Before You Report an Overstay to Japanese Immigration: Three Things You Must Not Do

You have stayed in Japan past the expiry of your period of stay, and you are thinking about going to the Immigration Services Agency to report yourself. But there is something you would rather not mention. Perhaps you were deported once before. Perhaps the residence card in your wallet was not issued to you through the proper procedure. Perhaps you are not sure how much to say about the company you have been working for. Many people put off the day of reporting for exactly these reasons. This article explains what you must not do before reporting yourself, and it focuses on why those steps are so damaging rather than on how they are carried out. No methods are described here. The point is simply this: a false statement, a forged document, or a concealed address will, by the operation of the statutory requirements themselves, erase the few advantages you still have.

What exactly must I avoid doing before reporting myself to immigration

Three things. First, giving the immigration authorities an account that differs from the facts. Second, preparing a forged residence card or identity document, or paperwork that does not correspond to any real activity. Third, giving a false address, false contact details, or a false place of work so that your whereabouts cannot be verified. None of these will help you even if they go undetected for a while. On the contrary, each of them strips away, through the wording of the statute itself, the advantages that a case of overstaying alone would still retain.

Start from the baseline. Remaining in Japan after your period of stay has expired is an offence under Article 70, paragraph 1, item (v) of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (Immigration Control Act, 入管法). The statutory penalty is a kōkinkei (custodial sentence) of up to three years, or a fine of up to three million yen, or both. At the same time, Article 24, item (iv)(b) makes unlawful residence a ground for deportation. Overstaying is therefore both a crime and a matter for deportation proceedings. Even so, a case of overstaying alone still has several avenues left open to it under the law. Falsehood, forgery and concealment are the acts that close those avenues with your own hand.

What happens if I hide a previous deportation when I report myself

Hiding it changes nothing about the outcome, and it adds a fresh disadvantage on top. One of the requirements for a departure order (shukkoku meirei, 出国命令) under Article 24-3 of the Immigration Control Act is that the person has never previously been deported from Japan and has never departed under a departure order issued pursuant to Article 55-85, paragraph 1 (Article 24-3, item (iv)). That requirement is assessed objectively on the basis of official records, regardless of what you declare. Concealing a past removal therefore cannot make you eligible for a departure order.

Moreover, a person who has previously been deported or has left under a departure order, and who is deported again, faces a landing denial period of ten years from the date of departure (Article 5, paragraph 1, item (ix)(d)). For a person with no such history, the period is five years (item (ix)(c)). Those figures do not change according to whether you disclosed the history or not. What does change is the assessment of your conduct (sokō, 素行) and of "other circumstances" when special permission to stay is considered under Article 50, paragraph 5. A single false statement dilutes even the weight of the one genuinely favourable thing you did, namely coming forward voluntarily. The guideline on special permission to stay (revised in March 2024 and in force from 10 June 2024) describes special permission as an exceptional measure granted as a matter of grace to a foreign national who is otherwise to be deported. It should be clear how heavily a false statement weighs when what you are asking for is an act of grace.

What happens if I am holding a forged residence card or identity document

A case that involved only unlawful residence becomes a case that involves another crime. This is the single biggest turning point.

First, you cease to satisfy the requirements for a departure order. Article 24-3, item (iii) requires that, after entering Japan, the person has not been sentenced to a kōkinkei (custodial sentence) for offences under Part II, Chapter XII of the Penal Code, Chapters XVI to XIX (counterfeiting of currency, forgery of documents, forgery of securities, and unauthorised creation of electromagnetic records of payment cards), Chapter XXIII, Chapter XXVI, Chapter XXVII, Chapter XXXI, Chapter XXXIII, Chapter XXXVI, Chapter XXXVII or Chapter XXXIX, and certain other offences. A custodial sentence for an offence connected with forgery of documents therefore closes off the departure order route, which is the route that does not presuppose detention.

Second, the framework for special permission to stay changes. The proviso to Article 50, paragraph 1 provides that, for a person sentenced to a kōkinkei for life or for more than one year (excluding a person whose sentence was wholly suspended, and a person given a partially suspended sentence where the unsuspended part is one year or less), and for certain other categories, permission may be granted only where there are special circumstances such that refusing permission would be found to lack humanitarian consideration. A case of unlawful residence alone (Article 24, item (iv)(b)) does not fall within that proviso. In practice this is a very significant advantage. If forged documents lead to a heavier criminal disposition and an unsuspended sentence of more than one year, that advantage disappears.

Third, the sentence itself is likely to be heavier. The statutory penalty for overstaying is the same regardless of how long you overstayed. What varies is the prosecutor's choice of disposition and the range of sentencing. Cases involving a long period of unlawful residence, unlawful work, and additional violations such as forged documents tend toward heavier dispositions. Outcomes vary considerably from case to case, and nothing here is fixed in advance.

What happens if I report a company or a job that does not really exist

One falsehood destroys the credibility of everything else you have filed. Special permission to stay is decided by weighing the matters listed in Article 50, paragraph 5: the reasons for wishing to remain, family relationships, conduct, the circumstances of entry into Japan, the length of residence in Japan, the legal status held during that period, the facts constituting the ground for deportation, and the need for humanitarian consideration, together with domestic and international circumstances, the effect on unlawful residents in Japan, and other circumstances. Every one of these is established through documents and statements that are checked against each other. If a single element of your account turns out to have no substance behind it, the genuine parts of your case will be read with suspicion as well. Family ties and settled daily life, which ought to be your strongest material, stop doing their work.

In addition, if the arrangement involves someone else's unlawful work, Article 24, item (iii)-4 (promotion of unlawful work) may be engaged. That ground applies on the basis of the conduct alone; a criminal conviction is not required. And one of the requirements for a departure order is that the person falls under none of Article 24, items (iii) through (iii)-5, items (iv)(c) through (iv)(o), item (viii) or item (ix) (Article 24-3, item (ii)). A finding of promotion of unlawful work therefore removes the departure order option on this ground as well.

What difference does it make if I give a false address or false contact details

It changes how your physical custody is handled, and whether a departure order is available at all. One of the requirements under Article 24-3, item (v) is that the person is expected with certainty to leave Japan promptly. Concealing where you live and making yourself unreachable is a direct denial of that expectation by your own conduct. Where a departure order is issued, the supervising immigration inspector orders prompt departure and sets a departure deadline not exceeding fifteen days (Article 55-85, paragraph 1), and may attach conditions such as restrictions on residence and area of movement (paragraph 3 of the same Article). The entire mechanism is built on the assumption that your whereabouts are known and that undertakings will be kept.

In deportation proceedings, after the violation investigation, custody is handled either through detention under a written detention order (Article 39) or through a decision on supervision measures (Article 44-2, paragraph 7). An application for special permission to stay is made by a foreign national who has been detained under a written detention order or who has received a decision on supervision measures (Article 50, paragraph 2). Concealing your address does not move you away from physical custody. It moves you toward being assessed as a flight risk.

I have already said something untrue. Is it too late

You should not assume that it is too late. But a correction is worth a great deal if it comes early and very little if it comes late. Under Article 50, paragraph 3, once a written deportation order has been issued, an application for special permission to stay can no longer be made. From that point the matter moves into judicial remedies, that is, an action to revoke the disposition and an application for a stay of execution, which take far more time and effort.

How the correction is made also matters. Whether it reads as an honest correction or as an expedient change of story depends on how the discrepancy with your earlier account is explained and what supporting material is produced. Before filing anything new on your own initiative, please consult a lawyer. Note also that where permission is refused, the authorities must promptly give notice in writing with reasons attached (Article 50, paragraph 10), and those reasons are an important clue for whatever comes next.

Why it matters to act before you are detected

Being truthful and acting early are two sides of the same thing. A departure order is available to a person who, before the start of a violation investigation under Article 27, voluntarily appeared at an immigration office with the intention of leaving Japan promptly (Article 24-3, item (i)(a)), or who, after the investigation has begun but before receiving the notice under Article 47, paragraph 3, stated to an immigration inspector or immigration control officer an intention to leave Japan promptly (item (i)(b)).

Where a person in the first category leaves Japan under a departure order, the landing denial period is one year from the date of departure (Article 5, paragraph 1, item (ix)(e)). Where a person in the second category leaves under a departure order and then seeks to come to Japan to engage in the activities of a temporary visitor, the period is five years from the date of departure (item (ix)(f)). And if detection means that the requirements for a departure order are not met at all, deportation follows, with a landing denial period of five years from the date of removal (item (ix)(c)), or ten years where there is a prior record of deportation or of departure under a departure order (item (ix)(d)). Falsehood and forgery reliably push this clock backwards, because once they come to light a violation investigation begins, and the moment of your appearance is no longer "before the investigation started".

The guideline expressly treats the fact that the foreign national voluntarily appeared at a regional immigration office in order to report their unlawful residence as a positive factor. That positive factor only has meaning if what you report is true. Prolonged unlawful residence, by contrast, is assessed as a negative factor. Spending time on concealment adds to the negative side while giving away the positive side voluntarily.

About our office

Funado International Law Office (3rd floor, Fuse Building Main Wing, 3-4-10 Takada, Toshima-ku, Tokyo) concentrates on criminal defence for foreign nationals and on immigration procedures, primarily for clients of Chinese nationality. Daisuke Matsumura, attorney at law (Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association, registration number 59077, admitted in 2019), handles every stage personally, from the first interview at the detention facility to the close of trial, without delegating to clerks or junior associates. The circumstances that are hardest to talk about, such as having already given an inaccurate account or holding a forged document, are precisely the ones that need to be understood accurately from the very beginning. For Chinese, a dedicated in-house interpreter experienced in cases involving foreign nationals is available at the office, so that in addition to the interpreter appointed by the investigating authorities you can use an interpreter whose role is to work for you. For other languages, an interpreter is arranged according to the circumstances of the case. Renewals and changes of status of residence after the criminal process ends are handled together with an affiliated administrative scrivener on a one-stop basis.

Two examples of past work. A client who had come to Japan as a tourist had a child with a Japanese woman but lost his status of residence and was arrested and prosecuted for unlawful residence. The marriage and acknowledgment of paternity had not been completed and the authorities initially refused to accept the filings. Mr Matsumura negotiated with the authorities from a constitutional standpoint, the marriage and acknowledgment were completed, and examination of the defendant and of witnesses was conducted with the criminal trial under the Immigration Control Act firmly in view. Even though almost no official documents were available from the client's country of nationality, favourable evidence was gathered, and by analysing the immigration authorities' past grant cases, special permission to stay was obtained in a single round of proceedings.

In another matter, a woman was wrongly accused of promoting unlawful work and faced deportation. Against the established practice that a ground for deportation requires neither intent nor negligence, the office brought proceedings questioning the reach of the principle of individual culpability and litigated the point through to the appellate stage. Special permission to stay was subsequently granted by the immigration authorities. The first consultation is free of charge, and fees are quoted according to the circumstances of the case.

In closing

What you must not do before reporting yourself comes down to one thing: do not present to the immigration authorities as fact something that is not fact. Falsehood, forgery and concealment of your whereabouts each defeat the requirements for a departure order under Article 24-3, lengthen the landing denial period, lower the assessment of your conduct when special permission to stay is considered, and may bring the heightened requirement in the proviso to Article 50, paragraph 1 into play. Judging what helps and what harms is only possible once the statutory requirements and the structure of the procedure are understood. If you are unsure, please consult us before you act.

This article is a general explanation. For your particular situation, please consult a lawyer directly. The past results described above arose from the individual circumstances of those cases and do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Author

Daisuke Matsumura, Attorney at Law

Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association (registration number: 59077, admitted 2019)

Funado International Law Office (3rd floor, Fuse Building Main Wing, 3-4-10 Takada, Toshima-ku, Tokyo)

Concentrates on criminal defence for foreign nationals and immigration procedures, primarily for clients of Chinese nationality.

Past results include an acquittal in a case under the Stimulants Control Act (possession for the purpose of profit), a decision not to prosecute in a specialised fraud case, and the grant of special permission to stay in a case regarded as difficult.

Contact

Funado International Law Office

Website: https://matsumura-lawoffice.jp/

WeChat ID: matsumura1119

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