MMoving to Japan

Questions about applying for a visa as a COE holder

  • October 7, 2025

I've received my COE from a Japanese company and now have 3 months to enter Japan! My local consulate allows mail visa applications which is great because it's very far from me. I just have a few questions about the information needed on the application:

  1. I don't have an exact arrival date or know which port of entry/airline I will be using since I don't want to buy plane tickets until the visa is done. Do I have to prearrange that now, or can I just put N/A for those slots?

  2. Same with "Names and addresses of hotels or persons with whom applicant intends to stay", I plan on living alone in a short-term rental until finding an apartment. Obviously can't arrange these until I know an exact arrival time. What do I put for that?

  3. "Guarantor or reference in Japan(Please provide details of the guarantor or the person to be visited in Japan)" Can I just use someone at my work for this?

Thanks. I'm trying to be thorough here as the last thing I want is for them to mail the application back and waste time.

by Scrypto

3 comments

  1. Don’t know about the rest, but for person visiting I have used work contact (HR or Office manager etc) before.

  2. I recently completed the same process so I hope I can help 🙂

    For your place of stay and estimated arrival, just put what makes the most sense. You should ensure that it is atleast 30 days later from the day you submit your Visa application. In my case, I simply put 1 week before my joining date. The place of stay can be any temporary hotel. You don’t have to make a reservation. I just entered name of a hotel near Haneda airport. Haneda was also my port of entry. If you need information, you can ask the company which submitted your COE application to send you the form they submitted to the immigration bureau. Similarly for your flight information, check a flight that is arriving on that date from your location and put that in.

    For guarantor information, ask your company for the details. It will some representative from the company. You need their name, address, DOB, relation to the company and phone number. Same goes for the Inviter information.

  3. When I applied for my work visa, I asked my company these details and they provided me with an address (which I did no stay at) and contact person to include.

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