Trip out and back
Going home for a holiday, a wedding or a long stay? Enter the day you leave, the day you come back and the end date on your residence card, and see whether the special re-entry permit covers the trip, the last day to land, and what to do before you go.
On the residence card: 在留期間（満了日）, the date in brackets.
Last day to land on the special re-entry permit
17 November 2027
You are away 21 days.
One year from the day you leave, that day counted in.
You land 343 days before that limit.
Before you go
With the special re-entry permit (みなし再入国許可), up to one year from the day you leave, or until your period of stay ends if that comes first. Special permanent residents have two years. You apply for nothing: you tick the box on the re-entry ED card at departure and show your passport and residence card.
It does not cover a period of stay of 3 months or less, a temporary visitor (短期滞在), or someone whose status is being cancelled. It cannot be extended from abroad: miss the last day and the status of residence ends.
For a trip longer than the special permit covers. The regional immigration office grants it before you leave, for up to 5 years and never past your period of stay (6 years for special permanent residents), for one trip or for any number of trips.
| Permit | At the office | Online |
|---|---|---|
| One trip | ¥4,000 | ¥3,500 |
| Any number of trips | ¥7,000 | ¥6,500 |
If something keeps you abroad, a Japanese embassy or consulate can extend a regular re-entry permit by up to a year, as long as it stays within six years from the day it took effect. The special permit cannot be extended this way.
Then no re-entry permit helps, because neither runs past your period of stay. Renew before you leave: the renewal is filed from 3 months before the end date, and the office may take it earlier for a long stay abroad.
Your city asks for the moving-out notice (転出届), also from foreign residents. Resident tax for a year is charged by the city where you are registered on 1 January.
Not in Japan's own law. You are a resident for income tax if your address, the base of your life, is in Japan, or if you have lived here for a year or more. A trip home does not change that while your job and home here wait for you.
You are treated as having no address in Japan when you move abroad for a job of a year or more, or when nothing brings you back. The 183 days in many searches come from tax treaties and from the home country's own rules, such as Indonesia's and Vietnam's.
The guideline revised on 1 October 2026: within the 10 years before the application, a single trip of half a year or more, or 2 years 6 months away in all, without a reasonable reason, count against the application in principle.
This applies to applications from 1 April 2027. The counter above takes 2 years 6 months as 913 days.
From 1 April 2027 the guideline looks at the 10 years before the application: one trip of half a year or more, or 2 years 6 months away in all, count against it without a reasonable reason. List your trips and see where you stand.
Add the trips you made out of Japan, with the day you left and the day you came back.
The trips stay in this browser only.
The Ministry of Justice asks that you have lived in Japan continuously for 5 years or more up to the application, with a legal status. Its page gives no number of days abroad.
Read on 18 October 2026. Dates count the day you leave as day one, the safe reading, because the agency's page gives no worked date. The officer at the airport and the immigration office decide each case; this page does not replace them.
