Japan's permanent-residence fee is now 200,000 yen, twenty times the old charge

Japan's fee for a permanent-residence permit rose on 1 October from 10,000 yen to 200,000 yen, a twenty-fold increase, about $1,270 or £955. The same date brought a new scale for extensions and status changes, and new income, pension and Japanese-language tests for permanent residence. Lines at immigration offices in the days before the change ran past seven hours at Tokyo's main bureau, as applicants tried to file under the old price.

The old extension fee was flat: 6,000 yen in person, 5,500 yen online, whatever the length of stay. From 1 October the charge follows the period requested. Nikkei put a one-year permit at 33,000 yen in person and 27,000 yen online, and a permit of five years or more at 75,000 yen in person and 65,000 yen online, more than ten times the old rate. The BBC gave the bottom of the new scale as 10,000 yen for three months or less, up to 75,000 yen for five years or more. Permanent residence can only be filed in person, so the online discount does not apply to the 200,000 yen charge.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has made the size of the foreign population a priority since she took office in October last year. She wrote on X that the cost of fair acceptance and of integration was expected to rise. The foreign resident count hit 4.12 million at the end of 2025, up 9.5 percent in a year and more than 80 percent in a decade. In July the government had already raised visa fees five-fold, the first visa-fee increase in 50 years, which authorities described as a catch-up for inflation and the exchange rate. The 1 October schedule is a second step, aimed at people already in the country rather than at the visa on arrival.

Who pays the new tests

The fee is the visible change. The tests are the filter. Permanent residence now requires income, pension and language benchmarks that did not sit in the old file in the same form. Nikkei reported the new criteria alongside the fee table. An applicant who saved 10,000 yen and a clean residence record under the previous rule now needs 200,000 yen and a pass on those three tests. The language requirement is the one most likely to sort long-settled workers in factories and care homes from professionals who already use Japanese at work.

Employers who have built shifts on five-year technical and specified-skill visas will feel the extension scale first. A renewal that cost 6,000 yen now costs 75,000 yen if the firm wants the longest period, or 33,000 yen for a single year. Multiplied across a crew, that is a hiring cost, not a stamp duty. The online rate is lower, 65,000 yen at the top, which pushes firms toward the electronic filing window and does nothing for the worker who has to appear for permanent residence.

A labour shortage, and a queue

Japan's ageing workforce is the reason the foreign resident count has risen this fast. Care, construction and small manufacturing have recruited abroad because the domestic cohort is shrinking. A government that raises the price of staying, and adds a language bar to permanent status, is choosing a slower path to settlement while still needing the same workers on one-year and five-year permits. The July visa increase and the October residence increase are the two instruments. Neither reduces the number of people already here. The 4.12 million figure is a stock. Fees change the flow.

The seven-hour queues in the last week of September are the transition cost. Anyone who filed before 1 October kept the 10,000 yen permanent-residence fee and the 6,000 yen extension. Anyone who files now pays the new scale. Takaichi's public case is that acceptance and integration cost more than the old stamps recovered. The schedule that took effect on Wednesday is the bill.