Designated Activities (Public Notice No. 53) — Digital Nomad

It's open to citizens of 49 countries.

The 49 figure comes from the February 2024 proposal. The list the Immigration Services Agency actually publishes alongside the status page names 51 countries and regions for the nomad under Notice No. 53 — and a separate, longer list of 73 for a spouse or child under Notice No. 54, because family members only have to come from a visa-exempt country, not one with a tax treaty. Counted from the ISA's own 対象国・地域一覧 PDF. India, mainland China, the Philippines and Vietnam appear on neither list.

The visa costs about 3,000 yen.

Japan raised consular visa fees for the first time since 1978. For applications submitted on or after 1 July 2026, a single-entry visa costs 15,000 yen and a multiple-entry visa 30,000 yen, up from 3,000 and 6,000. Almost every digital-nomad guide written before mid-2026 still quotes the old figure.

On this visa you owe Japan no income tax, because six months keeps you under 183 days.

The ISA Q&A is narrower than that. It says remuneration is exempt where the applicable tax treaty's conditions are met, including that the stay totals 183 days or fewer in the tax year or in any continuous 12-month period, and adds that the conditions differ by treaty. EY's Japan tax alert notes that the short-stay exemption also carries payment and cost-bearing conditions beyond the day count. A stay granted for a full six months can run past 183 days, and the clock in many treaties is any rolling 12 months, not the calendar year — so the exemption is a treaty test to check against your own dates, not an automatic feature of the visa.

You'll get a residence card and can sign up for national health insurance once you arrive.

Holders are not "mid-to-long-term residents", so no residence card is issued — stated twice on the ISA's own status page and again in its Q&A. The Q&A spells out the consequence: you cannot enrol in Japan's public health insurance, which is precisely why private cover with at least 10,000,000 yen of injury and illness treatment cover is a condition of entry. Without a residence card you are also outside resident registration, which is what most banks and mobile carriers ask to see.

Get a Certificate of Eligibility first, then take it to the consulate — it speeds things up.

There is no CoE route for this status if you are abroad. The ISA Q&A says that unlike sponsored work visas there is nobody in Japan who can act as your proxy to file a Certificate of Eligibility application, so an applicant outside Japan applies for the visa directly at the embassy or consulate covering where they live. Guides that list a CoE as an optional accelerator are describing a document you cannot obtain.