Perfect.
@providenceventurer gaijin
外人 means foreigner in Japan.
@cryptofriendly can this nomad visa get a my number card or driving licence? I highly doubt but maybe you have a firm answer on this?
No, you can not get the my number card with a digital nomad visa.
Please, just forget about their digital nomad visa. It's the perfect example of Japanese bureaucrats hearing about something from abroad, and trying to duplicate it in a Japanese way, practically creating something that has no advantages but just disadvantages. Seriously, it's the most useless digital nomad visa in the whole world.
You need to provide lots of paperwork for nothing (min 10 million jpy income, docs about your remote employment, etc), wait until one day they actually grant it (probably they'll ask you for more documentation first, lol), and what you get for all that trouble is a 6 months visa, which doesn't allow you to do anything locally anyway. As no normal landlord will rent an apartment to you without a job in Japan, all you can get are hotels or short term serviced apartments (well, and love hotels and overpriced share houses for the desperate).
If you got an EU passport, you can just skip all of that, buy a flight, and you'll get a 3 months stay permission on arrival, which you can extend for 3 more months at the local immigration office in Japan (You need to state a reason, so just write: "I like Japan." on the visa extension application form). Voila, you can stay 6 months without anything, as easy as it gets. And if you need more time, get a cheap return flight or ferry to Busan, and restart.
Both options, digital nomad visa and normal 'tourist landing stamp' don't let you open a bankaccount, nor work locally, nor anything. If you want something better, get a student visa (Japanese language, flower arranging, calligraphy, etc.), and you can work up to 28 h per week and get local banking, as well as the Orwellian my number card, health insurance, normal apartment, etc.
Regarding driving license: if you are from
- Switzerland
- Germany
- France
- Belgium
- Monaco
- Estonia
- Taiwan
You can drive with you original license and a translation for up to one year in JP.
Getting a local license from scratch isn't cheap, and they like to make foreigner fail a few times.
If you have a license from a 'civilized' country (if US, only a few states count as that, lol), and can prove that you have been residing in that country for >3 months after getting the license, you can convert it to a JP license in about 4 hours (vision test, photo, sitting for an hour listening to some rules - no test).
Anyone with a Zairyu card (Residence card) can convert his original driving license. You get that residence card only if you have a permitted stay >90 days in Japan, here we go, that's actually the only advantage of the digital nomad visa vs. tourist status.
Keep in mind, the JP driving license is valid for a year first, then two, then five (that's the gold license, if you haven't had any accidents). Every-time when it expires you need to spend half a day at the local driving license center to renew it (cops testing your eyes, and talking about an hour or two about new rules and how dangerous driving is).
TL;DR: Get a tourist visa and extend it, if you want to do more locally in JP, get a student visa or a JP girlfriend. For banking you can actually use Revolut or Wise, they are in JP too (with the usual limitations), and give you free withdrawals/good rates. There used to be plenty of crypto ATMs, but all they pretty much disappeared now.
Before you even think about doing that, keep this in mind:
A permanent resident is a resident who is a Japanese national or who has a living base in Japan or resided in Japan for more than 5 years in the last 10 years. A permanent resident is subject to income tax on worldwide income regardless of source.
P.S. They implemented the EU 'travel rule' for crypto as well now. They copy all the worst stuff from the west.