Japan to Permit International Long-Term Visa Holders to Enter From October

Authorities in Japan have decided to gradually permit entry for internationals who have recently obtained long-term visas, starting from October, as a part of the country’s effort to relax further the imposed restrictions, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has announced.

Even though Prime Minister Suga did not clarify which nationalities would be the first one to benefit from this decision, he said that it would include internationals with the appropriate visas, students and dependent visas, VisaGuide.World reports.

However, internationals who will be permitted to enter must take a PCR test, upon their arrival.

Persons who seek to enter the country for tourism purposes will be banned from entering still.

Japan’s Prime Minister stressed that the Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura would proceed by negotiating with countries on a bilateral basis about the conditions for relaxing entry restrictions.

“It doesn’t mean (easing) will begin for a number of countries at the same time. We’ll proceed with negotiations with each country. If an agreement can be reached from both sides on a mechanism, a framework, we’ll start,” he pointed out.

According to the agency Jiji, nearly 1,000 persons a day will be allowed to enter.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan has only permitted some persons who own permanent resident status as well as medical personnel and some other exceptional cases to enter the country.

In August, Japan announced that it is discussing the possibility to open the doors for international visa holders.

Back in April, the country decided to prohibit the entry for citizens of 146 countries, as part of efforts to halt the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, while in March, the Japanese Foreign Ministry announced that it had invalidated the visas which were issued to the persons from countries that have been profoundly affected by the Coronavirus outbreak.

Up to this point, Japan has registered a total of 82,131 Coronavirus cases, while 1,548 persons have died.