Hiring a foreign national is a single, connected process — from drawing up your hiring plan through to post-arrival settlement support. We walk through each step from a practical standpoint, including where status-of-residence procedures fit in: everything a company hiring for the first time needs to understand.
In our previous article, we explained that hiring a foreign national does not begin with a visa application — it begins the moment you start thinking about your hiring plan (Hiring Foreign Nationals Starts Well Before the Visa Application).
So what does the process actually look like in practice?
Below, for companies hiring a foreign national for the first time, we set out the entire process as a single, connected flow — from drawing up a hiring plan through to post-arrival settlement support. We also look at which stages involve status of residence (在留資格) procedures.
The first step is not to launch your recruitment drive, but to get clear on two things: why you need to hire, and what role you will ask the person to fill.
Having a clear picture of the intended role, the knowledge and experience required, and the employment conditions will make every subsequent step significantly smoother. As we explained last time, for foreign national hiring the starting point is not 'which country should we recruit from?' — it is 'what exactly will we ask this person to do?'
📋 We are happy to advise from the hiring-plan stage
Our office provides preliminary consultations on questions such as 'which status of residence would apply to the type of person we are looking to hire?' To give you the most specific guidance possible, it helps to have the following to hand: your articles of incorporation, company registration certificate, company brochure, most recent financial statements, organisational chart, and current headcount. Please feel free to get in touch.
Once your hiring plan is in place, you can begin recruitment.
Hiring a foreign national falls into one of two scenarios: recruiting someone already living in Japan, or inviting a candidate from abroad. The scenario determines which status-of-residence procedures apply and how long they are likely to take. In addition to your own job listings and referral hiring (リファラル採用), specialist recruitment services are also an option.
During the selection process, alongside assessing skills and character, it is also important to consider whether the intended role is consistent with the candidate's likely status of residence.
For certain statuses of residence, the relationship between a candidate's academic background or work history and the intended role is a key point to verify. Taking care at the selection stage to align the job content with each candidate's background will make the status-of-residence assessment much smoother later on.
Once you have a clear picture of the person you wish to hire, the next step is to identify the status of residence that best fits the role.
Japan's statuses of residence are defined by the type of permitted activity — there is no single unified "work visa" (就労ビザ; colloquial) that covers all employment. The appropriate status must be identified based on the nature of the work and the type of employment: options include Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services (技術・人文知識・国際業務) and Specified Skilled Worker (特定技能), among others. We will cover each status of residence in detail in future articles.
Once you have determined the appropriate status of residence, you can begin preparing the application.
If you are inviting a candidate from abroad, you will need to apply for the issuance of a Certificate of Eligibility (COE) (在留資格認定証明書). If you are hiring someone already in Japan under a different status of residence, an application to change status of residence (在留資格変更許可申請) is required. In addition, where a person is changing jobs and a new company is taking them on whilst their status of residence remains unchanged, you can also optionally apply for the issuance of a Certificate of Authorised Employment (就労資格証明書) to confirm that the intended role falls within the scope of the existing status. The correct procedure, in short, depends on the circumstances.
Please note that if an employee already working in Japan changes jobs to a new company, the employee themselves must submit a notification concerning the contracting organisation (契約機関に関する届出) to the Immigration Services Agency, as a rule within 14 days of the change taking effect. The application documents reflect the details of your hiring plan — the job content, employment conditions, and arrangements for receiving the employee. They are, in effect, the hiring plan made concrete.
Once permission has been granted, the employee is ready to join.
On joining, in addition to standard employment formalities such as social insurance enrolment, there are procedures specific to employers who hire foreign nationals. For example, the Notification of Employment of Foreign Nationals (外国人雇用状況の届出) is required both when a foreign national joins and when they leave (see: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: Notification of Employment of Foreign Nationals). Support with getting settled in daily life — accommodation, bank accounts, administrative procedures, and so on — is equally important in helping the employee start work with confidence.
Hiring does not end on the employee's first day.
Retention and settlement support (定着支援) after joining is essential if you want the person to perform well over the long term. Depending on the status of residence under which the employee was hired, the accepting (host) organisation (受入れ機関) may be required to provide ongoing support and submit regular or ad-hoc notifications. For Specified Skilled Worker (特定技能) status, for instance, support provided by the accepting organisation is mandated under the scheme — some or all of which may be delegated to a Registered Support Organisation (登録支援機関). Putting in place the systems you need for status-of-residence renewal well in advance will give you peace of mind.
Hiring a foreign national is a single, connected flow — from the hiring plan through to settlement support.
Each step may appear to stand alone, yet that initial hiring plan shapes every stage that follows. Understanding the overall picture early on is precisely what leads to a smooth, sustainable hiring process.
In future articles, we will look in detail at the statuses of residence we are most frequently asked about — Specified Skilled Worker (特定技能) and Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services (技術・人文知識・国際業務) — covering each one as it sits within this overall flow.
🧭 For those who want to clarify the right approach for their organisation
Our foreign national recruitment service provides end-to-end practical support — from drawing up a hiring plan and assessing the right status of residence through to post-arrival support. If you would like to understand where to begin for your particular situation, our self-assessment tool is also available.
