On September 28, the Ministry of Justice announced that the number of foreign nationals who had their visas revoked in 2017 reached 385 cases, the highest ever number. This is 91 cases more than the previous year, an increase of 31%.
Breaking down the figures of revocations of visas into different types of status of residence, student visas were the highest number at 172 cases (44.7％), followed by spouse visas at 67 cases (17.4%), and finally “Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services” visas at 66 cases (17.1%).
There are numerous reasons for the visas being revoked, but the highest number of cases involve students remaining in Japan over three months after being kicked out of college for whatever reason, or residents on the “Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services” visa leaving a job and then not working for over 3 months. There were also some cases of fake marriages.
By nationality, 179 (46.5%), the largest figure, were Vietnamese nationals, followed by 84 (21.8%) Chinese nationals and 30 (7.8%) Filipino nationals.
Currently there are more than 2.5 million foreign nationals residing in Japan so 385 revocation cases represent just a small section of the total number of residents, but it is important to note that the number is continuously increasing.
［Reference］Regarding the number of revocations of visas in 2017
jopus Editorial Dep.
