Japan’s Visa Fee Jumped 5x on 1 July — and the ¥300,000 Figure You’ve Seen Is Not a Fee

Japan Visa Fee Increase On 1 July 2026, Japan raised its visa issuance fee for the first time since 1978. A single-entry visa went from ¥3,000 to ¥15,000. A multiple-entry visa went from ¥6,000 to ¥30,000.

That part is real, it is in force, and if you are applying from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam or any of the hundred-plus countries that need a visa for Japan, it already applies to you.

What is not real is most of what has been written about it since. You have probably seen ¥300,000 attached to this story. That number exists, but it is not a fee, it is not in effect, and it has nothing to do with the visa you are about to apply for.

Here is the accurate version.

Quick answer: Japan’s visa issuance fee rose on 1 July 2026 from ¥3,000 to ¥15,000 for single-entry and ¥6,000 to ¥30,000 for multiple-entry — roughly $93 and $186. It applies to applications submitted on or after that date. This is the first revision since 1978.

What actually changed on 1 July

The Japanese Cabinet approved the revision on 19 June 2026, and Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi announced it the following day. It took effect on 1 July 2026 and applies to applications submitted on or after that date.

Per Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the fee at overseas diplomatic missions is now approximately ¥15,000 for a single-entry visa and approximately ¥30,000 for a multiple-entry visa, converted into local currency.

Motegi’s stated reason, as reported by the Japan Times: the fee was set in 1978 and has been revised to reflect the inflation and exchange-rate movement since. He added that the government does not anticipate an immediate impact on inbound tourism.

Two details the headlines skipped, and both matter to you:

• MOFA sets the fee in yen. Your embassy converts it. The dollar figures circulating (~$93 and ~$186) are conversions at a moment in time, and the yen has been sitting near multi-decade lows. What you pay in rupees depends on the rate your local mission applies on the day. Don’t budget off a headline.
• It is payable on issuance, not on application. Fragomen’s alert is explicit: the revised fee is payable at the embassy or consulate when the visa is issued. If you are refused, this is not what you lose.

Who this hits, and who it doesn’t

This is a fee on people who need a visa. It changes nothing for people who don’t.

Affected: the 100-plus countries whose nationals require a visa for Japan — including China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Not affected: roughly 70 visa-exempt jurisdictions, including the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and EU member states, for short-term visits.

So the cost of this policy is carried almost entirely by travellers from developing economies. That is not editorialising, it’s just who is on which list.

One thing worth putting in perspective before anyone panics: Japan has been unusually cheap, and now isn’t. For comparison, the UK charges around £115 for a standard visitor visa, the US charges $185 for a B-1/B-2, and a Schengen short-stay visa is €80. At ¥15,000, Japan has moved from being an outlier at the bottom to roughly where its peers already were. The jump is dramatic because the starting point was frozen in 1978 — not because the destination is unusual.

The ¥300,000 figure: what it really is

This is where most coverage falls apart, and where one widely-syndicated travel outlet has published something plainly untrue — that a multiple-entry visa now costs “300,000 yen.”

It does not. Here is the actual position.

On 29 May 2026, Japan’s Upper House enacted revisions to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. As Euronews reported, that legislation raises the legal ceiling on a range of immigration fees:

• Residence-status changes and renewals: maximum raised from ¥10,000 to ¥100,000
• Permanent residency applications: maximum raised from ¥10,000 to ¥300,000

A ceiling is not a price. It is the maximum the government is now permitted to charge. What it will actually charge is a separate decision that has not been finalised.

What we know about the likely figures:

• Fragomen reports the proposed permanent residency fee is ¥200,000, not ¥300,000, with implementation anticipated as early as October 2026.
• Euronews similarly reports PR applicants “could face” ¥200,000, with changes expected before the end of Japan’s fiscal year on 31 March 2027.
• Per Nation Thailand, the government’s initial proposal put residence-status renewal fees at ¥10,000–70,000 depending on the renewal period — not a flat ¥100,000.

So: the ceiling is ¥300,000, the proposal is ¥200,000, the timing is somewhere between October 2026 and March 2027, and none of it is in force today.

If you are renewing a residence status in Japan this month, you are not paying ¥100,000. If you are applying for permanent residency this month, you are not paying ¥300,000. Anyone telling you otherwise has misread a law as a price list.

Why Japan is doing this

The official line is inflation and exchange rates. The fuller picture, from the reporting, is money and scale.

Japan had a record 4.13 million foreign residents at the end of 2025, and welcomed a record 42.7 million foreign visitors last year. Euronews reports the additional revenue is intended to fund immigration administration — staffing, technology, infrastructure — with part of it going to Japanese-language education programmes for foreign residents, stronger action on overstaying, and modernised status-tracking and document processing.

There’s a second mechanism worth understanding. CNBC reported the visa rise alongside a departure tax increase from ¥1,000 to ¥3,000 for all travellers. Yuki Masujima, chief economist at Deloitte Tohmatsu Group, told CNBC that foreign travellers now make up 74% of departures from Japan, against roughly 20–30% before 2013 — and that because tourists are eligible for sales tax refunds, Japan needs to offset those costs somewhere. Visa fees and departure taxes are that somewhere.

His read on the impact: unlikely to deter anyone, because so many visitors are repeat travellers.

What’s coming next: JESTA

One more piece, because it changes the calculation for the currently-exempt.

The legislation also creates the Japan Electronic System for Travel Authorization (JESTA) — a pre-travel authorisation for visitors who are currently visa-exempt for short stays, expected around fiscal year 2028.

If you hold a passport that walks into Japan visa-free today, that is not permanent. JESTA is Japan building the same pre-arrival screening layer the US (ESTA) and the EU already have. Nobody has announced a JESTA fee.

If you’re applying from Pakistan or India: the honest perspective

Here is the part the travel press won’t write, because it isn’t writing for you.

¥15,000 is real money and it is not your problem.

For a Japanese work visa, the fee is the last and smallest gate. Before it sits the thing that actually decides your case: a Certificate of Eligibility (COE), which your Japanese employer applies for at a regional immigration bureau in Japan, on your behalf, before you ever approach an embassy. No sponsoring employer, no COE. No COE, no visa — and the ¥15,000 never becomes relevant, because you never get to the counter.

Put plainly: if you have a genuine job offer and a COE, ¥15,000 is a rounding error against your flight. If you don’t, the fee change is irrelevant to you, because you were not eligible at ¥3,000 either.

The fee rise is a headline. The COE is the wall.

The scams this will produce

Every fee change generates a specific set of lies. Expect these:

• “Apply now before fees go up.” Too late — the change took effect on 1 July. Anyone still running this line in July is either not paying attention or counting on you not to.
• “We have contacts, we’ll get you the old ¥3,000 rate.” The fee is set by Cabinet ordinance and applies to applications submitted from 1 July. There is no back door.
• “Japan is now charging ¥300,000, pay us to lock in the old price.” As above: that is a legal ceiling on a permanent residency fee that isn’t implemented. It has nothing to do with your visitor or work visa.
• “Pay us the visa fee upfront.” The fee is payable at the embassy or consulate on issuance. An agent asking for it in advance is asking for something else.

The reliable test hasn’t changed: if someone is charging you for a government process they cannot influence, the thing being sold is your hope.

Key Takeaways

• Live now: single-entry ¥3,000 → ¥15,000; multiple-entry ¥6,000 → ¥30,000. Effective 1 July 2026, for applications submitted on or after that date.
• First revision since 1978. Cabinet approved 19 June 2026; announced by FM Toshimitsu Motegi.
• Payable on issuance, not on application. Refused applicants don’t pay it.
• Set in yen, converted locally — your rupee cost depends on your embassy’s rate that day.
• ¥300,000 is not a fee. It’s the legal ceiling for permanent residency applications, enacted 29 May 2026. The proposed figure is ¥200,000, and it isn’t in force.
• ¥100,000 is also a ceiling, for residence-status changes and renewals. The initial proposal was ¥10,000–70,000 depending on renewal period.
• Timing on those: anticipated from around October 2026, expected before 31 March 2027.
• Departure tax also rose, ¥1,000 → ¥3,000, for everyone.
• JESTA arrives around FY2028 for currently visa-exempt travellers.
• For work visa applicants, the COE is the real gate, not the fee.

Verify this yourself

Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes the visa fee schedule, and your nearest Japanese embassy or consulate publishes the local-currency amount it actually charges. The residence and permanent residency fee changes will come from the Immigration Services Agency. Check those, not a blog — including this one.