Japan's Prime Minister Calls Her Crackdown on Foreign Residents a Matter of 'Anxiety.'

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi opened her latest account of Japan's immigration policy by articulating a feeling, not a problem. The government, she wrote on X, "recognizes that, with the increasing number of foreign residents, there are citizens who feel anxiety and a sense of unfairness."

What followed was a ledger.

Approvals of the "Business Manager" status of residence, the visa used to run a company in Japan, fell 90 percent in the first half of Reiwa 8 (2026), Ms. Takaichi wrote, a drop of 3,074 certificates compared with the same period a year earlier. Approvals for intra-company transferees fell 15 percent, or 739 cases. And applicants for permanent residency will soon need household income "exceeding the average annual income of Japanese households."

The post, translated by X's automatic tool and cross-checked against the government's published policy, is among the clearest statements yet of how Ms. Takaichi plans to answer a politics that has turned sharply against foreigners. It is also, in places, a document that measures success by how few people got in.

What she counted

The Business Manager visa is the easy win.

Japan raised the bar in October 2025. Minimum capital went to 30 million yen (US$190,074) from 5 million yen, according to a KPMG summary of the rules, and applicants now have to hire at least one full-time employee and show Japanese-language ability. Ms. Takaichi said the old standards were "lax compared to similar systems in other countries" and had been "abused as a means for immigration purposes."

The old standards were "lax compared to similar systems in other countries" and had been "abused as a means for immigration purposes." - Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi

A sixfold increase in start-up capital will cut applications. That is what it is for.

The post does not say how many of the 3,074 missing certificates would have gone to sham companies and how many to people who would have opened a restaurant or a trading firm and paid taxes. Nor does it say how many fell off because applicants never applied.

The same goes for the 15 percent decline in intra-company transfers, which she credited to new paperwork "to clarify the existence of business operations both abroad and domestically." She said the change allowed "operations that better align with actual circumstances." She offered no count of the abuses she had in mind.

For engineers and specialists in humanities and international services, a category that covers systems engineers, accountants, interpreters and language teachers, she described tighter screening but gave no drop in approvals. Applicants will now need affidavits from both the dispatching and receiving companies and proof of language ability equivalent to CEFR B2. In July, she said, the government decided to add 226 people to the Immigration Services Agency's entry examiners and related staff.

The permanent residency test

Permanent residency is where the changes reach people already living in Japan, many of them for a decade or more.

The status carries no limits on activity or length of stay.

Ms. Takaichi said it "requires particularly cautious review" and that "there have been many cases" in which holders "could not maintain an independent livelihood." Her answer is a household income standard above the national average, a calculation that will also count projected future pension payments, and new tests of Japanese ability and of understanding of "our country's systems, rules, and the like."

She wrote that the revised guidelines would take effect October 1, after public comment.

The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, reported the average Japanese household income at about 5.75 million yen, or roughly $36,500, and said critics among some 5,000 public commenters had pointed out that an average can be pulled upward by a small number of wealthy households. They argued the median would be a fairer yardstick.

We couldn't immediately confirm those figures against data from Immigration Services Agency. The Star also reported the guidelines taking effect in April 2027, which conflicts with the October date in the prime minister's post.

What did change on Oct. 1, according to Agence France-Presse, was the application fee. It rose twentyfold, to 200,000 yen from 10,000 yen. Hundreds of people lined up at the Tokyo immigration office beforehand.

A 22-year-old American university student who spoke fluent Japanese told the agency he understood the government's worry. "Over-accepting foreigners might dilute Japan's unique culture," he said.

The politics

Ms. Takaichi couched the policy as protection for foreigners as well as citizens, who she said should be able to "live safely and securely." The January package behind it is titled the "Comprehensive Policy Measures for the Acceptance of Foreigners and Orderly Coexistence."

The pressure behind it is easy to find.

The Sanseito party, which gained ground in the 2025 upper house election on a "Japanese-first" platform, has described immigration as a "silent invasion," AFP reported. False claims linking foreigners to welfare fraud and crime have circulated widely on social media.

Business groups, for their part, keep telling the government that a country with a falling birth rate and an aging population cannot run its economy without foreign workers. The Nikkei newspaper wrote in an editorial that Japan should "promote long-term settlement" rather than treating foreigners as temporary labor.

Business groups, for their part, keep telling the government that a country with a falling birth rate and an aging population cannot run its economy without foreign workers.

According to GuiderJapan, a visa-information site citing the Immigration Services Agency, the number of foreign residents reached about 4.12 million in April 2026, a record, or 3.35 percent of the population. We couldn't immediately ascertain that against the agency's own release.

By that count, the 3,074 Business Manager approvals that disappeared amount to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of Japan's foreign residents. Whether the people who feel anxious will feel any differently is a question the post does not try to answer.

The author is an Executive Director and Head of Research and Analysis at Icarus Asia, an independent financial research and market analysis firm that specializes in macroeconomic insights, structural fixed-income analysis, and liquidity trends across Asian and global capital markets.

Sources: Ms. Takaichi's post on X (translation by X); AFP via Euronews, Asharq Al-Awsat and Taipei Times; The Star (Malaysia); KPMG Global Mobility Flash Alert 2025-195; GuiderJapan.