A Specified Skilled Worker (i) status is not granted once for five years. It is granted for a defined period and renewed, with a cumulative cap of five years across the whole status.
Renewal is routine when your situation is in order. It is not automatic.
Rules change, so confirm the current requirements with the Immigration Services Agency or your support organisation rather than relying on any summary, including this one.
Start early
Applications are accepted from a period before your current status expires. Apply as soon as the window opens, not in the final fortnight.
Processing takes weeks, and leaving it late is how people end up in an awkward position through no fault of their own.
What is checked
That you are still doing the work you were permitted to do. Same field, and work consistent with your status. If your duties have drifted, this is the point at which it surfaces.
Your employment record. Contract, pay, hours. Your employer usually supplies documentation.
Tax. Paid and up to date. This is a common cause of trouble, particularly residence tax, which begins in your second year and which some workers do not realise they owe.
Social insurance. Enrolment and contributions for health insurance and pension. Non-enrolment is a renewal risk.
That support obligations are being met by your employer or registered support organisation.
The five-year cap
SSW (i) totals five years across all employers and all periods. Time spent outside Japan and prior time on the status count into the calculation.
If you intend to stay longer, the routes are:
- SSW (ii), available in a growing number of fields, with no five-year cap and the possibility of bringing family. It requires a higher skills test and documented experience. SSW (i) versus SSW (ii) and bringing family.
- A different status - a skilled or technical visa, if your qualifications and role fit.
- Eventually, permanent residency, which counts years of continuous residence.
Plan the transition early. Deciding in year four that you want SSW (ii) leaves very little time to qualify for it.
What causes problems
- Unpaid tax or social insurance. The most common, and avoidable.
- Changing employer without completing the notifications. Permitted within the same field, but the paperwork must be done: changing jobs on SSW.
- Working outside your permitted activity, including side jobs that are not allowed under the status.
- A gap in employment that is not explained.
Keep your own records
Payslips, the annual withholding statement, contracts, residence card copies, tax receipts. Do not rely on an employer or an agency to hold them for you - if a relationship ends badly, you still need the documents.
Your Japanese still matters
Not formally at renewal, but practically: it is what lets you read the notices, understand the deadlines, and ask the right question at the municipal office rather than discovering a problem at the counter.
Your first month of Japanese at work is where that starts, and it does not stop being worth doing after the exam is passed.