Employer-Change Notification to Immigration

Every employer change sends a 14-day filing directly to the Immigration Services Agency, and the duty sits on the resident, not the company.¹² The ward office never sees this paperwork, and ISA's procedure includes no step that issues a new residence card.¹³

Confirm current details with official sources

Procedures, fees, and requirements can change. Confirm current details at the Immigration Services Agency site. This article is general information, not legal or immigration advice; for your specific case, consult a licensed administrative scrivener (gyoseishoshi, 行政書士) for a status-fit read on the new role, or an immigration lawyer (bengoshi, 弁護士) where the new duties may leave your current status.

Overview

This article is for holders of employer-tied work statuses who leave a job, start a new one, or both.¹ It covers the ISA-direct routing, the leaving and joining filings, the three filing routes, whether the new job fits your current status, and what a missed filing costs at renewal.¹³⁴

The deep treatment of in-group edge cases (mergers, secondments, dual contracts) lives in the work-employment lane's dedicated notification article. This article stays on routing, the record-vs-card split, status fit, and renewal stakes.

What you file, and where it goes

Article 19-16 of the Immigration Control Act places the notification duty on the resident.² The statute calls it the 所属機関等に関する届出 (shozoku kikan tō ni kansuru todokede, "notification concerning affiliated organizations"), and workers on contract-based statuses fall under item 2, which tracks the 契約機関 (keiyaku kikan, "contracting organization").⁵⁶ Reportable item-2 events are changes to the contracting organization's name or address, its dissolution, the end of a contract, and the conclusion of a new contract.¹⁵

The filing goes directly to ISA (as of 2026-09).¹ It is never filed at the ward office, and no municipal counter participates.³ Mailed filings travel to a single receiving desk: the Tokyo Regional Immigration Services Bureau notification desk, with a copy of the residence card in an envelope marked "届出書在中" or "NOTIFICATION ENCLOSED" (as of 2026-09).¹³

Covered statuses include Highly Skilled Professional 1(a), 1(b), and 2, Researcher, Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, Nursing Care, contracted Entertainer, Skilled Labor, and Specified Skilled Worker.¹

Leaving counts as one filing, joining as another

Ending a contract and concluding a new one each start their own 14-day clock on the event date.³ A resident who resigns with no next job lined up still files the leaving notification within 14 days; the joining filing follows only when a new contract is actually concluded.³

Future events cannot be reported in advance.³ Where timing allows both events to be reported together, a combined leaving-plus-joining reference form exists.¹

The card does not change; the record does

ISA's procedure page asks you to present the residence card at the counter or enclose a copy by mail, and it describes no card reissue as part of the notification.¹

The three filing routes

ISA offers three routes and describes the online path as the convenient one (as of 2026-09; confirm current details with the Immigration Services Agency).¹ The ISA Electronic Notification System accepts filings around the clock and keeps a filing history that proves useful at extension time.¹⁴ No supporting documents are required for electronic filing, and the paper reference forms are not needed there.¹

Register for the electronic system before you need it

Electronic filing requires advance user registration in the system, and job-change weeks are busy. Completing registration while still employed keeps the 14-day window comfortable.⁵

Counter filing at the competent regional bureau presents the residence card plus the notification form; reception hours vary by office (as of 2026-09).¹ Mail filing encloses the form plus a card copy, sent traceably since no receipt confirmation is returned.¹

Route	What to submit	Notes
Online portal	Electronic notification, card number	24-hour filing after user registration, history lookup (as of 2026-09)15
Regional bureau counter	Residence card plus notification form	Hours vary by office (as of 2026-09)1
Mail to Tokyo desk	Form plus card copy, red-marked envelope	Use traceable sending (as of 2026-09)1

Whichever route you pick, a job change that also involves a move runs a second, separate clock at the ward office for the address notice.⁶ The flow below shows the route choice and that parallel filing.

The 所属（契約）機関に関する届出 (shozoku (keiyaku) kikan ni kansuru todokede, "notification concerning the affiliated (contracting) organization") is the formal name on the forms.¹

Keep the filing proof with the renewal folder

The online completion record, a copy of the filed form, or the postal dispatch record becomes renewal evidence later (as of 2026-09).⁴ Filing takes minutes; proving it years later without the record takes much longer.⁴

Does the new job fit the current status

The notification records the move; it does not authorize duties outside your current status.⁴ A worker moving to a new employer in duties the current status covers files the notice and nothing more; where the new duties fall outside the status, a change of status may be needed instead.⁴

This fit test is duty-based, not title-based: work consisting mainly of simple labor does not fall within the status merely because a company employee performs it.⁴ When the duties are ambiguous, a 行政書士 (gyōseishoshi, "administrative scrivener") can read the new role against the current status before you choose between a notification and a full status change.⁴

What a missed filing costs at renewal

ISA prescribes penalties for failure to notify or false notification, and later residence applications may be disadvantaged where the record shows gaps.³ At the next extension, officers may review employment history against notification-record consistency.⁴

Separately, extended non-engagement in the authorized activity, in the documented 3-month pattern, exposes the status to revocation under Article 22-4 of the Act.⁶

The classic failure pattern is assumption: the resident believes the employer's onboarding covered immigration, while the employer filed only its own separate Hello Work report.⁴ Responsibility for the ISA filing rests on the resident in every case.³⁴

Unreported gaps compound at renewal time

A single late notice can still be filed, but a file showing unreported moves plus months outside authorized activity combines a disadvantage in later applications with revocation exposure. Filing each notice on time and keeping the activity continuous avoids both.³⁶

Good to know

Your employer's Hello Work report does not cover you

The employer-side foreign-employment report to Hello Work and the resident-side affiliation notification are separate duties on separate parties.⁴ Confirm the employer's procedure with HR while retaining the immigration filing record separately.⁴

The employer notice and the address notice are separate duties

Different articles of the Act create them, different destinations receive them, and each runs its own clock. A job change that also moves house triggers both the Article 19-16 filing with ISA and the Article 19-9 municipal filing.⁵⁶

File late rather than not at all, and never backdate

ISA asks residents who discover a missed notification to file promptly, and a filing may only report an event that has actually occurred.³ Silence compounds the breach, and a false date adds a false-notification problem to the late one.³

A same-company transfer with unchanged contracting party needs no filing

A transfer between branches of the same Japanese company, or a renewal of the contract with the same organization, leaves the contracting party unchanged, so no notification is owed.³⁵ Branch transfers at a foreign company with no head branch in Japan can still require a filing, and a secondment to another company requires one even when the original employment contract continues.⁵

Mergers, secondments, and dual contracts are covered in more depth in the work-employment lane's deep article.

See also

• Notifying Immigration of the Employer Change
• Tenshoku Procedure: The Job-Change Sequence
• Engineer/Humanities/International Services Visa
• Change of Status of Residence
• Extension of Period of Stay
• The 3-Month-Unemployment Renewal Risk
• Inter-Employer Movements: Same Industry, Cross Industry, Cross Status
• Resignation in Japan: The Employee-Side Notice and the Hold-Up Patterns
• Japan Job Offer Letter and Work Rules (Shugyo Kisoku)
• Residence Card Renewal

References

Footnotes

1. Immigration Services Agency. "Notification concerning a contracting organization" procedure page (Japanese). https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/procedures/nyuukokukanri10_00015.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹

2. Japanese Law Translation (Ministry of Justice). "Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act," Art 19-16 (Notification Relating to the Organization of Affiliation). https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3624/en ↩ ↩²

3. Immigration Services Agency. "Q&A on notifications regarding affiliated organizations" (Japanese). https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/procedures/shozokunikansuru_00001.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

4. Yixin International Legal Affairs Gyoseishoshi Office. "Changed or Left a Job in Japan? The 14-Day Immigration Notification." Reviewed 2026-08-27. https://yx-law.com/en/column/job-change-immigration-notification ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

5. 出入国在留管理庁. 「所属機関に関する届出（入管法第19条の16第1号及び第2号）について」. https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/001398559.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

6. e-Gov法令検索. 「出入国管理及び難民認定法」. https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/326CO0000000319 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵