2022-09-072022-10-04

There are many cases of people who have applied for a permanent residence visa and then had their application rejected. Permanent residence visa applications are subject to strict review and there is no guarantee that the application will be approved. Therefore, this article provides an overview of the permanent resident visa rejection rate, the process after rejection, and the reasons for rejection.

Rejection rate of permanent resident visa applications

According to statistics from the Ministry of Justice, the approval rate for permanent resident visas over the past five years was 56.9% in 2017, 51.7% in 2018, 56.6% in 2019, 51.7% in 2020, and 57.2% in 2021.

(Reference: Immigration and Immigration Services Agency “Immigration Statistical Table") 

https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/policies/statistics/toukei_ichiran_nyukan.html

In other words, the non-approval rate for permanent residence visas is about 50%, which means that half of them are not approved during the review process.

What happens after an application is denied?

If your application for a permanent resident visa is not approved, you will receive a “Notice of Denial”.

This will contain a note stating something like, “It is not recognized that the application complies with the provisions of Article 22, Section 2, Item 2 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.

If your application is not approved, you can bring the documents you submitted when you applied for a permanent visa and the denial notice, go to the relevant immigration office and ask for the reason for the denial.

You can also bring your administrative scrivener to help you with this.

However, you can usually ask the reason for rejection only once.

Grounds for denial of a permanent resident visa application

• Failure to meet the requirements

Failure to meet the approval requirements for a permanent resident visa application. For example, if the guarantor cannot be contacted, income does not reach a certain level, length of stay is too short, their criminal record, etc.

In addition, non-payment of pensions and a large number of dependents can also be grounds for rejection.

• Inadequate or insufficient application documents

For example, there are errors in completing the permanent residence application form, omissions, and insufficient information. In addition, it is not uncommon for additional required documents to be missing or insufficient.

However, if you reapply after you have corrected the application documents and collected the gathered documents, you can increase your chances of approval.

• Change of job before and after application

If you change jobs before (within a year), during, or immediately after applying for a permanent resident visa, your income will be considered unstable and there is a high probability that your visa will be denied.

If you are applying for a permanent residence visa, it is advisable not to change jobs until you receive the results.

Summary

An application for a permanent residence visa may be denied if the requirements for approval are not met, the documents submitted are incomplete/insufficient, or if you change jobs before or after applying.

If your application is denied, you may contact your local immigration office to inquire about the reason for the denial and then file a new application for a permanent resident visa.

If you have questions about the content of the application, you should consult an expert, such as an administrative scrivener.