Japan starts accepting requests for eased COVID quarantine rule

Some of the countries that Japanese business people will travel to have no quarantine.

Those countries should slap a 3-10 day quarantine on Japanese travelers in return.

Overseas businesspeople must be on visits of up to three months to qualify for the measure.

Quite Odd

Time to allow the tourists back as well from countries deemed safe.

Japan sure could use them after building all those now empty hotels for the Olympics.

Cannot keep them subsidized forever from taxpayers' money.

From the US Embassy

NEW QUARANTINE POLICY FOR U.S. BUSINESS TRAVELERS TO JAPAN

This policy does not apply to those non-residents seeking to travel for tourism, family visitation, or other non-business purposes. 

Before applying for a short-term business visa, each traveler will need to secure a “Responsible Stakeholder” to sponsor them while in Japan. The “Responsible Stakeholder” first must seek approval from the relevant Japanese ministry. Following ministry approval, the “Responsible Stakeholder” will communicate directly with the traveler in order to proceed with applying for a business-related visa.

What a long drawn-out process this will become.

Can't wait to see the restrictions placed on tourists and the hoops they will have to jump through just to visit.

@Tomi Probably first need to open border for all students before they even consider letting tourists come

So, if you are a vaccinated business traveler coming to Japan, you are eligible for 3 day quarantine, but if you are a vaccinated Japanese or foreign resident, you are not eligible for 3 day quarantine returning to Japan?

Did anyone explain this to corona?

@zichi is right. No international tourist like me, who used to spend 4-6 weeks annually traipsing around the country, is going to re-visit in the foreseeable future. I've already planned six weeks in Mexico, Belize and Costa Rica for Feb/Mar. That's when I would most often be on my way to Japan. It's really Japan's loss. I don't know how many of you other people who write comments here are aware of how many countries around the world are far ahead of Japan on the issue.

Money before all else!

So, if you are a vaccinated business traveler coming to Japan, you are eligible for 3 day quarantine, but if you are a vaccinated Japanese or foreign resident, you are not eligible for 3 day quarantine returning to Japan?

The farm ministry began receiving many inquiries Monday related to the application process for technical interns, at a time when the country is facing a shortage of workers in the agricultural sector due to the graying and decline of the population.

We want our slave interns and we want them now!

Just as with the hospitals which turned away Covid-19 patients in ambulances, the key to understanding this slower adoption of allowing foreign travelers to Japan is staffing and logistics. There is no particular thought how the slower approach is affecting families and small businesses

I believe the estimate of the number of people waiting to enter Japan for the first time (students whose academic programs have already started among them, the technical trainees for factories, etc) is some 370,000 visa holders! The government has set a maximum for entries into all airports, total entries per day including Japanese citizens at 3,350. That's all. Just admitting the backlog of visa holders at that rate will take 3 years!

This is a logjam of unprecedented proportions. The number of people to be admitted under the Covid-19 protocols simply exceeds the capacity of government staff to check all the documents on a daily basis.

It's not clear at all to me how even the foreign residents currently living in Japan now can go out and come back, say, for holiday family visits .... the new normal, whatever shape it takes, must be about 3 years over the horizon!

I'm a US citizen married to a Japanese, so technically I've been able to travel to Japan, but I still haven't been able to figure out if I'd still have to do the full quarantine or if I'm now in the same lot as these business travelers. Anyone know?

Bureaucracy blunts the impact of this new rule. First, there are weeks of paperwork from the sponsoring company in Japan. Then, that foreign individual needs to apply for a visa in his/her home country. In Los Angeles for example, there is a three week wait for an appointment. After arriving, the traveler must quaranteen for 3 days and then still not use public transportation for 10 days during which time he /she must be tested 2 times. Then, at some time during the visit, the Japanese company has to submit a letter stating that their guest is behaving properly. ALL of this process is done on paper and requires review. Japan has created the ultimate cluster f$#k. Enjoy your 2 day business trip.

@Captdingleheimer

If you have a valid spouse visa and you are currently registered as living in Japan, that is, you have a home address, AND you can show proof of having been fully vaccinated with one of Pfizer/Moderna/Astrazeneca vaccines, AND you board the plane carrying a negative-result of PCR test taken within 72 hours of boarding your plane, AND you install the app that allows tne Ministry if Foreign Affairs to confirm your physical location in Japan, then if you have all those things you will be allowed to take a private form of transport directly to your home address in Japan and quarantine there for two weeks instead of spending time in a hotel near the airport -- but it is at the discretion of the admitting officer to let you do that. If they think you won't stay at home for the two weeks, they'll make you go to the designated hotel. The key point is having a registered home address in Japan to go to.

For God sake open up the country!! Your tourism industry is dying. You have just over 100 cases in the entire country. I can see demanding proof of vaccination, and limiting entry to fully vaccinated individuals. The quarantine mandate is nonsensical at this point if one is fully vaccinated. Why do you always have to make things difficult?

Government: Let’s design a overly complicated, bureaucratic nightmare of a process that is barely understandable by anyone and discriminates many applicants.

Also the government: We are so stressed because the applications require so much work. Why are these people calling us?

You really can’t make this stuff up!

Joseph and others are right- the application and compliance procedures are highly impractical and make no sense from a health standpoint.

The announcement of the re-opening of Japan seems more for show and less from a desire to facilitate business.

When is the Japanese government going to allow family members of permanent residents to come into the country? Overseas business people, random students, but no to family members married to Japanese nationals?

Besides reducing quarantines periods for residents of Japan, the government should trash the AI Google app that annoyingly calls three times a day and takes videos to add to their global facial recognition database they'll be busy trying to profit from.

I love how behind almost every good deed here or government decision there is a catch. So on the outside it looks nice and that everything is fine, but inside it's still moldy and stinks.

including written pledges by the businesspeople and companies to follow anti-virus measures

And why just written? Why not also a verbal pledge? And will it have to be faxed? What year is it? What year are they comming from? I'm reluctant to believe it. Even after 30 years here, when I've seen other things...

I don't see much meaning in dropping the quarantine from 14 days to 10 days for vaccinated people who are not coming for business! For goodness sakes! Open up the country! If they are vaccinate and have a test before coming, why not just a 3 day quarantine? MAKES NO SENSE!

Still no real answer for us local residents who have to travel overseas for business as do we have to stay home for 3 days or still 14 days as never can get an answer. If still 14 days that's cruel to us taxpayers who still have to g back to work to support the family and cannot stay home that long. Maybe we should all be part of the Olympics and get a pass.

livvy, thank you for a comprehensive response.

That's what I figured. I've got the address, the ride from the airport, but I'm decidedly lacking in my desire to sit around on my in-law's tatami reading Kindle books for 2 weeks. I guess I'll wait it out.

The sooner we get rid of all of these ridiculous restrictions the better

I wonder how much Japan is charging for these foreigners allowed to enter Japan for covid-19 testing.

If you want to leave Japan, medical clinics charge you around yen 33.000,- for a medical PCR-test and certificate in English - not cheap at all, seriously overpriced if you ask me.