story.

The number of foreign residents in Japan as of the end of June hit a record high of 4 million people.

When I got here in 1998, it was a little bit over a million.

So it's about almost a four times increase in the foreign population.

Where I couldn't see a foreign face that often.