Residence status, the resident record, and a place at school
在留資格・住民票と就学
- Applies to
- All of Japan
- Source last checked
- , Open the Japanese source
- Official source
- 在留資格「家族滞在」（出入国在留管理庁）
The sticker in a passport and the paper at city hall are different objects. School comes after both, and it is a third conversation, with the municipal board of education. Read the status printed on the card before you assume what the child is allowed to do.
The residence card and the 14-day filing
A residence card (在留カード, zairyū kādo) is issued to a mid- to long-term resident (中長期在留者): the Immigration Services Agency's guide says that is a foreign national staying more than three months. The same page lists six cases with no residence card: a stay of three months or less; the status short-term stay (短期滞在, tanki taizai); diplomat (外交) or official (公用); specified activities (特定活動) limited to certain office staff and their families, and to digital nomads and their spouse or child; a special permanent resident (特別永住者), who holds a different certificate; and a person with no status.
After a new landing, a mid- to long-term resident files an address (住居地) within 14 days of the day the address is decided. The legal basis on the Agency's page is the Immigration Control Act, article 19-7, paragraph 1. The filing is at the municipal window, with the residence card, or with the passport if the card will be mailed later. The fee on that page is zero. A child under 16 does not file in person. A relative aged 16 or older who lives with the child, or someone the family asks, files instead.
If you show the card and file the resident-register notice under article 30-46 of the Basic Resident Register Act, the Agency says the immigration address notice is treated as done. You do not also hand in a separate immigration address form. The Agency's municipal guide says that after this move-in notice, the address is written on the card and a resident record (住民票, jūminhyō) is created.
A later move inside Japan is another 14-day rule, at the new address. The domestic school steps for that move are in moving house inside Japan.
The status printed on a child's card
The Agency's status table names these exactly. The activity is what the person may do. It is not a school admission.
| Status on the card | What the Agency's table says |
|---|---|
| 家族滞在 (kazoku taizai, dependent) | Daily life as the spouse or child supported by a person who holds one of the listed statuses. The dependent page's line is below. |
| 永住者 (eijūsha, permanent resident) | 法務大臣から永住の許可を受けた者（入管特例法の「特別永住者」を除く。） |
| 日本人の配偶者等 (nihonjin no haigosha to, spouse or child of a Japanese national) | 日本人の配偶者若しくは特別養子又は日本人の子として出生した者 |
| 永住者の配偶者等 | 永住者等の配偶者又は永住者等の子として本邦で出生しその後引き続き本邦に在留している者 |
| 定住者 (teijūsha, long-term resident) | 法務大臣が特別な理由を考慮し一定の在留期間を指定して居住を認める者 |
| 留学 (ryūgaku, student) | Study at a university, college, high school, junior high, elementary school, or a listed equivalent. The table's example is a student at those schools. |
| 短期滞在 | 本邦に短期間滞在して行う観光，保養，スポーツ，親族の訪問，見学，講習又は会合への参加，業務連絡その他これらに類似する活動 Periods on the table: 90, 30 or 15 days. |
The dependent page defines 家族滞在 as:
入管法別表第一の一の表の教授、芸術、宗教、報道、二の表の高度専門職、経営・管理、法律・会計業務、医療、研究、教育、技術・人文知識・国際業務、企業内転勤、介護、興行、技能、特定技能２号、三の表の文化活動又はこの表の留学の在留資格をもって在留する者の扶養を受ける配偶者又は子として行う日常的な活動。
The dependent page's example is the spouse or child a foreign resident supports. The period is up to five years, as the Minister of Justice sets it. That quoted list includes 特定技能２号 and 留学, and it does not include 特定技能１号. 留学 is the status of the person who is the student; the table's example includes elementary and junior high. 日本人の配偶者等 includes a child born as the child of a Japanese national. 永住者の配偶者等 includes a child born in Japan who has stayed on continuously. A child born abroad sits outside that second sentence.
短期滞在 does not receive a residence card. The 14-day filing is the mid- to long-term route.
A child born in Japan
The Agency's guide says: if a child born in Japan does not have Japanese nationality, and you want the child to stay more than 60 days after birth, apply for a status of residence within 30 days of the birth, at a regional immigration office. The residence card is issued when that application is permitted. If you submit a resident record with the application, the Agency's dependent-status page says the later municipal address filing is unnecessary. Without it, you have 14 days after permission to file the address.
School is the board's decision, not the card's
The Ministry of Education's guideline on school enrollment for foreign children, revised 28 August 2026, says parents of a school-age foreign child (ages 6–15) are not under the school-attendance duty in article 16 of the School Education Act, and that a foreign child is not entered on the ordinary school-age register (学齢簿). The same guideline tells municipal boards to offer a place anyway:
公立の義務教育諸学校への入学が可能であることを案内する必要がある。
Boards are told to send enrollment guidance to the household, in a language the family uses in daily life, and to base their list on the resident register. So the resident record is what puts the household on the board's map. A family that wants a public elementary or junior high applies to the municipal board of education. The first weeks of that are in arriving mid-year.
After an explanation, a board may allow a temporary or formal lower grade when age-grade work is not appropriate. Age is still the starting point: the grade follows the child's age. Japanese lessons in the timetable are a separate request: Japanese-language lessons at a public school. Someone already past school age can be accepted at a public junior high if the board judges the school can take them. Where a night junior high exists, the board is told to mention it.
What goes wrong
- Letting the 14 days pass, then finding there is no resident record for the allowance, the medical card or the board's list.
- Reading 家族滞在 as permission for the child to take a job, or as the same thing as 留学.
- Treating the absence of an attendance duty as a closed school gate. The August 2026 guideline tells boards to say that a public place is possible.
- A parent's status changing while nobody renews the child's 家族滞在. The child's period is its own date on the card. Use the card's spelling on the school form.
What to do now
- Read the status and the expiry date on each card in the family.
- If the status is 短期滞在, talk to immigration before you plan a school year on that stay. The pages above do not put that status on the resident-record route.
- With the resident record, go to the municipal board and say you want a public school place. Take the card.
Your child's dates, not the general ones
Add your child and ward. The timeline does the rest.