Requiring proficiency in the language is reasonable, but requiring everyone to be richer than the average member of the population and have enough money banked to live off of for 30 years seems insane. That goes well beyond simply making sure that people are able to care for themselves.
Just because some people want something that doesn't suddenly make it reasonable or wise. In this case it's a problem for many already successful people living in Japan currently who will be forced to leave. It's also a problem for Japanese companies who have hired those people or who want to attract foreign talent to positions that pay well, but don't typically leave someone fabulously wealthy compared to most of the people living around them. It's also a problem because the policy is coming in at a time of increased xenophobia and overt racism and while this policy is likely to reduce the total number of foreigners living in Japan, it's unlikely to address the problems people have with the foreigners who will remain, and it could actually make those problems worse.
I don't think anyone plans on trying to step in and intervene, but I hope people also don't shy from talking about how foolish this move is, the problems it won't solve, the problems it's likely to cause, and the people whose lives are being negatively impacted by it.
Why don't you trust the Japanese to know wha they're doing when it comes to their own society? After all, they're the ones who built an amazing country everyone wants to visit!
Because the yen is weak is a big reason why visiting is appealing. Its also a big reason why their population is dwindling.
The govt is just trying to point fingers at foreigners to hide their weakness. I think recently they made a big deal about foreign owned real estate then quickly forgot about that talking point when their own study showed it equated to something like .05% of their total housing.
That’s not the point I’m making. Japan is clearly a wonderful society, seeing as how many people want to visit and immigrate. Why not trust the people who built that society that they know what they’re doing?
Something must be done, this is something, we must do it!
Just because something can be done doesn't make it good for the society. Japan has a shrinking population and is currently dependent on immigrants for low wage work. Plenty of actions can make the current problem worse and have unintended consequences. Whether they happen or not is a political question, not a moral one.
Who determined "what they want?" Did you want your government to attack Iran? Are you responsible for it? Why not?
That's their problem to solve however they want, if they want. The population shrinking by some large percentage doesn't seem to be inherently bad to me, and probably is good.
It's so laughable to me when people say "BUT THE SHAREHOLDER VALUE!" when we talk about things like the important life trends of millions of people.
Absolutely. They’ll just go through a period of a bunch of social workers discovering a new corpse every three days. Whole towns dying because there is nobody to maintain the public services. The people will get exactly what they were asking for, and they’ll die for it.
A few generations ago they were enslaving people [0]. This is what racism can lead to. Maintaining their heritage, their way of life, some would say.
Hopefully their population decline doesn't hit them too hard. But that, and their lack natural of resources, could lead to bad things. Fascists and their ilk thrive in such situations.
I agree, but unfortunately, looking at the news from Japan, far-right support rates are higher than one might expect.
So it's true that those in power are harming innocent people in order to maintain their power, but it's also true that Japanese people believe they are being harmed by foreign immigrants.
And some of it is actually true. Of course, conversely, there's also the problem of many Japanese companies hiring Southeast Asian workers at low wages and mistreating them.
But whether it's me as a Korean or Japan, both tend to have a certain authoritarian mindset instilled based on "ethnic" identity. So one aspect of this policy is "we only welcome rich foreigners who spend money and leave," and the media responds accordingly.
Strictly speaking, if you look at these policies strengthening restrictions on foreigners from a third-country perspective, you can see them from the angle of far-rightization. That is, sanctions against outsiders for the sake of internal cohesion[1]. But considering the severe aging population in Japanese industry right now, it's effectively cutting off one's own nose to spite one's face.
However, East Asians receive a somewhat different education from you, so that's how it is.
The real cause is the failure of Abenomics and the resulting weak yen, which benefits financial companies and exports but sacrifices the Japanese people—the incompetence of the regime is the problem. But because it's hard to grasp all of that complex background, people want to attack something else that's near them.
And also, because the morality of some underdeveloped countries (I know it's an example...) differs from that of developed countries, friction often occurs. Just as the sense of time differs between agricultural regions and cities, for instance.
> The real cause is the failure of Abenomics and the resulting weak yen
i think you are right, there is a lot of over-tourism (and from some places 'rude' tourists that are really aggravating to people) but that is also being caused by weak yen in the end...
whats the saying? everything is downstream from economics?
telling a person that has build a successful life after eight years, is assimilated and speaks the language and can support themselves that they have to leave on completely absurd conditions that virtually nobody could meet, including native citizens, is cruel by just about every definition of that term.
Those people have only ever paid in, have much better options than Japan at this point economically given how far the country has fallen behind, and the logical terminus of this is basically being some kind of ethnic chauvinist second world clown country.
If you're even turning skilled tech workers and law abiding people away your immigration problem is solved by virtue of being poor in another 10-20 years. Japan fell below replacement fertility in the 70s, 35% of the population is over 60, good luck caring for those tens of millions of people about to retire.
No one is forcing them to leave. They can continue to live and work in Japan on their current visa, and renew it. Japan is simply raising the requirements for permanent residence using the traditional ten year path. To be clear, there are numerous paths to permanent residence that are much easier than the traditional ten year path. (Your favourite LLM can tell you all about it.)
> completely absurd conditions
The new requirements are not this. In short: (1) modest Japanese language requirements, (2) more pension (or personal) savings, (3) higher salary.
> If you're even turning skilled tech workers ... away
They are not. As I understand, Japan does not limit the number of skilled visas, such as engineer, humanities, or manager. Also, many of those foreign tech workers will make more than 10M JPY per year and can easily qualify for something called the "Highly Skilled Professional" (HSP) visa. Depending upon your "HSP points", you can get permanent residence after one or three years without any of the other requirements.
The real issue is the people who have lived and worked in Japan for a long time, but don't earn large salaries. Japan is basically closing the door for permanent residence for those people unless they marry a local. My hot take: I am OK with closing the door for those people. They are basically earning a lower middle income. I'm not sure Japan wants or needs to have those people as permanent residents. However, they are free to live and work here as long as as they want. After they finish working, they can return to their home country. No one is taking that away.
> good luck caring for those tens of millions of people about to retire.
They will do it by expanding their existing (enormous) technical intern programme. There are already many low(er) skill foreigners working in elderly care.
> No one is forcing them to leave. They can continue to live and work in Japan on their current visa, and renew it.
Totally wrong, people who were eligible for the business manager visa are no longer elgibile with zero warning or grace period granted, so yeah, total BS. If you built a business here, that's been destroyed if you don't have enough money to quality for another business manager visa.
What about the people who have worked for 10 years , paid all their tax, not broken the law, but don't have 30 years worth of money to live on, do you think they should be rewarded with the rejection of a PR? On what grounds is that fair?
I get the feeling you either have zero connection to Japan, or you do live here and are married to a Japanese, so you're happy to see the ladder get pulled up because "you're ok".
The damage will be hard to fix because once Japan does realize they want foreign workers, they won't come back.
> people who were eligible for the business manager visa are no longer elgibile with zero warning or grace period granted
To be clear, they can continue to run their business for the duration of their visa. It is not an immediate order to leave the country. That is a false statement.
You are right that a significant change was made to the business manager visa. Old rules: 5M JPY was required as "minimum capital". New rules: 30M JPY is required. The primary reason for the change was to close a loophole that many mainland Chinese used to get a business manager visa to move their family to Japan. (There is no group of people less liked by Japanese people.)
I agree: They should have added a carve-out for legitimate small businesses. Alternatively, they should have created a programme to lend money at a reasonable interest rate and X years to become compliant. There are many non-Japanese restaurants that are run by first generation immigrants from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. However, the actual number of small businesses that have been "forced to leave" as a result of this change are as yet unknown.
There were a few very noisy folks that the mainstream media reported about over and over. However, they should try to borrow money from friends, family, or a bank. Personally, I contacted one of them via WhatsApp to offer to lend money to make the 30M JPY requirement, but I never heard back. After that, I assumed that they were "blowing smoke" (bullshit). Interestingly, for all the ones that were very publicly complaining about the changes (that I saw), none of their businesses have closed. I guess they made it work.
> 30 years worth of money to live on
I won't repeat myself here, but I answered that concern here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49864179">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49864179
> What about the people who have worked for 10 years , paid all their tax, not broken the law, but don't have 30 years worth of money to live on, do you think they should be rewarded with the rejection of a PR? On what grounds is that fair?
The financial situation of the Japan central gov't is the same or worse compared to ten years ago. They don't want to grant permanent residence to people who are less than middle class. It is very likely that these people would consume in public benefits during retirement far more than they ever paid into the system. I think Japan is being financial prudent about what foreigners they allow to "stay forever". So, yes, I agree: They "pulled up the ladder", economically speaking.
Another myth of the traditional (my term) ten year permanent residence route: It is not guaranteed to be granted even if you followed all of the known and public rules -- good salary, paid all taxes (incl social), no traffic violations/arrests, etc. They look at your integration into Japanese society. If your Japanese language is poor, they frequently reject. If you are unmarried, they also frequently reject. If you belong to no civic orgs or never volunteer, they also frequently reject. If you don't have multiple personal recommendations for PR from Japanese citizens and/or other PRs, they also frequently reject. There are many, many Reddit and blog posts about such rejections.
Finally, have these changes affected you? You seem very emotionally charged in your posts about the matter.
> I am not sure in understand the issue, if Japanese want this, what’s the problem?
The problem is I’ve built my life here and they keep treating foreigners as a lesser life form. People here can unironically be standing next to me bitching about foreigners. Then turn to me and say something like “not you, you are fine.”
Clearly Japanese feel like they don't want immigrants or want very few of them, which is fine.
With these laws, they are pushing 99% of people out while saving face from being called racists.
I think every country should have a right over their borders. Japan wasn't built on multiculturalism like United States or Canada, so I'm not surprised.
That being said, I would probably think twice about traveling to Japan as a tourist.
United States wasn't exactly built on multiculturalism either.
Laws dating back to 1790 restricted naturalization to white people, which arguably makes the US a sort of white ethnostate from the very beginning. This stuff only really went away after the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, and repealing that act appears to be an objective of the american right wing as of 2026.
It really made me question whether it was possible for a third worlder like me to ever become an american.
Plenty of foreigners are in fact quite rude towards their new hosts though. It can and does bring out the worst in people, and I can't say I blame them.
The whole idea of naturalization is to assimilate into the new culture and become one of them. Far too many people just don't put in the effort to do that.
That's the risk you run immigrating to another country.
I immigrated to another country and I went in eyes wide open knowing that at any point I might have to pack up and head home. In fact, it became far harder to immigrate only a few years after I did. Likelihood is that if I hadn't come when I did I never would have been able to.
It took 10 years to finally become a citizen, but I did so the first day it was an option (yes, I counted down the days and sent in the application on day 1), because I knew it was the only way I could safely assume I'd never be forced to leave.
It would be fine if it was a well documented recurring issue that plagued society. As is it, it feels more like a canary in the coal mine, for dirtier times to come.
In practice, most visas are short term, and none of them will allow you to benefit from social aids for very long. At most I imagine you could extend your working visa to 5 years, get sick the first year and be at charge for the remaining 4 years ? There will be ink spent on these cases, but statistically how often does that even happen to need stricter laws ?
The current political climates needs the gov to look "Japan First" and these kind of rule change are very cheap to do, especially as the people directly impacted don't vote nor can complain. It goes well with the very anti-foreigner sentiment, especially as the current wave of tourists is very unpopular despite the money coming in.
The longer view is Japan getting less workers in total, yet more of the worse immigrants as they're calling for people who either don't need Japan (have enough money to go anywhere and don't need to think long term) or are willing to take more risks (high return grifts etc.), in a time where Japanese salaries and productivity are already lower than surrounding countries.
They're basically making a bad situation worse, just for short term political play, giving in on the worse trends.
autoexec · · focus · HN ↗
reliabilityguy · · focus · HN ↗
I am not sure in understand the issue, if Japanese want this, what’s the problem?
autoexec · · focus · HN ↗
zulux · · focus · HN ↗
autoexec · · focus · HN ↗
ihsw · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
rayiner · · focus · HN ↗
drunner · · focus · HN ↗
The govt is just trying to point fingers at foreigners to hide their weakness. I think recently they made a big deal about foreign owned real estate then quickly forgot about that talking point when their own study showed it equated to something like .05% of their total housing.
rayiner · · focus · HN ↗
Scharkenberg · · focus · HN ↗
I don't think so.
> seeing as how many people want to visit and immigrate.
That's true for Qatar and UAE too. Wonderful societies.
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
free_bip · · focus · HN ↗
Tiktaalik · · focus · HN ↗
duhher4 · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
rustystump · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
kurthr · · focus · HN ↗
Just because something can be done doesn't make it good for the society. Japan has a shrinking population and is currently dependent on immigrants for low wage work. Plenty of actions can make the current problem worse and have unintended consequences. Whether they happen or not is a political question, not a moral one.
Who determined "what they want?" Did you want your government to attack Iran? Are you responsible for it? Why not?
zug_zug · · focus · HN ↗
It's so laughable to me when people say "BUT THE SHAREHOLDER VALUE!" when we talk about things like the important life trends of millions of people.
turkey99 · · focus · HN ↗
duhher4 · · focus · HN ↗
Can the same be said of all the populations importing millions of foreigners to prop up "muh GDP"?
Aeolun · · focus · HN ↗
Absolutely. They’ll just go through a period of a bunch of social workers discovering a new corpse every three days. Whole towns dying because there is nobody to maintain the public services. The people will get exactly what they were asking for, and they’ll die for it.
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
I've yet to meet people immune from the inevitability of death, via the immigration policies of their country.
What exactly was your argument here? Because I'm not seeing the downside in what you wrote.
kurthr · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://theonion.com/15-000-brown-people-dead-somewhere-1819564956/" rel="nofollow">https://theonion.com/15-000-brown-people-dead-somewhere-1819...
mikem170 · · focus · HN ↗
Hopefully their population decline doesn't hit them too hard. But that, and their lack natural of resources, could lead to bad things. Fascists and their ilk thrive in such situations.
[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Japan#World_War_II" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Japan#World_War_II
rayiner · · focus · HN ↗
reliabilityguy · · focus · HN ↗
In this case the consequences will make people to elect a better government next time and try better ideas. Democracy at work.
bamboozled · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
jdw64 · · focus · HN ↗
So it's true that those in power are harming innocent people in order to maintain their power, but it's also true that Japanese people believe they are being harmed by foreign immigrants.
And some of it is actually true. Of course, conversely, there's also the problem of many Japanese companies hiring Southeast Asian workers at low wages and mistreating them.
But whether it's me as a Korean or Japan, both tend to have a certain authoritarian mindset instilled based on "ethnic" identity. So one aspect of this policy is "we only welcome rich foreigners who spend money and leave," and the media responds accordingly.
Strictly speaking, if you look at these policies strengthening restrictions on foreigners from a third-country perspective, you can see them from the angle of far-rightization. That is, sanctions against outsiders for the sake of internal cohesion[1]. But considering the severe aging population in Japanese industry right now, it's effectively cutting off one's own nose to spite one's face.
However, East Asians receive a somewhat different education from you, so that's how it is.
The real cause is the failure of Abenomics and the resulting weak yen, which benefits financial companies and exports but sacrifices the Japanese people—the incompetence of the regime is the problem. But because it's hard to grasp all of that complex background, people want to attack something else that's near them.
And also, because the morality of some underdeveloped countries (I know it's an example...) differs from that of developed countries, friction often occurs. Just as the sense of time differs between agricultural regions and cities, for instance.
[1]<a href="https://csrda.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/socialresearch/pr/26PressRelease_2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://csrda.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/socialresearch/pr/26PressRel...
andrekandre · · focus · HN ↗
whats the saying? everything is downstream from economics?
carlosjobim · · focus · HN ↗
Barrin92 · · focus · HN ↗
Those people have only ever paid in, have much better options than Japan at this point economically given how far the country has fallen behind, and the logical terminus of this is basically being some kind of ethnic chauvinist second world clown country.
If you're even turning skilled tech workers and law abiding people away your immigration problem is solved by virtue of being poor in another 10-20 years. Japan fell below replacement fertility in the 70s, 35% of the population is over 60, good luck caring for those tens of millions of people about to retire.
throwaway2037 · · focus · HN ↗
The real issue is the people who have lived and worked in Japan for a long time, but don't earn large salaries. Japan is basically closing the door for permanent residence for those people unless they marry a local. My hot take: I am OK with closing the door for those people. They are basically earning a lower middle income. I'm not sure Japan wants or needs to have those people as permanent residents. However, they are free to live and work here as long as as they want. After they finish working, they can return to their home country. No one is taking that away.
They will do it by expanding their existing (enormous) technical intern programme. There are already many low(er) skill foreigners working in elderly care.bamboozled · · focus · HN ↗
Totally wrong, people who were eligible for the business manager visa are no longer elgibile with zero warning or grace period granted, so yeah, total BS. If you built a business here, that's been destroyed if you don't have enough money to quality for another business manager visa.
What about the people who have worked for 10 years , paid all their tax, not broken the law, but don't have 30 years worth of money to live on, do you think they should be rewarded with the rejection of a PR? On what grounds is that fair?
I get the feeling you either have zero connection to Japan, or you do live here and are married to a Japanese, so you're happy to see the ladder get pulled up because "you're ok".
The damage will be hard to fix because once Japan does realize they want foreign workers, they won't come back.
throwaway2037 · · focus · HN ↗
You are right that a significant change was made to the business manager visa. Old rules: 5M JPY was required as "minimum capital". New rules: 30M JPY is required. The primary reason for the change was to close a loophole that many mainland Chinese used to get a business manager visa to move their family to Japan. (There is no group of people less liked by Japanese people.)
I agree: They should have added a carve-out for legitimate small businesses. Alternatively, they should have created a programme to lend money at a reasonable interest rate and X years to become compliant. There are many non-Japanese restaurants that are run by first generation immigrants from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. However, the actual number of small businesses that have been "forced to leave" as a result of this change are as yet unknown.
There were a few very noisy folks that the mainstream media reported about over and over. However, they should try to borrow money from friends, family, or a bank. Personally, I contacted one of them via WhatsApp to offer to lend money to make the 30M JPY requirement, but I never heard back. After that, I assumed that they were "blowing smoke" (bullshit). Interestingly, for all the ones that were very publicly complaining about the changes (that I saw), none of their businesses have closed. I guess they made it work.
I won't repeat myself here, but I answered that concern here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49864179">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49864179 The financial situation of the Japan central gov't is the same or worse compared to ten years ago. They don't want to grant permanent residence to people who are less than middle class. It is very likely that these people would consume in public benefits during retirement far more than they ever paid into the system. I think Japan is being financial prudent about what foreigners they allow to "stay forever". So, yes, I agree: They "pulled up the ladder", economically speaking.Another myth of the traditional (my term) ten year permanent residence route: It is not guaranteed to be granted even if you followed all of the known and public rules -- good salary, paid all taxes (incl social), no traffic violations/arrests, etc. They look at your integration into Japanese society. If your Japanese language is poor, they frequently reject. If you are unmarried, they also frequently reject. If you belong to no civic orgs or never volunteer, they also frequently reject. If you don't have multiple personal recommendations for PR from Japanese citizens and/or other PRs, they also frequently reject. There are many, many Reddit and blog posts about such rejections.
Finally, have these changes affected you? You seem very emotionally charged in your posts about the matter.
wat10000 · · focus · HN ↗
Aeolun · · focus · HN ↗
The problem is I’ve built my life here and they keep treating foreigners as a lesser life form. People here can unironically be standing next to me bitching about foreigners. Then turn to me and say something like “not you, you are fine.”
swat535 · · focus · HN ↗
With these laws, they are pushing 99% of people out while saving face from being called racists.
I think every country should have a right over their borders. Japan wasn't built on multiculturalism like United States or Canada, so I'm not surprised.
That being said, I would probably think twice about traveling to Japan as a tourist.
usernomdeguerre · · focus · HN ↗
matheusmoreira · · focus · HN ↗
Laws dating back to 1790 restricted naturalization to white people, which arguably makes the US a sort of white ethnostate from the very beginning. This stuff only really went away after the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, and repealing that act appears to be an objective of the american right wing as of 2026.
It really made me question whether it was possible for a third worlder like me to ever become an american.
rendang · · focus · HN ↗
matheusmoreira · · focus · HN ↗
The whole idea of naturalization is to assimilate into the new culture and become one of them. Far too many people just don't put in the effort to do that.
refurb · · focus · HN ↗
I immigrated to another country and I went in eyes wide open knowing that at any point I might have to pack up and head home. In fact, it became far harder to immigrate only a few years after I did. Likelihood is that if I hadn't come when I did I never would have been able to.
It took 10 years to finally become a citizen, but I did so the first day it was an option (yes, I counted down the days and sent in the application on day 1), because I knew it was the only way I could safely assume I'd never be forced to leave.
makeitdouble · · focus · HN ↗
In practice, most visas are short term, and none of them will allow you to benefit from social aids for very long. At most I imagine you could extend your working visa to 5 years, get sick the first year and be at charge for the remaining 4 years ? There will be ink spent on these cases, but statistically how often does that even happen to need stricter laws ?
The current political climates needs the gov to look "Japan First" and these kind of rule change are very cheap to do, especially as the people directly impacted don't vote nor can complain. It goes well with the very anti-foreigner sentiment, especially as the current wave of tourists is very unpopular despite the money coming in.
The longer view is Japan getting less workers in total, yet more of the worse immigrants as they're calling for people who either don't need Japan (have enough money to go anywhere and don't need to think long term) or are willing to take more risks (high return grifts etc.), in a time where Japanese salaries and productivity are already lower than surrounding countries.
They're basically making a bad situation worse, just for short term political play, giving in on the worse trends.