Foreigners to finally be booked in the same registration system as Japanese people

Per a Kyodo wire report in Japanese, the new “zairyu card” proposal (detailed here and here) coincides with an MLIT proposal for an updated resident registration (juminhyo) system, which will include foreigners for the first time.

This is perhaps the best part of the entire change. For years now, foreigners have been booked in a separate alien registration system, which creates all sorts of hassles: their Japanese spouses officially appear to be single, and the foreigner can’t verify their identity using the same means as locals (which confuses inexperienced clerks all the time).

So now the picture is a bit clearer. When a foreigner moves, they will update their juminhyo at city hall just like a Japanese person would, and this update will be forwarded to Immigration for recording in the zairyu card system. It still isn’t clear how extensions and changes in immigration status will work (the same in reverse?), but this seems like a promising line of developments so far.

2 thoughts on “Foreigners to finally be booked in the same registration system as Japanese people”

  1. 「制度を分けるよりも効率的」 – well, I would have thought that was always the case. Still, not going to happen until 2012.

  2. There are probably downsides to this somewhere, like it may be harder to evade taxes or something.

    Er, I mean, I have a friend who says that there are probably downsides to this somewhere, like it may be harder to evade taxes or something.

    Finally being able to use the 住基カード machine at the Family Mart downstairs is a huge leap forward for me in terms of shopping convenience. No, really.

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