I received some great news on 26th of July. My clients got the approval notice from the immigration office for her designated activity visa, as a spouse in a same sex marriage.
The couple is from Brazil where same sex marriage is recognized by law and they have been married for about 2 years. The applicant is Brazilian and her partner is a Japanese descendant and has lived in Japan for many years. Her spoken and written Japanese is excellent and she already had a job and a place to live in Japan when they contacted me. It seemed to me that their conditions in order to apply for the visa were pretty good. After the Skype session, I could see that there was a good chance for her to obtain the designated activity visa, so we decided to proceed with the application.
As I mentioned in the other article, if you find a job in Japan and you want to bring your wife / husband to Japan, the applicable visa for him / her is a dependent visa. (so called ” family visa ” ) But if you want to bring your same sex partner, this dependent visa won’t be provided as same sex marriages are not recognized yet in Japan, even if you are married legally in your own country. The applicable visa in this case is a special type of designated activity visa which can be applied for once he / she is in Japan.
We exchanged some more emails and phone calls to get the paper work done and we made our application by the end of April. The immigration office requested some additional documents and each time we prepared them as requested. After three months, the visa was granted!
If you would like to read about my client’s experience of applying for her visa (in Portuguese), you can Follow this link.
It may seem complicated to obtain a visa for a same sex married couple, but as long as you meet the requirements and take the right steps, there is a high chance you will obtain one, even it takes a bit longer than usual.
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If you are the same sex married couple like my clients and looking for the support, or you have some questions about Japan visa and immigration, please contact us through the consultation form.
Visa Navi Japan
Address : Ootemachi ko-ta-su 802 Ootemachi 5-14-10, Naka-ku, Hiroshima, Japan 730-0051
Open Hours : 9:00 – 19:00 Closed : Monday
TEL & FAX : 082-258-4554