Spouse or Child of a Japanese National
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Austria on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
195 exceptions recorded across 74 countries · none match Austria to Japan · Residency through marriage
Marriage to a Japanese national gives a status of residence in the second appended table of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act - the table of positions rather than activities - which means it carries no work restriction at all: the holder may do anything a Japanese resident may do. It also means the Minister's criteria ordinance does not touch it, because that ordinance governs only the activity statuses in the first table. The periods granted are five, three or one year or six months, and nothing in the instruments says which. Naturalisation later is easier for a spouse than for anyone else: three years of residence instead of five, and three years of marriage with one year of residence as an alternative.
At a glance
- Status of residence
- Spouse or Child of Japanese National (日本人の配偶者等)
Appended Table II of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.
- Work restriction
- None
Appended Table II describes a position, and article 2-2(2) lets its holder act as a person in that position. The activity limits that bind the first table do not apply.
- Criteria ordinance
- Does not apply
The ordinance made under article 7(1)(ii) sets criteria for the activities in Appended Table I. This status is in Appended Table II.
- Who else the status covers
- A specially adopted child of a Japanese national, and a person born as the child of a Japanese national
日本人の配偶者若しくは特別養子又は日本人の子として出生した者. An ordinary adopted child is not included.
- Periods of stay granted
- 5 years, 3 years, 1 year or 6 months
Appended Table II of the Regulation for Enforcement. Six months appears here and in the parallel status for a permanent resident's spouse, and nowhere among the professional statuses.
- Naturalisation after marriage
- 3 years of domicile or residence, or 3 years of marriage with 1 year of domicile
Article 7 of the Nationality Act, which relaxes the five-year requirement of article 5(1)(i).
Requirements
- Marriage to a Japanese national, recognised as such
- In practice a certificate of eligibility, issued under article 7-2 of the Act on an advance application
- The documents the Regulation for Enforcement attaches to this status: proof of the relationship and of the Japanese spouse's household register
In detail
The second table is a different kind of permission
Japanese immigration law divides its statuses into things you do and things you are. Everything in the first table authorises a described activity and nothing else, so a change of work is a change of status. The four entries in the second table authorise acting as a person in a position - permanent resident, spouse or child of a Japanese national, spouse or child of a permanent resident, long-term resident - and carry no restriction on what that person does for a living. That single structural fact is the practical difference between marrying into Japan and working into it.
Three years, or three years married and one year here
The ordinary naturalisation condition is five years of continuous domicile. Article 7 of the Nationality Act halves the distance for a spouse in two different ways: three years of domicile or residence with a current domicile in Japan, or three years of marriage combined with one year of continuous domicile. The second is the one that matters for a couple who lived abroad before moving, because the marriage years count wherever they were spent.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Austria
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«| 日本人の配偶者等 | 日本人の配偶者若しくは特別養子又は日本人の子として出生した者 | | 永住者の配偶者等 | 永住者等の配偶者又は永住者等の子として本邦で出生しその後引き続き本邦に在留している者 | | 定住者 | 法務大臣が特別な理由を考慮し一定の在留期間を指定して居住を認める者 | 法令詳細 # 出入国管理及び難民認定法（昭和二十六年政令第三百十九号） | 法令番号 | 昭和二十六年政令第三百十九号 | | 公布日 | 昭和二十六年十月四日 | | Law ID | 326CO0000000319 | | 現行法令名 | 出入国管理及び難民認定法 しゅつにゅうこくかんりおよびなんみ»Our translation - not official
Spouse or Child of Japanese National: the spouse or specially adopted child of a Japanese national, or a person born as the child of a Japanese national.
Ours. 特別養子 is the Japanese full adoption that severs the legal tie to the birth family; an ordinary adoption does not reach this status.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Japanese government's own consolidated statute book, run by the Digital Agency. It is the only place that publishes Japanese law as it currently stands: each law page states the date the displayed text came into force, the amending instrument that produced it, and a Law RevisionID of the form <lawid>_<yyyymmdd>_<amending-id> which identifies that exact version. A page also warns 未施行あり where amendments are enacted but not yet in force. The text is Japanese and there is no English anywhere on it; each page links out to the Ministry of Justice translation where one exists, which is how the two publishers are related. Renders through Firecrawl without difficulty despite being a single-page application.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Japanese only. It publishes the consolidated law and not the amending acts, so an article number here is the article of the resulting law and the instrument that put it there has to be read from the header. It carries no commentary, no notification (告示) and no ministerial guidance, and a great deal of Japanese immigration practice lives in 告示 made by the Minister of Justice which this site does not hold. It must not be cited for anything the Immigration Services Agency decides administratively, and it must not be cited for English: the English on the law pages is a link, not a text.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«The spouse of a Japanese national, or a child specially adopted by a Japanese national or those born as the child of a Japanese national»The Ministry of Justice's unofficial English for the same row. It renders 特別養子 as 'specially adopted', which is the Civil Code's full adoption and not an ordinary one.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Ministry of Justice's database of English translations of Japanese law. Its law pages carry the Japanese and the English interleaved paragraph by paragraph, which makes one reading serve for both languages, and each page states the amendment the translation was made from - 'Last Version: Act No. 63 of 2019' for the Immigration Act, 'Ordinance of the Ministry of Justice No. 35 of 2014' for the criteria ordinance, 'Act No. 88 of 2008' for the Nationality Act.
Standing:
Cannot be cited for: It says of itself, on its own front page: the translations are not official texts, not all of them are finalised, only the original Japanese has legal effect, and they are to be used solely as reference material. So it may never be cited as the law. It must be cited only as a translation, beside the Japanese, and the Japanese must come from e-Gov where the question is what the law says today - because the second limitation compounds the first: the snapshots are years behind. Its Nationality Act still prints the naturalisation age as twenty, which Act No. 24 of 2022 lowered to eighteen; its criteria ordinance still prints 5 million yen for the Business Manager status, which has been 30 million since the 2026 ordinance; its Immigration Act still cites article 61-2-12 where the current text says 61-2-15. A title marked 'tentative translation' has not been proofread at all.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«| 日本人の配偶者等 | 五年、三年、一年又は六月 | | 永住者の配偶者等 | 五年、三年、一年又は六月 | | 定住者 | 一 法第七条第一項第二号 の告示で定める地位を認められる者にあつては、五年、三年、一年又は六月 二 一に掲げる地位以外の地位を認められる者にあつては、五年を超えない範囲内で法務大臣が個々の外国人について指定する期間 | 別表第三（ 第六条、 第六条の二、 第二十条、 第二十一条の四、 第二十四条 関係） | | | | | --- | --- | --- | | 在留資格 | 活動 | 資料 | | 外交 | 法別表第一 の一の表の外交の項の下欄に掲げる活動 | 口上»Our translation - not official
Spouse or Child of Japanese National: five years, three years, one year or six months.
Ours. Nothing published says how the choice between them is made.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Japanese government's own consolidated statute book, run by the Digital Agency. It is the only place that publishes Japanese law as it currently stands: each law page states the date the displayed text came into force, the amending instrument that produced it, and a Law RevisionID of the form <lawid>_<yyyymmdd>_<amending-id> which identifies that exact version. A page also warns 未施行あり where amendments are enacted but not yet in force. The text is Japanese and there is no English anywhere on it; each page links out to the Ministry of Justice translation where one exists, which is how the two publishers are related. Renders through Firecrawl without difficulty despite being a single-page application.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Japanese only. It publishes the consolidated law and not the amending acts, so an article number here is the article of the resulting law and the instrument that put it there has to be read from the header. It carries no commentary, no notification (告示) and no ministerial guidance, and a great deal of Japanese immigration practice lives in 告示 made by the Minister of Justice which this site does not hold. It must not be cited for anything the Immigration Services Agency decides administratively, and it must not be cited for English: the English on the law pages is a link, not a text.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«第七条 日本国民の配偶者たる外国人で引き続き三年以上日本に住所又は居所を有し、かつ、現に日本に住所を有するものについては、法務大臣は、その者が 第五条第一項第一号 及び 第二号 の条件を備えないときでも、帰化を許可することができる。»Our translation - not official
Article 7 As regards a foreign national who is the spouse of a Japanese national and who has had a domicile or residence in Japan continuously for three years or more and currently has a domicile in Japan, the Minister of Justice may permit naturalisation even where that person does not meet the condition set out in Article 5(1)(i).
Ours, and the first sentence only. The article continues with the alternative: three years of marriage and one year of continuous domicile in Japan.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Japanese government's own consolidated statute book, run by the Digital Agency. It is the only place that publishes Japanese law as it currently stands: each law page states the date the displayed text came into force, the amending instrument that produced it, and a Law RevisionID of the form <lawid>_<yyyymmdd>_<amending-id> which identifies that exact version. A page also warns 未施行あり where amendments are enacted but not yet in force. The text is Japanese and there is no English anywhere on it; each page links out to the Ministry of Justice translation where one exists, which is how the two publishers are related. Renders through Firecrawl without difficulty despite being a single-page application.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Japanese only. It publishes the consolidated law and not the amending acts, so an article number here is the article of the resulting law and the instrument that put it there has to be read from the header. It carries no commentary, no notification (告示) and no ministerial guidance, and a great deal of Japanese immigration practice lives in 告示 made by the Minister of Justice which this site does not hold. It must not be cited for anything the Immigration Services Agency decides administratively, and it must not be cited for English: the English on the law pages is a link, not a text.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Nothing read here is the Immigration Services Agency's document list, its guidance on what counts as a genuine marriage, or any case law on it. The Act and the Regulation say what the status is; they do not say how an application is assessed.
Article 7 of the Nationality Act relaxes article 5(1)(i) only. The other conditions of article 5 - good conduct, ability to make a living, and loss of the previous nationality - continue to apply to a spouse.
Divorce is not covered here. Article 22-4 of the Act provides for revocation of a status of residence and article 19-16 for notification of a divorce, and neither was read for this record.
- consolidates出入国管理及び難民認定法 - e-Gov 法令検索
e-Gov 法令検索 (e-Gov Law Search) · consolidated to 2026-10-01
About this source
The Japanese government's own consolidated statute book, run by the Digital Agency. It is the only place that publishes Japanese law as it currently stands: each law page states the date the displayed text came into force, the amending instrument that produced it, and a Law RevisionID of the form <lawid>_<yyyymmdd>_<amending-id> which identifies that exact version. A page also warns 未施行あり where amendments are enacted but not yet in force. The text is Japanese and there is no English anywhere on it; each page links out to the Ministry of Justice translation where one exists, which is how the two publishers are related. Renders through Firecrawl without difficulty despite being a single-page application.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Japanese only. It publishes the consolidated law and not the amending acts, so an article number here is the article of the resulting law and the instrument that put it there has to be read from the header. It carries no commentary, no notification (告示) and no ministerial guidance, and a great deal of Japanese immigration practice lives in 告示 made by the Minister of Justice which this site does not hold. It must not be cited for anything the Immigration Services Agency decides administratively, and it must not be cited for English: the English on the law pages is a link, not a text.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidates国籍法 - e-Gov 法令検索
e-Gov 法令検索 (e-Gov Law Search)
About this source
The Japanese government's own consolidated statute book, run by the Digital Agency. It is the only place that publishes Japanese law as it currently stands: each law page states the date the displayed text came into force, the amending instrument that produced it, and a Law RevisionID of the form <lawid>_<yyyymmdd>_<amending-id> which identifies that exact version. A page also warns 未施行あり where amendments are enacted but not yet in force. The text is Japanese and there is no English anywhere on it; each page links out to the Ministry of Justice translation where one exists, which is how the two publishers are related. Renders through Firecrawl without difficulty despite being a single-page application.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Japanese only. It publishes the consolidated law and not the amending acts, so an article number here is the article of the resulting law and the instrument that put it there has to be read from the header. It carries no commentary, no notification (告示) and no ministerial guidance, and a great deal of Japanese immigration practice lives in 告示 made by the Minister of Justice which this site does not hold. It must not be cited for anything the Immigration Services Agency decides administratively, and it must not be cited for English: the English on the law pages is a link, not a text.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidates出入国管理及び難民認定法施行規則 - e-Gov 法令検索
e-Gov 法令検索 (e-Gov Law Search) · consolidated to 2026-10-01
About this source
The Japanese government's own consolidated statute book, run by the Digital Agency. It is the only place that publishes Japanese law as it currently stands: each law page states the date the displayed text came into force, the amending instrument that produced it, and a Law RevisionID of the form <lawid>_<yyyymmdd>_<amending-id> which identifies that exact version. A page also warns 未施行あり where amendments are enacted but not yet in force. The text is Japanese and there is no English anywhere on it; each page links out to the Ministry of Justice translation where one exists, which is how the two publishers are related. Renders through Firecrawl without difficulty despite being a single-page application.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Japanese only. It publishes the consolidated law and not the amending acts, so an article number here is the article of the resulting law and the instrument that put it there has to be read from the header. It carries no commentary, no notification (告示) and no ministerial guidance, and a great deal of Japanese immigration practice lives in 告示 made by the Minister of Justice which this site does not hold. It must not be cited for anything the Immigration Services Agency decides administratively, and it must not be cited for English: the English on the law pages is a link, not a text.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source