Staying in Japan over the summer on tourist visa: is part-time work possible?
 

Hi, I'm a nineteen year old American and I currently am a sophomore in college. This summer, some family friends my father knows through his work gave me the offer to stay with them this summer in Tokyo as they knew I was interested in traveling to Japan. I know I can get a 90 days tourist Visa (I can, right?), so I would presumably stay the full 90 days. During this time, on a tourist visa can I:

a) take part-time English classes at a language school? Or is some other visa required?
b) get any sort of part-time employment? I heard a lot of western bars/nightlife/entertainment type places hire foreign American workers. Is this possible, or would I need a work visa? If so, can I get a work visa while in Japan and have them sponsor me? If that doesn't work, can I teach part-time private English lessons or is that require a work visa as well?

Thanks for any help.

No and no, legally, unfortunately.

1) is possible if you apply now and arrange with the school. Shouldn't be that hard to get a student visa at an legit school.

2) Not legally on a tourist visa, and not many places want or need someone who is going to disappear in three months.

So I'd have to get a student visa even for part-time language schools? Can I stay as long on that?

And so there's basically no way to earn any part-time income?

Thanks

You don`t need a student visa to attend a language school, but you`ll need one if you plan to stay any longer than 3 months. Schooling does not require a visa. In fact, most short-term Japanese courses don`t even offer visas. So, yes, you CAN attend school with no problems. I have never heard of a visa being required for short-term classes. There are plenty of legit schools that offer courses tailored to fit within a tourist visa time frame - the biggest problem would be finding one that matches the dates you`ll be in Japan.

But for the part-time income, nope. It`s not going to happen. And if you do somehow manage to find somewhere shady that is willing to hire you under the table for a month or two of work (why they would is a mystery)... If you were to get caught, expect to be put on the black list and barred entry from Japan for most of the rest of your life.

Really? I guess that makes sense...I guess you wouldn't be taking classes for college credit, though...just for langauge acquisition.

Seems to me like your best bet would be to see if your family friend can introduce you to some people to tutor privately. That way you could get paid cash under the table. It certainly wouldn't make you a ton of money, but it's more than nothing.

As others have said, without a work visa, you can't be legally employed, so any kind of real job is out of the question. Taking classes shouldn't be a problem, regardless of your visa status.

Yep. Private english lessons are probably the easiest way you could get some money. But it _is_ illegal and as such I do not recommend it.

You don't need more than a tourist visa to take classes at a language school.

The problem is, who will want to start tutoring with a teacher that is leaving in 90 days.

Don't bet on this.

True.

I wasn't trying to say it was a good idea:)