The Immigration Services Agency has revised its permanent residence permit guidelines, making requirements such as annual income and Japanese language proficiency stricter.

On the 1st, the Immigration Services Agency revised its guidelines regarding permanent residence permits for foreigners and made the requirements stricter. Applicants are required to have a consistently higher annual income than the average Japanese person and to have a certain level of Japanese language ability. Annual income requirements apply to unprocessed applications submitted after April of this year. Others will come into effect in April next year.

The Immigration Control and Refugee Act stipulates that the requirements for a permanent residence permit are (1) good behavior, (2) having the assets and skills to earn an independent living, and (3) being in Japan's interests.

The revised version clearly states that the requirement for independent living "must be recognized as being able to support oneself in the future." The factors taken into consideration were whether the applicant had an annual income that exceeded the average for Japanese households, and whether the amount of future pension benefits he or she expected to receive in the future reached the level that would have been achieved if he or she had enrolled in the Employees' Pension Plan for 30 years with that annual income. Regarding pensions, the standard is met if there are financial assets that can cover the shortfall.

Regarding the national interest requirement, he said it was necessary to ``proactively and concretely bring benefits to Japan.'' A certain level of Japanese language proficiency and understanding of the Japanese system will be evaluated.