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  autoexec
  Requiring proficiency in the language is reasonable, but requiring everyone to be richer than the average member of the population and have enough money banked to live off of for 30 years seems insane. That goes well beyond simply making sure that people are able to care for themselves.
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  zergrush
  I just find it odd so many non-Japanese media and commentators weigh in on this.Japan is not a multicultural country. You can't become Japanese through paperwork. It is very much through blood heritage, your language and cultural proficiency.The bar to be Japanese is much higher than say Canadian or French. So why shouldn't they create laws that is aimed at benefiting themselves and their country without depending on foreigners?Also if you have a business and you don't have $125,000 you are not going to make it in Canada or America either.
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  dgunay
  Don't worry, I'm sure they're going to aggressively tackle the cultural and economic problems contributing to their fertility crisis, right? Right?
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  thatslast
  > 56.3 percent of Japanese people said they opposed accepting more foreigners, up from 35.6 percent in 2024that's a huge jump in 1 year. What happened?
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  Revanche1367
  The requirements are essentially that you're either upper-middle class or better from a developed country (or a resource rich one like those in the Middle East) or from the ultra-wealthy of a developing/underdeveloped one, and you put in enough effort to learn the language. I doubt the ultra-wealthy will really be required to have language proficiency in practice. This is basically to gatekeep all but the wealthiest black, brown and "lesser" Asian peoples as expected of Japan, but the 30 years savings requirement will keep at bay quite a few white people who may have dreamed about immigrating there too. I don't wish the Japanese people ill, but I hope they'll find some solution for all those aging, near-destitute, and sometimes abandoned elderly folks instead of telling them to suck it up for the sake of cultural identity.Side note, but it's always funny to me that whenever (and frequently) Japanese immigration policies are discussed on sites like HN and Reddit, there seems to always be a large number of clearly white people from America and Europe coming in to display their Japanese nationalism.
• redrix
  The 30 years of pension is a bit ridiculous. Why not make the requirement scale with the applicant’s age?Someone applying for PR at 30 has far more time to contribute than someone applying for PR at 50.
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  lazyasciiart
  This is certainly going to conflict with their moves to make it easier to attract aged care workers to the country. Perhaps all the elderly people are expected to patriotically look after themselves?https://unseen-japan.com/foreign-elderly-care-workers-japan/
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  famahar
  It's really unfortunate that they have approved these changes. I know at least 7 people that have decided to leave Japan because of it. They were making enough money to support themselves, but under the rule they basically gave no chance of ever reaching that new income requirement. Some jobs just don't have that much upward financial mobility. Which is fine if you live outside the city without a large family, but these rules are harsh to anyone that isn't working a high pay job. Permanent recidency would have allowed them to work outside their visa category, easily start a business, and utilize their Japanese language skills in a larger market.Its quite a shock since historically the government has moved extremely slow when implementing policies that have a large impact. But the last 6 months have been extremely anxiety inducing with a new immigration change being announced and approved every month.
• ks2048
  I support countries having the ability to limit who can enter, but “rich people” is a terrible metric. How about “cool people” or “nice people”?
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  happytoexplain
  I acknowledge and sympathize with the pain this will cause, but in regards to Japan itself: Good for them. Not because it is a rightward shift, but because it is a shift toward pragmatism in the face of the inherent tension between respect for all people and respect for one's own people and culture.In my humble opinion, an ideal world is a liberal one with cherry-picked, tightly controlled, practical conservative elements that boldly take on the intimidating job of maintaining the balance between love and reason.
• zetanor
  So they don't view humans as fungible economic units? That's very backward.
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  hankbond
  > applicants for permanent residency will need to show that their annual household income exceeds the Japanese averageCan someone explain why they think this is a detrimental practice for native Japanese?
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  iamEAP
  I moved from the USA to Sweden about 6 years ago. Sweden has also been tightening its immigration laws, in ways I believe have been and will be detrimental to its future.Countries have a right to change their laws, but I believe it’s in everyone’s interest for those laws to be changed while respecting principles of predictability and legal certainty.People planned and rearranged their entire lives around immigration law in force at one point, perhaps 5 years ago, and now a new law is going into force that slams the door shut to having a basic sense of stability, with only a 6 month transition period. It’s cruel. And it sends a bad sign to anyone looking to move.The USA can afford to be cruel because people will deal with it for high wages. Japan can maybe afford to be cruel because their cultural exports keep the top of their “talent attraction” funnel large. It’s economic suicide for any other small-to-medium sized nation dependent on foreign labor.
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  flumpcakes
  Hot take: I think immigration and multiculturalism is going to be the the biggest and the defining issue of this century. The history books will have "AI" and climate change in the margins as 'exacerbating factors'. We've started to see it in the US, and we're beginning to see the start to it in the EU. Japan--rightly or wrongly--might be averting a future disaster here. Japan is lucky in that they are still a very homogeneous society, and also unlucky in that they are ahead of the curve in population decline. I think the western world is in for a bad time over the next 50 years.
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  patriciobcs
  This only makes sense if Japan is believing they will fully automate blue collar jobs in the next few years
• shevy-java
  This is not news anymore in that it has been going on for several months already. The first time I really noticed this was on Paolo from Tokyo, where he suddenly praised japanese cops on becoming tougher. Since then I noticed more and more complaints from non-japanese upon moving to Japan. Recently it was a guy from Germany who lives in Japan for like +10 years already and was denied being granted Japanese citizenship basically because ... he is gaijin.Something really fundamental has been changing in Japan in the last few years, kind of an anti-globalisation movement tied to more nationalism - and I have a SLIGHT suspicion that this will become ultra-nationalism. In turn, a second prediction I make is that Japan will become militarily more aggressive and invest more in that. We can already see the writing on the wall here that more conflict will be brewing in the area.It's a bit unfortunate in that if a country does not really want people to visit it, well - one does not have to go there. There are many other countries in the asian area that aren't as hostile to foreigners now. (Also interesting to see how an aging society suddenly changes to offset immigration. Hopefully we won't hear a single japanese complain about lack of people in Japan. Ironically Paolo is, or rather was, also kind of a gaijin, even though he speaks perfect Japanese of course.)
• retinaros
  Its a great way to favor highly skilled immigrants and bar others from becoming a burden
• j45
  Reading about this makes me wonder what Japan was like during WW2
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  freetime2
  I think Japan thinks they can still attract enough foreigners to perform necessary service and manual labor jobs without the promise of permanent residency. That along with increasing automation - serving robots are a common sight at many restaurants these days, for example.Permanent residency is reserved for those who can be a net benefit to social welfare programs - by earning and contributing more than the average Japanese household (about USD $36,000 - $42,000 according to google). There are also new language requirements to promote assimilation.I don’t think it’s anything too radical by global standards, and I have read there are similarities to what Singapore and South Korea already do [1] (though I don’t know too much about their programs).It’s important to note that the exact details haven’t been finalized yet. So exact income requirements could change from current proposals/rumors. There was a lot of outrage about proposed provisions to revoke permanent residency for people who commit crimes or don’t pay taxes, but when they actually came through they were pretty fair, common sense type changes.These changes come on the heels of drastically increasing requirements for the business manager visa (which, to be fair, was heavily abused as a kind of “golden visa” in the past). They’ve also significantly increased visa application costs - I think I paid like ¥5,000 for my PR application, and it is now ¥200,000.It does feel cruel to apply new requirements retroactively to people who have already submitted applications. And the stories of people whose lives are being completely upended by the changes are heartbreaking.[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2026/09/21/japan/jap...
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  khazhoux
  As a liberal in California, my views on immigration actually hardened a bit after a recent trip to Japan. I appreciated that everything there was just so Japanese. No ethnic enclaves, no zones or industry that I could see dominated by non-Japanese people. I just loved the fact that I was in Japan and surrounded exclusively by Japanese culture. Made me think of what international travel must have been like 150 years ago, where visiting another country was like traveling to a different world.I think according to the official regulations of modern US liberalism, this makes me slightly racist, and I'm supposed to be dismayed that Japan doesn't have more multiculturalism??
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  tremon
  > Applicants will also be required to have a pension pot equivalent to 30 years of payouts.Does this take into account the amount of pension a person would still accumulate under Japanese employment, or will this immediately disqualify anyone under 45?
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  stock_toaster
  In a time of declining globalism and growing[1] nationalism[2] and anti-immigration sentiment around the world, I think it is unsurprising that a historically[3] xenophobic culture would move in this direction.[1]: https://thesociopedia.blogspot.com/2026/07/why-nationalism-i...[2]: often used as a tool by oligarchy to shift blame away from themselves, instead towards vulnerable groups, as the cause of rising inequality and various institutional crisis[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Japan
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  classified
  > public sentiment towards immigrants soursI'm not up to date with Japanese news, does anyone know the reason for that?
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  vconnor
  Anti-immigration laws: angry faceAnti-immigration laws, Japan: happy faceAs usual, the meme is ever alive around these parts. Anything Japan does is heralded as a good move™ and no impartial discussion can be had without the weeaboos coming out of the woodwork to put a positive spin on it.But sure, we’ll see if limiting these odious gaijin coming in will solve their stagnant economy, fertility crisis and obsolete business practices. Good luck with their isolationism, it’s not the first time they’ve gone down that path, all to appease the right-leaning imbeciles that blame the immigrant for their politicians’ ineptitude at dealing with systemic problems. It’s the same all over the world.
• jdiaz97
  there goes my dream of being a gaijin :(
• jdw64
  It seems like a difficult problem to me, since there's no right answer.
• NDlurker
  Sounds like suicide. Good luck with that
• LePetitPrince
  [dead]
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  flamethrower123
  [flagged]
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  jfewhfuehg
  >Foreigner>From South Asia>Works in techGo figure.Edit: Trying to upset people less.
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  skeledrew
  Doesn't seem they're really aware that they're something of an endangered "species". Although technically they'd still be endangered even if they open up seriously, as then there's heightened possibility of bloodline dilution. I wonder sometimes if that'd be a good or bad thing in the long run: loss of that which makes them pretty unique vs blending more with the world.
• anon
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