The COE arrived. Now what?

No — and MOFA says so directly: a COE does not guarantee a visa, and a visa does not guarantee landing. In practice, denial after a spouse COE is rare (the hard examination already happened to issue the COE), but the embassy can still refuse if something surfaces that wasn't right at the COE stage. a COE does not guarantee a visa, and a visa does not guarantee landing — refusal reasons are not disclosed and a re-application for the same purpose is not accepted within 6 months. Treat the COE as "almost there," not "done."

About about 5 working days for a complete application — that's MOFA's standard. It can stretch to a month or more if the consulate refers your case to the Ministry in Tokyo (本省照会), requests more documents, or calls you for an interview, and busy posts run slower. Apply with time to spare rather than booking flights first.

Surprisingly few: passport, one visa application form, one photo, and the COE (e-COE shown on a phone, or a paper original/copy). You do not re-submit the whole COE file — the embassy can see the COE. Nationals of Russia, the CIS countries, and Georgia file two forms and two photos; Chinese nationals add a hukou copy, a residence permit, and a questionnaire obtained at the mission. Each post publishes its own list, so check the specific embassy's page for nationality extras.

At the Japanese mission in your country of nationality or country of residence (the one covering where you live, if there are several). apply at the Japanese mission in your country of nationality or residence — not where you are merely travelling; third-country filing is refused in principle, with a discretionary exception after consulting the mission in advance. So no, you generally can't pick a convenient third country while travelling; if you genuinely cannot apply in your country of residence, contact the intended mission before you go and ask.

Yes. A tourist visa admits you as a temporary visitor, not as a spouse — entering on it would not give you the spouse status the COE is for. The COE has to be used through a fresh spouse-visa application (and the landing application that activates the status). Using the tourist visa instead wastes the COE.

Your landing in Japan. The ISA's wording is precise: the COE loses effect unless a landing application is made within three months of its issue date — not the visa application, not visa issuance. The visa carries its own separate three-month clock from when it's issued, but the COE date is the one that actually binds you. Plan to be standing at a Japanese immigration counter before COE-issue-plus-three-months.

Think of it as two countdowns that both must still be running when you land. The COE: three months from its issue date. The visa: three months from its (later) issue date, single entry, and it can't be extended. Because the COE is issued first, its clock almost always expires first — so in practice the COE date is your real deadline. Land before the earlier of the two and you're fine.

It becomes void, and an expired COE cannot be renewed or extended — you would start over with a fresh COE application at immigration in Japan (months again). If you can see you won't make it (a delayed visa, a family emergency), the move is to land within the window even briefly rather than let it lapse. Visas can't be extended either, so there is no saving a blown deadline after the fact.

If you applied for yourself, showing the e-COE email on your smartphone is officially accepted at both the visa application and at landing. A printout works too. The one exception: if someone applies for the visa on your behalf as a proxy, they must hand over a printed copy rather than show a screen. For a paper COE, a copy (both sides) has been accepted since March 2023 — you no longer have to surrender the original.

You submit a COE with the visa application (original or a copy), so whatever you submit, the mission keeps. Submit a copy and you keep the original; you'll present it (or the e-COE) again at landing. If you end up not using a paper original at all, the ISA asks you to return it to the issuing immigration office with a short note — it is, technically, government property.

Usually not for a spouse application backed by a COE — the relationship review happened at the COE stage. Some posts interview as a matter of routine or when something needs clarifying, and an interview is one of the things that pushes processing past the standard week. If you're called, it's a clarification step, not a sign of trouble by itself.

Give a realistic intended arrival date inside the COE's validity and your genuine plan — these are declarations, not bookings. The period of stay you actually receive (1 or 3 years is typical for a first spouse visa, though 6 months and 5 years exist) is decided by immigration at landing and printed on your residence card, regardless of what you wrote. Don't buy non-refundable flights around the date you put on the form.

No. The arrival date and port on the application are your intended plan, not a binding commitment — you can land on a different flight, a different day, or at a different airport, as long as it's within the COE window. What matters at the counter is a valid visa and an unexpired COE, not matching the form.

issued on arrival at 10 airports (New Chitose, Sendai, Narita, Haneda, Chubu, Kansai, Kobe, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Naha); elsewhere it is mailed after you register your address. At those airports the officer stamps your passport with landing permission and hands you the card on the spot. Land elsewhere and you'll get a passport notation saying the card will follow, then it's mailed once you've registered your address.

The one legal deadline: within 14 days of settling on an address, take the residence card to the municipal office and register. Bring your residence card to the municipal office; registering your address is also what triggers the mailed residence card if your airport didn't issue one, and it unlocks health insurance, pension enrolment, and a bank account. See the full guide's first-month checklist for the rest.

Refusal reasons are not disclosed — Japanese immigration dispositions are exempt from the usual duty to give reasons. And a re-application for the same purpose is not accepted within six months of a refusal, unless there is a humanitarian need (consult the mission). A refusal after a COE is unusual and usually points to something that changed or surfaced after the COE was issued; this is the point to get a licensed immigration specialist involved rather than simply refiling.