How we research and write

Foreigner-specific or we don't publish

Every guide answers its question for a non-Japanese resident: what changes with your visa type, with or without permanent residency, with the time left on your residence card (在留カード), and with how much Japanese you speak. If the answer is the same as for a Japanese resident and large Japanese sites already cover it well, we skip the topic.

Research first, then writing

Each guide starts as a research file: every fact we plan to use, tied to the exact page that supports it, with the date we read it. The article is then written only from that file. A claim we couldn't confirm stays out of the article instead of being softened with "reportedly".

When two sources disagree, the article says so and says which one we follow and why, usually the law or the official source over a secondary page.

Sources and dates

We prefer official sources: providers' own pages, the Immigration Services Agency (出入国在留管理庁), the National Tax Agency (国税庁), the Financial Services Agency (金融庁), the Japan Pension Service (日本年金機構), the police and city offices. Japanese-language sources are cited as they are.

Every fee, rate, rule and deadline carries an "as of" date, and every article lists its sources with the date we accessed them. The stamp next to the byline shows the date the article's facts were last checked.

Fact-checking

Before a guide is published, it is read sentence by sentence against its research file. Any number, name, fee, date, rule or step that doesn't trace back to a source is fixed or removed.

Who writes our guides

Guides are written and checked by the japanhow editorial team and published under the byline "japanhow editors". The team's process, not one person's opinion, stands behind every page. That process is described here and on our methodology page. japanhow is run by Hana Digital.

Not personal advice

Our guides are general information. They are not legal, tax, immigration or financial advice for your situation. Where a case needs a professional, we say so and point you to the right one: a licensed immigration and administrative specialist (行政書士), a licensed tax accountant (税理士), the tax office (税務署) or the Immigration Services Agency.

Independence

Providers never pay for ratings, rankings or placement inside our guides, and they never see an article before it is published. If we earn from a link in future, it will be labeled next to the link, as our disclosure explains.

Corrections

If you find a mistake or an outdated fact, email hello@japanhow.com with the page and, if you can, a source. We check every report against the official source. When we change a fact, we update the article's date, and a correction that changes the answer is noted in the article.

Updates

Rules and fees in Japan change, often on April 1 or October 1. We recheck guides when a rule changes, when a reader tells us.