Hey there,

One in five workers in their twenties in Japan now has a side job. Companies are opening up policies. The government is actively encouraging it.

And yet the rules for foreign professionals on a work visa are completely different from what applies to Japanese colleagues and most people don't find out until something has already gone wrong.

This week: what you can and cannot do, how to have the right conversation with your employer, and what Japan's wider shift on 副業 (fukugyou) actually means for you.

The Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services visa authorizes work in a specific activity category. It does not lock you to one employer, but it does restrict you to work within that category's scope.

If your visa is in the Engineer category, taking on a freelance software project or technical consulting engagement for a second client is within scope. If you are on a Humanities visa, translation, language instruction, or overseas market research counts. Work in these categories generally does not require additional immigration permission, though your employment contract may have its own requirements.

What is not permitted is work outside your visa's activity category. Food delivery, convenience store shifts, restaurant work, and factory jobs are what immigration calls "simple labour," and these fall outside the scope of your visa regardless of how the arrangement is structured. To do them legally you would need to apply for Permission to Engage in Activity Other Than That Permitted (資格外活動許可). For high-skilled visa holders seeking simple labour, this is currently virtually impossible to obtain and applying leaves a record with immigration that can become a negative factor at renewal even when the application is rejected.

One note for PR holders: permanent residents face none of these restrictions. Any work, any type, no additional permission required. It is one of the less-discussed day-to-day benefits of getting PR.

This free newsletter is for understanding how hiring and work in Japan actually function.

If you’ve started applying already, you’ve probably run into this:

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As side job policies become a hiring differentiator in Japan's market, it is increasingly reasonable to ask about them directly during the offer stage. Here is how to do it without creating the wrong impression.

Wait until after an offer has been made or clearly signaled. Raising it earlier reads as distraction from the main role. The right moment is during the employment conditions discussion with HR.

Frame it as a clarification, not a demand:

This signals that you understand the employer's perspective (you are asking about process, not just announcing you will do it), that the work is within your visa scope (same field), and that you are approaching it compliantly. Most HR teams at tech and international companies are well-practiced with this conversation. If they are not, that is useful information about how the company operates.

🇯🇵 今日の面接フレーズ (Today's Interview Phrase)

副業については、御社のルールをご確認させていただけますか？ Fukugyou ni tsuite wa, onsha no ru-ru wo go-kakunin sasete itadakemasu ka? "Could I confirm your company's policy on side work?"

The construction sasete itadakemasu ka signals deference and professionalism. It positions the question as a compliance check rather than an assertion, which is the right register for Japan's HR conversations.

Common mistake: Assuming verbal approval is enough. If your employer permits outside work, ask for that confirmation in writing — even an email exchange counts. At visa renewal, written employer approval is the documentation that matters if the question comes up.

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Japan's cultural shift on side jobs is real and accelerating. Understanding exactly what changed, and what did not, is the difference between benefiting from it and getting caught on the wrong side.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare updated its Model Rules of Employment to say employees should, in principle, be permitted to take on outside work. A 2025 Nikkei survey found 64% of Japanese companies now allow side jobs in some form. The shift is most pronounced in tech, where "we allow side work" has become an active hiring differentiator, companies are competing on it in job postings.

What has not changed is the immigration framework. The employer-facing rules relaxed. The visa-facing rules did not. A Japanese colleague at the same company, operating under the same updated policy, is in a different legal situation than you are on a work visa. The category restrictions and the simple-labour prohibition remain in place regardless of what the company allows.

The practical takeaway: if your company has moved to a notification or approval model, the conversation with HR is now much easier to have. But confirm two things before starting anything, that the work falls within your visa category, and that your contract explicitly permits it. Written confirmation on both points removes the ambiguity that causes problems at renewal.

Two recent policy developments are worth knowing about specifically, because they sit on opposite ends of the side job picture.

The Freelance Transaction Properization Act protects independent contractors in Japan by requiring companies that hire freelancers to provide written contracts, clear payment terms, and fair dealing obligations. For foreign professionals doing skill-based freelance work within their visa scope, this is meaningful: the companies you do side work for now have enforceable legal obligations to you as a contractor.

The resident tax exposure gap is the policy dimension that catches most people off guard. Japan's resident tax is calculated on total income from all sources and the annual determination notice goes to your company's payroll department. Side income that noticeably exceeds what your salary explains will be visible to payroll. The countermeasure: tick "Ordinary Collection" (普通徴収) on your kakuteishinkoku for side income, so that portion of the tax bill comes directly to you rather than through your employer. Some municipalities force payroll deduction regardless, so this is not fully reliable but skipping the tax filing entirely creates problems at PR review time that are harder to fix than the employer-discovery risk.

Both developments point in the same direction: Japan is building more structure around the side job market, and compliance with that structure is increasingly straightforward. The complexity sits specifically at the immigration intersection, which requires a separate check.

Company: Cybozu, Inc.
HQ: Tokyo (Chuo)
Category: Enterprise SaaS / Groupware / No-Code BPM
English-Friendly: Yes, engineering and product teams operate in English
Hiring from Abroad: Yes, visa sponsorship available

Cybozu is not as widely known outside Japan as their scale warrants. Their flagship products, Kintone (no-code business application platform) and Garoon (enterprise groupware), run in tens of thousands of Japanese organisations and are used by roughly two million people across Asia and North America. They are publicly listed, profitable, and one of the more strategically interesting engineering employers in Tokyo.

The tie-in to this week's topic is direct: Cybozu has explicitly allowed and publicised their side job policy since around 2012, more than a decade before the government made it a national guideline. Their HR philosophy, "100 people, 100 different work styles" (100人100通り), is published externally and built into their employment framework, not negotiated case by case. For foreign professionals, this changes the conversation with HR entirely.

What stands out:

Current open areas include frontend and backend engineering (TypeScript, Go, Java), no-code platform development, data engineering, and international product management.

Application tip: Cybozu weights cultural fit heavily. They will probe for comfort with autonomous decision-making and transparent communication — because those are how the company actually operates. For engineering roles, expect system design questions around multi-tenant business application platforms. International roles are interviewed in English.

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