MMoving to Japan

Sanity check and question on process – moving to Japan in my 40’s via marriage

  • September 30, 2025

tl;dr
another clueless over 40m us citizen looking to move to japan

Background

Me (US citizen – 40's – M) and my partner (JP citizen – 40's – F) have been together for 2.5 years and we've decided that we're at the right time in our lives and relationship to get married. For reasons that are not worth going into here we're planning to build our lives together in Japan. We've done some research and feel somewhat comfortable with the process in general but are getting tripped up on the specifics. Our current plan is to get married in January and for me to move by July. Our timeline is:

  • Register marriage at city ward office when I'm visiting in January
  • Apply for COE in March, worst case scenario get approved COE by May
  • Apply for visa in May with the intention of moving in July

After that my plan is to be a full time language student working towards JLPT N1. I'm thinking this will take me 24 months of full time study, my partner thinks I can do it in 18. Regardless, afterwards I'd be looking at finding a job and just based on being older and the general sense I've gotten about the Japanese IT job market I'm thinking this will take between 6 to 12 months. My general feeling is that with the amount of money I have in savings (low six figures USD) and her income we can afford no more than 4 maybe 5 years of me not working.

Questions:

  1. On registering our marriage; with the news that the US embassy is no longer notarizing Affidavit's of Competency to Marry I'm a little lost on what to provide the city ward instead. Searching through the the forum here is seems like in the past someone was able to get by with just having a notary and apostille for the same document. Has this or any other process worked for someone on this forum recently? Another hang-up is that it seems like even before the US embassy change the city wards were only accepting documents signed/notarized within 3 months, has anyone had luck with outside that time frame? I travel to Japan in mid-December so I'd like to have something in my hand that is at least notarized/apostille'd by November just because of how long it can take to do anything with state governments.
  2. On timeline for COE/Visa; my understanding is that both the COE and visa have a 3-month validity, so with that in mind does the timeline I have still work out if both get approved quickly? I think it does because even if we get the COE in March I wouldn't apply for the visa until May but I'd rather know if I'm wrong sooner rather than later.
  3. Finally, on the rest of the plan; am I being too optimistic in thinking I can learn the language and get a job in IT again in 3 years? I know that IT jobs in Japan don't pay anywhere near the same as they do in the US so I'm not expecting to make anywhere near what I'm making now; but, is it completely unrealistic to think I could find an IT job paying 10 million yen a year 15+ YOE? I don't think it is but if my 6-12 months that I'm setting aside for job search is not enough I'd also like to be prepared and think about applying sooner even if I have to cut the time I can spend as a full-time student short.

by Hadrian_Augustus