Appendix I and Appendix II: Why the Strength of Your Status of Residence Counts for Little in a Drug Case

It took ten years to obtain permanent residence. You built a family as the spouse of a Japanese national, and your children are in Japanese schools. You have worked at the same factory as a long-term resident for more than twenty years. People who have built up that kind of record naturally assume their status of residence (在留資格) is a strong one, and in most situations they are right. In drug cases, though, there is a stretch where that strength barely operates at all. For permanent residents, long-term residents and spouse-status holders and their families, this article explains why, starting from how statuses of residence are classified.

Key points

• Statuses of residence divide broadly into Appendix I (別表第一), based on the activity performed in Japan, and Appendix II (別表第二), based on family or civil status: permanent resident (永住者), spouse of a Japanese national (日本人の配偶者等), spouse of a permanent resident (永住者の配偶者等), and long-term resident (定住者).
• Article 24, item 4-2 makes a sentence of imprisonment (拘禁刑) for certain Penal Code offences a ground for deportation (退去強制), but reaches only Appendix I holders; Appendix II statuses are excluded.
• Article 24, item 4, sub-item (chi) (入管法24条4号チ), which covers drug offences, draws no such distinction, and applies equally to permanent residents, long-term residents and spouses of Japanese nationals.
• The strength of your status matters not at the stage of deciding whether you are deportable, but later, when special permission to stay (在留特別許可) is considered.
• Article 50(1)(i) lists holding permanent residence as a separate heading, and Article 50(5) sets out family circumstances and length of residence, among other factors, as statutory considerations.

What is the difference between Appendix I and Appendix II?

The immigration statute divides statuses of residence between two appendices. Appendix I contains statuses defined by the activity to be carried on in Japan: Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, Technical Intern Training, Specified Skilled Worker, Student, Dependent, Temporary Visitor and so on. Appendix II contains statuses defined by a person's family or civil status: permanent resident, spouse of a Japanese national, spouse of a permanent resident, and long-term resident.

This is more than a filing convention. An Appendix I status presupposes that the specified activity is being carried on, so if that activity cannot continue, the basis of residence begins to give way. An Appendix II status is grounded in the person's ties to Japanese society itself, is not confined by the content of any activity, and is correspondingly more stable.

There are settings where Appendix II really is protected

Article 24, item 4-2 shows that protection written into the statute. It makes deportable a person residing under an Appendix I status who has been sentenced to imprisonment for offences under certain chapters of Part II of the Penal Code, certain offences under Articles 1, 1-2 and 1-3 of the Act on Punishment of Physical Violence and Others, offences under the Act for Prevention of Burglary and Other Offences, offences under Articles 15 and 16 of the Act on Prohibition of Possession of Special Picking Tools, offences under Articles 2 or 6(1) of the Act on Punishment of Acts Inflicting Death or Injury through Dangerous Driving, and offences under Article 22 of the Act on Prevention of Disposal of Stolen Specified Metal Articles.

What matters is that the provision is addressed only to a person residing under an Appendix I status. Holders of Appendix II statuses are not caught by it. And since the provision applies even where the sentence has been suspended, it is a demanding rule for Appendix I holders. That demanding rule does not reach Appendix II. One can read in it a legislative concern to protect the lives of people who have put down roots in Japanese society.

Why is there no Appendix distinction for drugs?

Article 24(4)(chi) simply makes deportable a person who, on or after 1 November 1951, has been convicted of violating the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act, the Act on Regulation of Cultivation of Cannabis Plants, the Opium Act, the Stimulants Control Act, the Narcotics Special Provisions Act, or Part II, Chapter 14 of the Penal Code. It places no limit at all by reference to the type of status of residence.

So a long-term resident born and raised in Japan, someone who has held permanent residence for twenty years, and someone building a home with a Japanese spouse all stand on the same provision as a person who arrived recently. And because sub-item (chi) is indifferent to the weight of the sentence, a fine or a fully suspended sentence is enough to bring it into play.

Does that mean the life I have built here counts for nothing?

Not at all. The strength of your status and the life you have accumulated here come into their own, squarely, not at the threshold question of whether you are deportable, but at the later stage where special permission to stay is decided.

Article 50(1) sets out the cases in which the Minister of Justice may grant special permission to stay even to a person subject to deportation, and its item (i) is holding permanent residence, listed in its own right. Article 50(5) then provides that consideration is to be given to the reasons for wishing to stay, family circumstances, conduct, the circumstances in which the person came to Japan, the length of residence in Japan, the person's legal status during that time, the facts giving rise to the ground for deportation, and the need for humanitarian consideration. Length of residence, family ties, legal status: each of these overlaps with what an Appendix II holder has spent years building.

Using published grants as an equality argument

When seeking special permission to stay, we place particular weight on analysing the cases of permission and refusal that the Immigration Services Agency (出入国在留管理庁) has published annually since 2004. These are nothing less than an accumulated body of precedents in which the administration itself decided that, on these facts, allowing the person to stay was appropriate.

If we can extract from that body cases of permission sharing the essential features of the client's situation, the way opens to asking what justifies treating this case differently when the material circumstances are the same. The equality principle in Article 14(1) of the Constitution is easily brushed aside inside administrative discretion, but with published cases as concrete material it can be advanced as a comparison rather than an abstraction.

The fact that Article 50(5) now spells out the relevant factors makes this work easier. With the considerations listed in the text, we can go factor by factor, setting the published cases against the present case and showing which factors are equivalent and which are, if anything, stronger here. That said, the published cases are written in abstract terms for privacy reasons, and permission ultimately turns on the individual circumstances. A record of past grants is not the same thing as an assured result.

How our office works, and matters we have handled

At Funado International Law Office (Fuse Building Main Wing 3F, 3-4-10 Takada, Toshima-ku, Tokyo), attorney Daisuke Matsumura personally handles the matter from the first detention visit through to the close of trial, and the work is not passed to clerks or junior lawyers. For Chinese, a dedicated interpreter experienced in cases involving foreign nationals is on staff, so that alongside the interpreter appointed by the investigating authorities you have an interpreter acting for you throughout the criminal process. For languages other than Chinese, we arrange an interpreter to suit the case. After the criminal process, we work with an affiliated administrative scrivener on renewals and changes of status of residence.

On special permission to stay, we acted for a person who had come to Japan as a tourist, lost their status of residence, and was arrested and prosecuted for unlawful residence. The application was initially refused on the basis that the marriage and the acknowledgment of the child were incomplete; we negotiated with the authorities from a constitutional standpoint until the marriage and acknowledgment were established, gathered favourable evidence in a situation where almost no official documents from the country of nationality existed, and, by analysing the immigration authorities' past grants, obtained special permission to stay on a single application.

In a matter concerning a woman wrongly accused of promoting illegal employment and facing deportation, we obtained special permission to stay, which is without precedent in a case where promoting illegal employment had been found, and we are also currently litigating a challenge to the established practice under which intent and negligence are treated as unnecessary for grounds for deportation. On pre-charge work, we obtained a non-prosecution decision (不起訴処分) for a woman in her twenties alleged to have withdrawn money as part of a specialised fraud operation, by presenting her state of mind in the round.

The strength of a status of residence does almost nothing at the entrance to a drug case, and a great deal at the exit. Mistake that order and a life that could have been protected slips away while the process runs its course. Read the other way, the years you have put in and the ties you have formed will be weighed properly, provided they are advanced at the right stage and in the right form. Please note that this article is general commentary only; for your own situation, speak to a lawyer directly. The past matters described here turned on their own particular facts, and they are not a guarantee of a similar outcome.

This article reflects the law as at August 2026.

About the author

Daisuke Matsumura, Attorney at Law
Dai-Ichi Tokyo Bar Association (registration no. 59077, admitted 2019)
Funado International Law Office (Fuse Building Main Wing 3F, 3-4-10 Takada, Toshima-ku, Tokyo)
Practice focused on criminal defence for foreign nationals and immigration proceedings.
Results include an acquittal in a Stimulants Control Act case (possession for the purpose of profit), non-prosecution in organised fraud cases, and special permission to stay in cases regarded as difficult.

Funado International Law Office
Website: https://matsumura-lawoffice.jp/
WeChat ID: matsumura1119