No Retirement Route, and One Long Holiday
There is no retirement visa for Japan. Age appears nowhere in the twenty-nine statuses of residence attached to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, and no status is granted on the strength of a pension. The only category that answers anything like the question is item 40 of the Minister of Justice's public notice on Designated Activities, and it is not a retirement route: it asks for eighteen years of age rather than sixty, it measures savings rather than a pension, it is defined as a stay of not more than one year, and the activity it permits is sightseeing and recreation. A person who wants to grow old in Japan arrives on one of the ordinary statuses - work, family or long-term residence - and ages into it.
At a glance
- Retirement status of residence
- None in Appended Tables I or II of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act
Both tables read in full in the e-Gov text in force from 1 October 2026. No row mentions age or a pension.
- Minimum age anywhere in the nearest category
- 18
十八歳以上の者 in item 40 of Public Notice No. 131 of 1990, which is a floor and not a retirement condition.
- What the nearest category measures
- Savings of 30,000,000 yen
The combined bank balances of applicant and spouse at the time of application, under item 40(b) of the notice. A pension is not mentioned.
- Longest stay it allows
- 1 year
The notice defines the activity as a stay in Japan not exceeding one year.
- Health cover for it
- Private insurance, required
Item 40(c) of the notice: insurance against death, injury or illness during the stay.
- Route to permanent residence
- Not from this category by anything read here
Permanent residence is granted under article 22 of the Act, which was not read for this record.
In detail
Age is not a category in Japanese immigration law
Read both appended tables through and no row turns on how old the applicant is. The first table sorts people by what they will be doing; the second by whose spouse or child they are, or by a decision the Minister has made about them. A pension is not an activity and old age is not a position, so neither has a row. The absence is structural rather than a gap somebody forgot to fill.
What the long-stay category actually is
Item 40 of the Designated Activities notice is a sightseeing category with a solvency test attached. It takes anyone over eighteen from one of seventy-four listed countries who has thirty million yen between themselves and a spouse and carries insurance, and lets them spend up to a year in Japan looking around. It says nothing about retirement, imposes no upper or lower bound beyond adulthood, and leads nowhere: the activity is a stay not exceeding one year.
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«| 永住者 | 法務大臣が永住を認める者 | | 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 |»Our translation - not official
Permanent Resident: a person whom the Minister of Justice recognises as permanently resident. Spouse or Child of Japanese National: a spouse or specially adopted child of a Japanese national, or a person born as the child of a Japanese national. Spouse or Child of Permanent Resident: a spouse of a permanent resident or the like, or a child of a permanent resident or the like born in Japan who has continued to reside in Japan since. Long-Term Resident: a person whom the Minister of Justice, taking special grounds into consideration, authorises to reside for a designated period.
Ours. The whole of the second table: four statuses, all of them about who you are to someone else or what the Minister has decided about you. None of them is about age.
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
«四十 次 の いず れ に も 該 当 す る 十 八 歳 以 上 の 者 が 、 本 邦 に お いて 一 年 を 超 え な い 期 間 滞 在 して 行う 観 光 、 保 養 その他これらに類似する活動»Our translation - not official
(40) Sightseeing, recreation and other similar activities carried out in Japan, for a period not exceeding one year, by a person aged eighteen or over who falls under all of the following.
Ours. Eighteen, not sixty: the floor is adulthood. Every published description of this category as a retirement visa is reading something that is not there.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The agency inside the Ministry of Justice that administers the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act: it grants statuses of residence, issues certificates of eligibility, publishes the document lists for each application, and publishes the Minister of Justice's 告示 (public notices) which decide things the Act delegates - which Long-Term Resident positions exist, which activities fall under Designated Activities, and which permanent-residence guidelines apply.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Its pages are the agency's description of how it applies the law, not the law. Where a page and an instrument differ, the instrument governs and the difference is the finding. It publishes guidelines (ガイドライン) for permanent residence which are not instruments at all and bind nobody, and they must not be cited as if they were.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«四十一 前 号 に 掲 げ る 活 動 を 指 定 され て 在 留 す る 者 に 同 行す る配 偶 者 で あ って 、同 号 イ 及 び ハ の いず れ に も 該 当 す る も の が 、 本 邦 に お い て 一 年 を 超 え な い期 間 滞 在 して 行 う 観 光 、 保 養 そ の 他こ れ ら に 類 似 す る 活 動»Our translation - not official
(41) Sightseeing, recreation and other similar activities carried out in Japan, for a period not exceeding one year, by a spouse accompanying a person residing under a designation of the activity listed in the preceding item, where that spouse falls under both (a) and (c) of that item.
Ours. The spouse must satisfy the nationality and insurance conditions, and not the money condition - which is already doubled on the principal where both apply in their own right.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The agency inside the Ministry of Justice that administers the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act: it grants statuses of residence, issues certificates of eligibility, publishes the document lists for each application, and publishes the Minister of Justice's 告示 (public notices) which decide things the Act delegates - which Long-Term Resident positions exist, which activities fall under Designated Activities, and which permanent-residence guidelines apply.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Its pages are the agency's description of how it applies the law, not the law. Where a page and an instrument differ, the instrument governs and the difference is the finding. It publishes guidelines (ガイドライン) for permanent residence which are not instruments at all and bind nobody, and they must not be cited as if they were.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«| 永住者 | 無期限 | | 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»Our translation - not official
Permanent Resident: unlimited.
Ours. The only period of stay in the table with no end, and the thing a long stay in Japan is ultimately aiming at.
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
The absence here is bounded by the same two documents as the passive-income record: both appended tables of the Act in the e-Gov text in force from 1 October 2026, and the Designated Activities public notice as amended to 8 April 2026.
Permanent residence under article 22 of the Act, which is how a long stay in Japan ends, was not read for this record and is not described here.
The notice is a PDF of justified Japanese type and the extracted text carries spaces inside words. The quotations are taken from that extraction as it stands.
- 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
- administers特定活動告示 (Public Notice No. 131 of 1990 on Designated Activities)
出入国在留管理庁 (Immigration Services Agency of Japan)
About this source
The agency inside the Ministry of Justice that administers the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act: it grants statuses of residence, issues certificates of eligibility, publishes the document lists for each application, and publishes the Minister of Justice's 告示 (public notices) which decide things the Act delegates - which Long-Term Resident positions exist, which activities fall under Designated Activities, and which permanent-residence guidelines apply.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Its pages are the agency's description of how it applies the law, not the law. Where a page and an instrument differ, the instrument governs and the difference is the finding. It publishes guidelines (ガイドライン) for permanent residence which are not instruments at all and bind nobody, and they must not be cited as if they were.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source