I'm posting this for my friend who does not have a reddit account. He is a naturalized US citizen originally from Japan who intends to move to Japan permanently. It seems they told him he would first have to renounce his Japanese citizenship before he could apply for a permanent residency. While he gets the documentation needed to do this, he wants to apply for a long term visa under designated activities so he can stay longer than 6 months while he finds a place to live. He meets the savings requirements, but getting the COE is incredibly confusing, as it appears he needs to get it in Japan in person (which means he would have to enter first as a tourist, right?) of through a proxy who would then send it to him so that he can then leave the US to enter Japan once his long term visa is approved. However, neither him nor I can find any information about how to hire a proxy/agent whatever to do this within Japan? We also visited the immigration services agency website (which the consulate links to to get a COE) and could not find any information about a COE in there (?). Does anybody know of any services that can get someone within the US a COE to then apply for a long term visa? Sorry about the long post and thanks for any help you can provide.
by devotchko