Japan Sets Minimum Age of 18 for Foreigners Applying for Citizenship

• Japan's Ministry of Justice confirmed that naturalisation applicants must be at least 18 years old and hold full legal capacity under their home country's laws
• Beyond naturalisation, Japan's Nationality Act outlines two additional routes through which foreign nationals can acquire or reacquire Japanese citizenship
• A 2022 revision to Japan's Nationality Act lowered the age threshold for certain citizenship notifications from 20 to 18, taking effect on April 1, 2022

Japan's Ministry of Justice has confirmed that foreigners applying for Japanese citizenship through naturalisation must be at least 18 years old and must possess full legal capacity under the laws of their country of origin.

The requirement is established under Article 5, Paragraph 1, Item 2 of Japan's Nationality Act and applies to all naturalisation applicants in 2026 as part of the country's broader legal framework governing how foreign nationals may become Japanese citizens.

Beyond naturalisation, the Nationality Act provides two further pathways through which individuals can acquire or reacquire Japanese citizenship.

Read also

Turkey sets minimum age requirements for foreigners seeking citizenship

The first concerns children born to a Japanese father and a foreign mother before the parents wed. Such children do not receive Japanese nationality automatically at birth.

If the father later acknowledges paternity, the child may acquire citizenship by notifying the Minister of Justice, subject to four conditions: the child must be under 18 at the time of notification; the father must have been a Japanese national when the child was born; the father must remain a Japanese national at the time of notification or must have held that status at the time of his death; and the child must have never previously held Japanese nationality.

This pathway was reinforced by a revision to Article 3 of the Nationality Act, which came into force on 1 January 2009, allowing children born outside of marriage to acquire nationality through paternal acknowledgement.

Reacquiring Lost Japanese Nationality

The second pathway addresses children born abroad who automatically received both Japanese and a foreign nationality at birth. Under Japanese law, such children are required to declare an intention to retain their Japanese nationality alongside birth registration. Failure to do so results in the loss of Japanese citizenship, applied retroactively from the time of birth.

Read also

Norway sets age requirements for foreigners applying for citizenship

Children who lost their Japanese nationality in this way may apply to reacquire it by notifying the Minister of Justice.

To qualify, the child must be under 18 at the time of notification and must hold a registered address in Japan, meaning their place of residence must be within the country when the notification is submitted.

Both thresholds currently stand at 18, following a revision to the Act that came into force on 1 April 2022, which reduced the previous age limit of 20. The changes reflect an alignment with Japan's broader legal reforms around the age of majority.

Source: YEN.com.gh