Japan spouse visa fees

Yes. free — no fee at any stage of the COE application. The COE — the document that takes the most work and the longest wait — 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, not a 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. You buy the revenue stamp at a post office, the immigration bureau, or a convenience store, for the exact amount, at the point of approval.

Slightly, yes. Online filing through the immigration system carries a small discount: a change of status or extension is ¥6,000 at the counter / ¥5,500 online, and a re-entry permit is ¥3,500 / ¥6,500 online versus ¥4,000 / ¥7,000 at the counter. The saving is modest; the bigger advantages of online filing are avoiding a trip to the bureau and the queue.

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 simply 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 — commonly around ¥3,000 for a single-entry visa, payable at the mission, 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.

Not in 2026 — the last actual increase was April 1, 2025, which set the current amounts (change/extension to ¥6,000, permanent residence to ¥10,000, re-entry to ¥4,000/¥7,000). A new law in 2026 raised the legal ceilings, but the amounts you actually pay have not changed. See the next section for what is and isn't in force.

That number is a statutory ceiling, not a fee anyone is paying. statutory caps raised May 29, 2026 (¥100,000 change/extension, ¥300,000 PR); actual amounts set by cabinet order due by March 31, 2027. The May 2026 law raised the maximum the government is legally allowed to charge — to ¥100,000 for change/extension and ¥300,000 for permanent residence — but the real amounts are set separately by cabinet order, which has not been issued. Until it is, the April 2025 amounts stand. We are tracking this page for the moment the cabinet order lands.

A roughly five-fold increase to the Foreign Ministry visa fee was budgeted for the 2026 fiscal year, but as of mid-2026 it is not in effect — the single-entry visa fee remains in its long-standing range. Like the immigration cabinet order, this is a "proposed, not yet in force" item; treat any guide quoting the higher number as premature until it is confirmed.

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.