Many applicants often ask if an intra-company transferee visa is easier to get than the investor visa in Japan. Basically, the “intra-company transferee visa” is for employees, who need to transfer to a subsidiary or a branch office that is located in Japan. However, in order to acquire this kind of visa, an applicant should satisfy certain conditions like the following:
- The applicant must have been working for the parent or affiliate company overseas for at least a year.
- The parent company or its subsidiaries must be able to produce some documents related to the financial aspects of the company.
- It is also required to submit a concrete business plan together with some documents that can prove its operations such as business partners, contracts with clients, business skills and experiences.
All these documents are necessary in order to prove the company’s stability and feasibility. It is not easy to acquire an intra-company transferee visa since it can be harder to secure than an investor visa. On the other hand, a subsidiary company or a branch office should register in advance before an applicant applies for an intra-company transferee visa. This means the company needs to appoint someone (except the applicant) as a representative of the subsidiary or the branch office during registration. In this case, the representative may not be Japanese, but should be residing in Japan.
If the applicant does not have a residency visa at the time of registration, they can appoint someone who lives in Japan. Please take note that when appointing, the representative of the subsidiary or branch office is required to file a manager visa.
