Japan’s Digital Nomad Visa Is Launching In March

Japan is jumping on the digital nomad bandwagon with a new visa that allows visitors from 49 visa-exempt countries, including the United States, to stay in the country for up to six months—doubling the length of stay permitted with the current 90-day tourist visa. Foreign remote salaried workers with an annual income of more than 10 million yen ($68,200) will be eligible to apply. The new visa is slated to launch by the end of March.

The initiative comes as Japan’s government struggles to make good on its 2020 pledge for a national “digital revolution.” Since 2019, Japan has fallen further behind its G7 counterparts, dropping nine places to No. 32 in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, which assesses 64 nations on their readiness to adopt digital technologies for economic and social transformation. That’s well behind Asian neighbors Singapore (No. 3), South Korea (No. 6), Taiwan (No. 9), Hong Kong (No. 10) and China (No. 19).

In a press conference last week, Japan’s Justice Minister Ryuji Koizumi said that digital nomads “can become a source of innovation.”

The number of countries offering digital nomad visas has soared the Covid-19 pandemic, as hundreds of millions of remote workers globally have embraced the idea of location independence. Today, 17.3 million American workers describe themselves as digital nomads, according to a 2023 report by MBO Partners. That’s up 2% from the previous year, after exploding by 131% between 2019 and 2022.

Two thirds of digital nomads (64%) are Millennials (37%) and Gen Xers (27%), with the oldest Gen Zers (born 1997-2012) coming of age and already making up one in five (21%) digital nomads, according to the report.

For countries like Japan, allowing salaried workers—who won’t take jobs from Japanese citizens—to live in the country and spend their earnings for a longer but finite period of time makes a lot of sense.

For the growing number of remote workers who dream of living abroad for as long as half a year, the world is their oyster. Digital nomad visas are now available in Canada, Mexico, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Spain, Estonia, Hungary, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and more than a dozen other countries.

Minister Koizumi acknowledged that Japan was just one of many countries competing for digital nomads. “While many countries are making efforts to attract them, we hope those people will work in Japan, too,” he said.