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On July 31, 2026, Japan’s Immigration Services Agency (ISA) published its annual set of examples of Special Permission to Stay (在留特別許可) — cases where permission was granted and cases where it was not — covering 2025. It is the first edition to cover a full calendar year since the formal application procedure for Special Permission to Stay began on June 10, 2024. Here is what the document contains, what patterns we notice, and what the examples cannot tell us.
What is Special Permission to Stay?
Special Permission to Stay is a discretionary permission granted by the Minister of Justice. It allows a foreign national who falls under a ground for deportation — most commonly overstaying — to remain in Japan with a status of residence instead of being removed.
Before June 10, 2024, there was no formal application procedure for it. Under the amended Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (the Act), a foreign national who falls under a ground for deportation can now apply, and the factors the Minister considers have been written into the law. They include the person’s reasons for wanting to stay, family relationships, conduct, how they came to Japan, how long they have lived here, and the need for humanitarian consideration. An application can be made from the time the person is detained or placed under a supervision measure until a deportation order is issued.
The ISA has published examples like these since 2004 to make its decisions more transparent. Its separate statistical report on 2025 says it approved 1,026 applications for Special Permission to Stay during the year, compared with 469 from June 10 to December 31, 2024.
What the 2025 document contains
The 2025 edition lists 23 examples in four groups: (1) the person’s spouse is a Japanese national, (2) the spouse is a foreign national living in Japan lawfully, (3) the person is staying illegally together with children, and (4) other situations. Within each group, the ISA shows examples that were granted and examples that were not. It also shows a third set of people who fall under the proviso to Article 50, paragraph 1 of the Act — broadly, those with serious criminal convictions or other specified grounds, who can be permitted to stay only where special circumstances mean that refusing would fall short of humanitarian consideration — but who were granted permission anyway. (There were none in group 3.)
In total there are 13 granted examples, including three special-circumstances cases, and 10 that were not granted. Keep the scale in mind: this is a small selection out of more than a thousand approvals in 2025, so it is illustrative, not statistical.
Patterns we noticed
The ISA does not draw conclusions from these examples. What follows are our own observations, and every case is decided on its own facts:
- Voluntary self-reporting is common among granted cases. Of the ten granted examples outside the special-circumstances group, seven began with the person voluntarily reporting to the immigration authorities. Of the ten not-granted examples, eight began with an arrest by the police.
- Criminal convictions are the clearest dividing line. Only two of those ten granted examples involved a conviction, and both were suspended sentences for the overstay itself. Eight of the ten not-granted examples involved convictions, for offenses such as drug violations, forgery, bodily injury, procuring prostitution, and using a forged residence card.
- Long residence and family ties can outweigh a serious record in exceptional cases. All three special-circumstances grants involved theft convictions with unsuspended prison sentences of 1 year 2 months to 1 year 6 months. Each person, however, had lived in Japan for 22 to 34 years: one had been married for about 33 years to a Japanese national, one had three minor children and a spouse with Long-Term Resident status, and one was born in Japan as a person of Japanese descent and educated there.
- A marriage or a child does not guarantee approval, and past immigration history is noted. The not-granted examples included a marriage of about 25 years to a Japanese national and a wish to care for a Japanese child, though both cases also involved criminal convictions. Four of the ten not-granted examples mention a previous deportation, departure order, or Special Permission to Stay, although one granted example also mentions a previous grant.
The examples at a glance
The tables below are our own English summary of the ISA’s Japanese-language document. A tilde (~) means “approximately.” “In Japan” is the total length of stay, and all periods are counted up to the time of the application. The ISA excludes cases that were decided within the refugee recognition procedure.
1. The spouse is a Japanese national
| Result | Case | Criminal penalty | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Granted | Overstay; voluntarily reported In Japan ~6 yrs 1 mo (illegal stay ~6 yrs); married ~1 yr 4 mos; no children | None | Spouse or Child of Japanese National, 1 year |
| Granted | Overstay; voluntarily reported In Japan ~5 yrs 9 mos (illegal ~5 yrs 8 mos); married ~1 yr 1 mo; 1 minor child | None | Spouse or Child of Japanese National, 1 year |
| Granted | Overstay; voluntarily reported In Japan ~24 yrs 1 mo (illegal ~6 yrs 4 mos); married ~8 yrs 4 mos; 1 minor child | None | Spouse or Child of Japanese National, 1 year. Prior Special Permission to Stay on record. |
| Not granted | Drug-law violation; arrested by police In Japan ~18 yrs 1 mo; married ~25 yrs 9 mos; 2 adult children | Stimulants Control Act: 1 yr 6 mos, suspended for 3 yrs | Prior deportation and prior Special Permission to Stay on record. |
| Not granted | Facilitating illegal employment; arrested by police In Japan ~5 yrs 5 mos; married ~4 yrs 6 mos; no children | Immigration Control Act (facilitating illegal employment): 1 yr, suspended for 4 yrs | — |
| Not granted | Other penal-law violation; arrested by police In Japan ~16 yrs 8 mos; married ~10 mos; 1 minor child | Bodily injury: 5 yrs, unsuspended | Spouse had no intention of continuing the marriage. |
| Granted (special circumstances) | Other penal-law violation; arrested by police In Japan ~33 yrs 1 mo; married ~33 yrs 4 mos; 1 adult child | Theft: 1 yr 2 mos, unsuspended | Spouse or Child of Japanese National, 1 year |
2. The spouse is a foreign national living in Japan lawfully
| Result | Case | Criminal penalty | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Granted | Overstay; arrested by police In Japan ~7 yrs 1 mo (illegal ~6 yrs 10 mos); married ~3 yrs 8 mos; no children; spouse is a Permanent Resident | Immigration Control Act (overstay): 1 yr, suspended for 3 yrs | Spouse or Child of Permanent Resident, 1 year |
| Granted | Overstay; voluntarily reported In Japan ~10 yrs 3 mos (illegal ~2 mos); married ~7 yrs 6 mos; 4 minor children; spouse is a Long-Term Resident | None | Long-Term Resident, 1 year |
| Granted | Facilitating illegal employment; uncovered by enforcement action In Japan ~28 yrs 7 mos; married ~24 yrs 10 mos; 2 children (1 minor); spouse is a Permanent Resident | None | Spouse or Child of Permanent Resident, 1 year |
| Not granted | Use of a forged residence card; arrested by police In Japan ~16 yrs; married ~13 yrs 9 mos; 1 minor child, living with grandparents in the home country; spouse holds Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services status | Immigration Control Act (use of a forged residence card): 1 yr 6 mos, suspended for 3 yrs | — |
| Not granted | Procuring prostitution and facilitating illegal employment; arrested by police In Japan ~28 yrs 5 mos; married ~28 yrs 9 mos; 1 adult child; spouse is a Permanent Resident | Anti-Prostitution Act and Immigration Control Act: 2 yrs, unsuspended, plus a ¥800,000 fine | Prior deportation on record. |
| Not granted | Overstay; voluntarily reported In Japan ~2 yrs 3 mos (illegal ~1 yr 9 mos); married ~1 yr 4 mos; no children; spouse is a Long-Term Resident | None | Prior departure order on record. |
| Granted (special circumstances) | Other penal-law violation; arrested by police In Japan ~34 yrs 2 mos; married ~8 yrs 11 mos; 3 minor children; spouse is a Long-Term Resident | Theft: 1 yr 2 mos, unsuspended | Long-Term Resident, 1 year |
3. Staying illegally together with children
| Result | Case | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Granted | Overstay; voluntarily reported Mother: in Japan ~18 yrs 9 mos (illegal ~18 yrs 6 mos). Child, age 12: in Japan ~12 yrs 5 mos (illegal ~12 yrs 3 mos). Common-law relationship with the child’s father, a lawful resident. | Mother: Designated Activities, 1 year Child: Student, 1 year |
| Not granted | Overstay; detected by immigration officers Family of four: father, mother, a child aged 8 and a child aged 2. Parents and older child: in Japan ~5 yrs 8 mos (illegal ~5 yrs 7 mos). Younger child: ~2 yrs (illegal ~1 yr 10 mos). | — |
4. Other situations
| Result | Case | Criminal penalty | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Granted | Overstay; voluntarily reported In Japan ~3 yrs (illegal ~2 yrs 10 mos); born in Japan as a person of Japanese descent, later became an overstayer; cared for and raised by a great-grandmother after the father’s neglect of childcare; wished to keep living with her | None | Designated Activities, 1 year |
| Granted | Overstay; arrested by police In Japan ~7 yrs 3 mos (illegal ~6 yrs 4 mos); raising a Japanese child; wished to keep living with a common-law husband (a Japanese national) and the child | Immigration Control Act (overstay): 2 yrs, suspended for 3 yrs | Long-Term Resident, 1 year |
| Granted | Illegal entry; voluntarily reported In Japan ~42 yrs 4 mos (all illegal); a court ruling confirming no parent-child relationship meant Japanese nationality was lost retroactively to birth; wished to keep living with a Japanese husband and biological child | None | Spouse or Child of Japanese National, 5 years |
| Not granted | Drug-law violation; arrested by police In Japan ~25 yrs 10 mos; wished to keep living in Japan; planned to marry a Japanese partner | Cannabis Control Act, Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act, and theft: 1 yr 6 mos, unsuspended; 2 other prior convictions | — |
| Not granted | Other penal-law violation and overstay; arrested by police In Japan ~22 yrs 1 mo; wished to keep living in Japan and to care for a Japanese biological child | Fraud, forgery of private documents bearing a seal or signature, use of the forged documents, and destruction of official documents: 2 yrs 6 mos, unsuspended | Prior Special Permission to Stay on record. |
| Not granted | Use of false documents; arrested by police In Japan ~24 yrs; wished to keep living in Japan and to care for a child from a previous marriage | Immigration Control Act (false application): 1 yr 6 mos, suspended for 3 yrs | Involved in disguising other foreign nationals’ status of residence. |
| Granted (special circumstances) | Other penal-law violation; arrested by police In Japan ~22 yrs 1 mo; born in Japan as a person of Japanese descent and educated in Japan; wished to keep living in Japan | Theft: 1 yr 6 mos, unsuspended | Long-Term Resident, 1 year |
What this means for you
If you are in a situation similar to those above, the most important practical point is timing: an application can be made only until a deportation order is issued, so it is worth getting advice as early as possible. It is also worth remembering that the ISA weighs family ties, length of residence, conduct, and humanitarian needs together. No single fact in these examples guarantees a result, and the examples are a small selection.
This article is general information based on public ISA documents. It is not legal advice on any individual case.
Sources (all in Japanese): ISA press release, “Publication of Cases Where Special Permission to Stay Was and Was Not Granted” (July 31, 2026), and its attached document (PDF); ISA, Immigration Control Act Violation Cases in 2025; ISA, procedure for applying for Special Permission to Stay.