Japan spouse visa fees

Yes. free: no fee at any stage of the COE application. The COE is the document that takes the most work and the longest wait, and it costs nothing to apply for or to receive. The only money attached to the COE stage is incidental: certificates from a city office, photos, postage. If you hire an immigration specialist to prepare the application, that is their professional fee, separate from any government charge.

Only on approval. Japanese immigration fees (change of status, extension, permanent residence, re-entry) are paid by affixing a revenue stamp (収入印紙) to a form you are handed when the application is granted, so a refused application costs you nothing in government fees. The postcard telling you the application was approved states the amount, and immigration asks you to buy the stamps for it at a large post office, in cash, before you come in to collect the result: the counters and convenience stores at the bureau carry limited stock, which matters more from October 1, 2026 now that the amounts are larger. One exception from that date: fees for applications filed online are paid by convenience store or bank transfer instead, not by stamp.

Yes, and from October 2026 it becomes worth real money. Until September 30, 2026 the online discount is small: ¥5,500 instead of ¥6,000 for a change of status or extension, and ¥3,500 / ¥6,500 instead of ¥4,000 / ¥7,000 for a re-entry permit. Under the new scale from October 1 the gap widens to thousands of yen at every tier, up to ¥65,000 online against ¥75,000 at the counter for a five-year grant. One catch: online fees cannot be paid with a revenue stamp. You pay at a convenience store or by bank transfer, and a separate transaction fee applies.

Almost never. ¥4,000 single / ¥7,000 multiple at the counter (¥3,500 / ¥6,500 online), but most spouse-visa holders pay nothing, because the free special re-entry permit covers trips under one year. As a spouse-visa holder, if you leave and come back within one year you use the free "special re-entry permit": you mark the box on the embarkation card as you depart, and pay nothing. You only need a paid re-entry permit if you will be outside Japan for more than a year (then it is ¥4,000 single or ¥7,000 multiple at the counter).

The embassy visa has its own fee, set by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and separate from the immigration fees above, and it rose sharply on July 1, 2026: about ¥15,000 for a single-entry visa and about ¥30,000 for a multiple-entry visa, raised from about ¥3,000 and ¥6,000 on July 1, 2026. It is payable at the mission in the local currency, and waived entirely for nationals of countries that have a visa-fee-exemption arrangement with Japan. Because it is reciprocity-based, the exact amount depends on your nationality; the embassy handling your application publishes its own figure. Nothing is charged if the visa is not issued.

Yes, and the big change lands on October 1, 2026. Until September 30 the April 2025 amounts still apply: ¥6,000 for a change of status or extension, ¥10,000 for permanent residence, ¥4,000/¥7,000 for a re-entry permit. From October 1 a cabinet order replaces the flat ¥6,000 with a scale based on how long a period of stay you are granted, from ¥10,000 up to ¥75,000, and raises permanent residence to ¥200,000. Re-entry permits are not part of this change. What decides which price you pay is the date you file, not the date you are approved.

Yes, and this is the part worth acting on. The Immigration Services Agency is explicit that an application received by September 30, 2026 is charged the old fee even if the permission is granted in October or later. So if you are close to filing a renewal, a change of status, or a permanent-residence application, filing before the deadline is the difference between ¥6,000 and as much as ¥75,000, or between ¥10,000 and ¥200,000. Do not rush an application that is not ready, though: a refusal costs you the chance entirely, and a weak application filed early is worse than a strong one filed at the new price.

The ceiling and the real price are two different numbers, and both moved. The May 2026 law raised the statutory ceilings (¥100,000 change/extension, ¥300,000 permanent residence), and the cabinet order setting the amounts actually charged has now been issued: the new fees take effect October 1, 2026, below those ceilings. So the ¥300,000 figure in the headlines is the legal maximum, not a price anyone is charged: from October 1, 2026 permanent residence actually costs ¥200,000, which is twenty times the old fee but still below the ceiling. There are reduction and exemption measures for applicants in serious financial hardship and for humanitarian cases, with published eligibility guidelines and a required set of supporting documents.

Yes, on July 1, 2026, and it is a separate change from the immigration fee revision. The Cabinet Order on Fees Collected by Consular Officers was amended, so a visa application accepted at a mission on or after that date costs about ¥15,000 for a single-entry visa and about ¥30,000 for a multiple-entry visa, up from about ¥3,000 and ¥6,000. The date that decides the price is the date the mission accepts your application, not the date the visa is issued. Fee exemptions by nationality and purpose are unchanged, and a refused application is still charged nothing. Guides still quoting ¥3,000 have not caught up.

No, those are entirely separate. Everything on this page is a government fee. If you hire a licensed immigration specialist (行政書士) to prepare or file an application, their professional fee is a private charge on top, typically far larger than the government fee, and set by the individual practitioner. The government fees themselves are the small, fixed amounts listed above.