MMoving to Japan

Applying for CoE and Professor visa for 2 years with passport that expires in less than a year?

  • September 8, 2025

I am planning to move to Japan for 2 years in November 2025 to do a postdoc and I am currently going through the process of getting the Certificate of Elegibility (CoE) to then apply for the professor visa with the help of my host university.

However, my passport will expire in less than a year and we don't know if it is better to renew the passport now which will take a few weeks and apply for the CoE with that so we know that the passport is for sure fine for the 2 years or if we can apply for the CoE with my current passport and apply for the visa with a different new passport? In summary, does the CoE and visa need to be applied for with the same passport number?

Any people with experience with this would be greatly appreciated!

by Logical-Education505

1 comment

  1. In general you’d want to have at least 6 months validity period remaining on your passport before traveling internationally, although since you’d be gaining a status of residence in Japan you could fudge that a little bit and still be okay.

    It’s important to remember that the visa is not permission to enter or live in Japan. The visa is just proof that you visited a consulate/embassy and they verified that your paperwork is in order.

    To keep things simple, I’d say after submitting the application for the CoE you should not change your passport until after you have entered Japan. You could probably get the visa in a new passport as long as you presented both the original expired passport and the new one together at the embassy/consulate (and then again during landing inspection when you arrive in Japan), but you may experience some additional scrutiny and related delays. Nothing super unpleasant but Japanese officials tend to not handle things well when they go off script.

    I would recommend looking into your country’s passport renewal from abroad process. It’s usually fairly painless.

    Also remember that since the visa that is in your passport is not permission to live or work in Japan, you don’t need to worry about moving it to the new passport after you renew.

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