🇨🇦 Canada vs 🇯🇵 Japan: Digital Nomad Visa Compared

Canada has no visa officially called a "digital nomad visa". Japan offers Designated Activities (Digital Nomad) - Notice No. 53. Every figure below comes from each country's own sourced, dated fiche - compare income, duration, tax, family rules, fees and processing time before you decide.

🇨🇦 Canada🇯🇵 Japan

Minimum income

TBD

Canada has no digital nomad visa and visitor status carries no published minimum income - officers require proof of 'sufficient funds' for the trip plus evidence you will leave (ties to your home country), assessed case by case rather than against a fixed threshold.

10,000,000 JPY / year

Attributed to MFA/ISA (pages not fetched directly). Income must be from outside Japan; work for Japan-based entities is not allowed.

source · verified 2026-07-05

Visa duration

6 months

Most visitors are authorized up to 6 months per entry at the border officer's discretion (sometimes less, occasionally more); the day you must leave by is stamped in your passport or shown in your eTA/visa record. Staying longer requires applying to extend visitor status from inside Canada before the authorized period ends - not a renewal in the country-hopping sense.

source · verified 2026-07-25

6 months

6 months, NON-renewable. A stay under 6 months generally keeps you a non-tax-resident of Japan.

source · verified 2026-07-05

Tax regime

Under 183 days in Canada in a calendar year, without significant residential ties, keeps you a non-resident for tax purposes - taxed only on Canadian-source income, not your foreign remote salary. Reaching 183 days in the year makes you a deemed resident, taxed on worldwide income.

source · verified 2026-07-25

A stay of 6 months (under 183 days) generally does not make you a Japanese tax resident, so foreign income is not taxed by Japan under the visa.

General rule tied to the 6-month cap; confirm your own residency position.

source · verified 2026-07-05

Family (spouse / children)

Spouse + children admitted

Spouse and children can accompany you as visitors, but each family member generally needs their own visitor visa or eTA and must independently show sufficient funds and ties.

source · verified 2026-07-25

Spouse + children admitted

Spouse or child of a digital nomad may accompany under the same Designated Activities category.

source · verified 2026-07-05

Application fees

100 CAD

CAD 100 visitor-visa (TRV) fee applies to nationals who need a visa, plus a CAD 85 biometrics fee (CAD 185 total). Nationals of visa-exempt countries arriving by air instead need only the eTA, CAD 7. Which route applies depends on nationality - confirm on the IRCC eTA/visa-exempt country list.

source · verified 2026-07-25

15,000 JPY

Japan's general visa issuance fee rose from JPY 3,000 to JPY 15,000 (single-entry) effective 2026-07-01 - the first revision since 1978. A consulate Digital Nomad checklist states the visa follows the general single-entry fee schedule. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-15: a search-indexed snippet of this exact MOFA fee page now corroborates "approximately 15,000 yen for a single-entry visa," but the live page still could not be fetched directly this pass either, so confidence stays "reported" pending an on-page read.

source · verified 2026-07-15

Health insurance

Not required

source · verified 2026-07-25

Required - Private health insurance covering the full 6-month stay with medical coverage of JPY 10 million or more.

source · verified 2026-07-05

Processing time

eTA (visa-exempt nationalities): typically minutes, occasionally up to a few days. Visitor visa/TRV (other nationalities): reported roughly 4-12 weeks, varying widely by country of application

IRCC publishes current country-specific TRV processing times on its own processing-times tool; the range above is a general reported guide, not a guarantee.

source · verified 2026-07-25

Reported ~5 business days when applying with a Certificate of Eligibility (COE); 2 weeks to 1 month without one

No single canonical MOFA-stated figure found; based on convergent consulate guidance (Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles). Confirm with your consulate. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-04: mofa.go.jp and moj.go.jp/isa still 403 on direct fetch. No source dated after the prior pass changes income, duration, tax, fees or processing time - all reconfirmed by convergent 2026 guides. No material change.

source · verified 2026-07-12

Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: Canada 2026-07-25, Japan 2026-08-04.