Permanent Residence in Japan in 2026: Fees, Approval Rates, and the Rules That Are Changing

Published: July 2026

Permanent residence has always been the most valuable — and most scrutinized — status in Japan's immigration system. As of June 2025 there were 932,090 permanent residents in Japan, the single largest residence category, accounting for almost a quarter of the record 3.96 million foreign residents (Immigration Services Agency statistics).

But 2026 is a turning point. Within roughly eighteen months, the cost of applying is set to multiply, a decades-old eligibility practice ends, and — for the first time — permanent residence will become revocable for non-payment of taxes. If you are considering applying, the details and the deadlines below matter.

1. The Fee Is Set to Jump — From ¥10,000 to Potentially ¥200,000+

Today, a successful PR applicant pays a ¥10,000 revenue stamp (raised from ¥8,000 in April 2025). That era is ending:

• March 10, 2026: the Cabinet approved a bill amending the Immigration Control Act to raise the statutory ceiling on immigration fees — to ¥300,000 for permanent residence and ¥100,000 for visa extensions and changes of status.
• July 2026: reporting indicates the government plans to implement sharply higher fees from around October 2026, with practitioners widely expecting the PR fee to land around ¥200,000. The exact amount will be fixed by Cabinet Order.
• The government expects roughly ¥225 billion per year in additional revenue, with about 60% earmarked for foreign-resident integration programs and overtourism measures.

Important nuance: the ceiling is not the fee. The actual amounts — and how pending applications will be treated when the new fees take effect — will only be settled by the Cabinet Order. But the direction is unambiguous, and note that the PR stamp is paid on approval, not at filing. With waits now routinely exceeding a year (see below), an application filed in late 2026 could plausibly be approved into the new fee era. Applying earlier is the conservative play.

2. What the Statistics Actually Say About Your Chances

Japan publishes the raw numbers in its official immigration statistics. We compiled every annual table from 2007 to 2024 and every monthly table from January 2025 through April 2026 (the latest available) into one series — to our knowledge the only English-language source with the 2025–2026 figures:

Four things stand out:

• Approval was once nearly automatic. In 2007, 86% of processed applications were approved. That era ended in two steps: the 2017–2020 documentation crackdown took the rate to roughly 52%, and after a partial recovery to ~65% in 2022–2024…
• …a second, sharper tightening is underway right now. Our aggregation of the monthly data puts the 2025 approval rate at 56.9% (39,865 approved of 70,022 processed) — and January–April 2026 at just 50.8%, the lowest in the twenty-year series. In early 2026, nearly half of all decided applications are being refused.
• Applications are at record highs anyway. 75,966 new applications were filed in 2025 — the most in the series — and 2026 is running well above even that pace (34,496 in four months; March 2026 alone saw 10,950, the biggest single month on record). The announced fee increase and the April 2027 five-year rule are visibly pulling applications forward.
• The queue is swelling. Pending applications grew from ~61,000 in January 2025 to ~73,000 by April 2026 — which is exactly why waiting times (next section) have stretched toward 18 months.

Bureau variation adds another layer: annual approval rates at Nagoya and Fukuoka run persistently below the national average, and monthly figures swing hard — in July 2025 the Tokyo bureau approved just 44% of the PR applications it processed that month. Refusals are most often born from tax timing, social insurance gaps, or income continuity. (We cover the specific failure patterns in our guide to avoiding PR rejection.)

The full series behind the chart:

"New applications" counts filings in that year; "processed" counts decisions issued in that year — because PR applications take months or years to decide, many of a year's decisions concern applications filed earlier. Processed exceeding new applications means the backlog shrank that year; the reverse (as in 2025–26) means the queue is growing. "Processed" includes approvals, denials, and withdrawals/other; the ISA's official 2025 annual table (due late summer 2026) may differ marginally from our monthly aggregation.

3. Waiting Times: Officially ~4 Months, Actually Up to 18

The Immigration Services Agency still lists a "standard processing period" of around 4 months for PR. Its own published processing-time data tells a different story: for applications decided between April 2025 and March 2026, PR processing averaged 279 days — roughly 9–10 months — nationally, with 2025 quarterly releases running as high as ~295 days.

And the averages hide the queue at the big bureaus. Current practitioner-reported ranges:

• Tokyo: 12–18+ months — practitioner case logs show Tokyo applications filed in late 2023 receiving decisions 540–640 days later, and 18-month waits are no longer unusual
• Yokohama: 8–12 months
• Osaka: around 8 months
• Nagoya: around 5 months

Practical consequences: you must keep renewing your current visa normally while the PR application is pending, your circumstances (job, address, family) should stay stable and reported, and any tax or pension payment that falls due during the wait must be paid on time — immigration can and does re-check before deciding.

4. February 2026: The 3-Year Visa Shortcut Is Closing

On February 24, 2026, the Ministry of Justice revised the official Permanent Residence Guidelines. The headline change ends one of the most relied-upon practices in PR screening:

• The guidelines require applicants to hold the "longest period of stay" for their visa. For years, a 3-year period of stay was treated as satisfying this in practice — most successful applicants never held a 5-year visa.
• From April 1, 2027, that ends. Applicants will need an actual 5-year period of stay.
• Transition window: holders of a 3-year period of stay can still apply under the old interpretation until March 31, 2027.
• The revision also made explicit that applicants should meet current landing-permission standards, and sharpened scrutiny of whether taxes were paid by their deadlines — late payment that is later settled still counts against you.

If you currently hold a 3-year visa and meet the residence requirements, the next nine months are your window to apply under the rules as they stand.

5. From 2027, PR Can Be Revoked for Willful Non-Payment

The June 2024 amendment to the Immigration Control Act — expected to take effect around April 2027 — makes permanent residence revocable where the holder willfully fails to pay taxes or social insurance premiums, or receives certain criminal penalties.

Guidelines issued on September 29, 2025 narrow this to genuinely deliberate cases: repeated delinquency, substantial amounts, clear intent to avoid payment. Losing your job or falling ill and missing payments is explicitly excluded. Still, the message is clear — PR is no longer "set and forget." Keep paying national pension, health insurance, and residence tax on schedule, and keep the receipts.

6. What May Come Next: Language Tests, Income Floors

None of the following is law yet, but the direction of travel is consistent:

• Japanese language requirement. In December 2025, government sources told reporters that Japanese proficiency is being considered as a PR requirement, and ruling-party recommendations submitted in January 2026 push the same idea. Reported target levels range from JLPT N4 to N2, possibly paired with mandatory integration/culture coursework.
• Income benchmark. A standard income threshold (figures around ¥3.5 million have been floated) is under discussion, replacing today's case-by-case "independent livelihood" assessment.
• Wider revocation grounds. The ruling party has asked the government to consider expanding the scope of conduct that can trigger PR revocation beyond the 2024 amendment.

Every recent change — fees, the 5-year rule, revocation — has moved in one direction. Whatever your view of the policy, the practical takeaway for eligible applicants is the same: the criteria you qualify under today are unlikely to get easier.

The 2026 Action List

• Check your points. If you score 70+ on the Highly Skilled Professional scale, you may qualify for PR after just 3 years — 80+ points, after 1 year. Use our free PR points calculator; the HSP route is unaffected by the 10-year rule and remains the fastest path.
• On a 3-year visa? You have until March 31, 2027 to apply under the old "longest period" practice — and long processing queues mean filing well before that.
• Fee-sensitive? The expected ~20× fee increase is anticipated from around October 2026. The stamp is paid at approval, and transitional treatment of pending applications is not yet clarified — earlier filing is the safer bet either way.
• Audit your own records first. Five years of income, residence tax, national pension, and health insurance — paid in full, on time. This is where most refusals are born, and where the 2026 guideline revision sharpened its teeth.
• Keep everything clean while you wait. A 10–18 month pending period is long enough for a missed pension payment or an unreported job change to sink an otherwise strong application.

Our permanent residence service covers eligibility assessment, timing strategy, document preparation, and the application itself — including an honest read on whether to file now or strengthen your record first.

Sources: Immigration Services Agency (PR Guidelines, rev. Feb 24, 2026; immigration statistics; published processing periods); Cabinet decision of March 10, 2026 on the Immigration Control Act fee amendment; The Japan Times (Dec 20, 2025 and Jul 3, 2026); Japan Today; ISA revocation guidelines of Sep 29, 2025. Figures current as of July 2026; fee amounts pending final Cabinet Order.