If you are in Japan on a status of residence that comes from your marriage, the question that keeps you awake is not about property or custody. It is whether you get to stay.
The short answer is that a divorce does not, by itself, cancel your status of residence. Your residence card does not stop working on the day the notification is accepted. But something does start on that day, and it is worth knowing what.
The one thing with a deadline
If you hold Spouse or Child of Japanese National (as the spouse), Spouse or Child of Permanent Resident (as the spouse), or Dependent (as the spouse), you must notify the Immigration Services Agency of the divorce within 14 days. That is Article 19-16(iii) of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. Death of a spouse triggers the same duty.
You can do this online, by post, or at a regional immigration bureau.
Two things about this obligation are commonly misunderstood.
It is a criminal provision. Failing to notify carries a fine of up to ¥200,000 (Article 71-5(iii)). Making a false notification is more serious again: up to one year’s imprisonment or a ¥200,000 fine (Article 71-2(i)).
It is not, in itself, a ground for taking your status away. The grounds for revocation are listed in Article 22-4(1), and failure to make this particular notification is not among them. The point of filing on time is to avoid the penalty and to keep your record clean — not because the notification is what puts your status at risk.
If your status does not come from the marriage — you hold Permanent Resident, Long-Term Resident, or a work-based status of residence — this duty does not apply to you, and the rest of this page is mostly not about you either.
What can actually happen to your status
The provision to read is Article 22-4(1)(vii). It says that the Minister of Justice may revoke the status of a person holding Spouse or Child of Japanese National (as a spouse) or Spouse or Child of Permanent Resident (as a spouse) who has, for six months or more continuously, not carried on activities as a spouse — unless there is a legitimate reason for not doing so.
Four features of that sentence do a lot of work.
“May.” Revocation is discretionary, not automatic. Meeting the six-month condition does not end your residence by operation of law.
“Six months or more continuously.” The clock is about the substance of the marital relationship, not the date on the divorce notification. Long separation before a divorce can matter; so can the fact that you were living together until the day it was filed.
“Unless there is a legitimate reason.” The statute builds in an exception and does not define it. Ongoing family court mediation, and separation because of domestic violence, are the situations where this matters most.
The carve-outs inside the provision. Article 22-4(1)(vii) expressly excludes a person who also holds the status of a child born to a Japanese national, or a special adoptee of a Japanese national. Someone who is both a spouse and a child of a Japanese national is outside item (vii) altogether.
And before the Minister revokes, the law requires a hearing at which you may appear, state your case, and put in evidence (Article 22-4(2) and (4)). If revocation does happen, it is not an order to leave immediately: the Minister designates a departure period of up to 30 days (Article 22-4(7)).
The safeguard almost nobody writes about
Article 22-5. Where the Minister is about to revoke a status on the basis of item (vii) — the spouse ground, specifically — the Minister must give consideration to affording the person an opportunity to apply for a change of status of residence, or for permanent residence.
This provision exists precisely for the situation on this page. It does not mean an application will be granted, and it is a duty to give consideration, not a duty to grant time. But it means the system is not built on the assumption that a divorced spouse simply leaves.
The routes that exist
Changing status is an application under Article 20. The standard the Minister applies is set out in Article 20(3): permission may be granted only where there is reasonable ground to find the change appropriate, based on the documents the applicant submits. That is a discretionary standard, and the documents you submit are the whole of what it is applied to.
Long-Term Resident (teijusha). Appendix Table 2 defines this status as covering a person “whom the Minister of Justice permits to reside, having regard to special reasons, designating a period of stay.” That is the whole statutory definition — the content comes from a public notice and from administrative practice rather than from the Act. In practice, the most familiar route for a divorced foreign parent is that they have a child of Japanese nationality whom they are actually raising.
Note the emphasis. What is looked at is the reality of the care you provide — living with the child, supporting the child, being the parent who is actually bringing them up. Since April 2026, Japanese law has allowed parents to remain joint holders of parental authority after divorce. Holding parental authority on paper and being the parent who raises the child are now more clearly two different things, and it is the second that this route is built around. If you expect to rely on it, the arrangements you agree in the divorce are not separate from the immigration question. They are the evidence for it.
A work status. If you have an employer and qualifications that fit one of the working categories, this is often the cleanest route, and it does not depend on the children at all.
Permanent residence, if you were already close to eligible before the marriage ended.
We are not able to tell you in advance which of these will be granted. Anyone who tells you they can is telling you something they do not know.
Timing is not a detail here
Two dates matter and they are not the same date: the day the divorce is registered, and the day your current period of stay expires.
Applying while you still have real time left on your card is a different position from applying after it has run down. It is worth knowing, before you agree to file the divorce notification on a particular day, how much time you will have afterwards. This is the single most common thing people find out too late.
Your children’s status is their own
A child born to a Japanese national holds Spouse or Child of Japanese National in their own right — as a child, not through you. Their parents’ divorce does not disturb it. A child of Japanese nationality is, of course, not affected at all.
This matters because it separates two questions people tend to merge. Your child’s ability to stay in Japan and your ability to stay in Japan are decided under different rules.
What this office does, and what it does not
We are a law office and a gyoseishoshi office handling divorce. Where a divorce raises questions about status of residence, you can discuss them with us, and we will tell you how they interact with the decisions you are about to make — the timing of the notification, what you agree about the children, what you will be able to evidence later.
We do not submit immigration applications on your behalf. This office is not registered as a filing agent with the Immigration Services Agency. Applications to change status of residence, or for permanent residence, are made by you in person at the regional immigration bureau — or online, where the category allows it. What we can do is help you understand what the application will be judged on, work through the documents with you, and make sure the divorce itself is arranged in a way that does not undercut it.
If it would help, we can attend the regional immigration bureau with you. You make the application yourself; we are there to answer questions and to deal with anything the counter raises.
If your case needs an immigration practitioner to conduct the application, we will say so.
What we would tell you in a first meeting
- Which of the two deadlines — the 14-day notification and your period of stay — is the one actually pressing on you.
- Whether Article 22-4(1)(vii) is capable of applying to you at all, and if so, from when.
- Which route out of your current status is realistic, and what it would need to be evidenced with.
- How the arrangements for your children affect that, and what to be careful about agreeing.
- What we cannot answer, and who can.
Yusuke Sasaki handles these matters in English. The first 30 minutes are at no charge.
A Japanese-language version of this article is here: 外国籍の配偶者と離婚したら、相手の在留資格はどうなるか.
This page describes the law in general terms and is not advice on your situation. It is not immigration-application services; applications to the Immigration Services Agency are made by the applicant.