🇫🇷 France vs 🇯🇵 Japan: Digital Nomad Visa Compared
France 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.
- Minimum income
- 1,867 EUR / month
- 10,000,000 JPY / year
- Visa duration
- Tax regime
- Living in France more than 183 days generally makes you a French tax resident, taxed on worldwide income at French rates. Double-taxation treaties apply.
- 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.
- Family (spouse / children)
- Spouse + children admitted
- Spouse + children admitted
- Application fees
- 99 EUR
- 15,000 JPY
- Health insurance
- Processing time
- Typically 2-3 weeks after the consulate appointment
- Reported ~5 business days when applying with a Certificate of Eligibility (COE); 2 weeks to 1 month without one
France has no digital nomad visa. Since June 2025, France had enforced a ban on remote work under the long-stay VISITOR visa (VLS-TS 'visiteur'); a 2026-06-23 Journal Officiel response from the Ministry of the Interior (answering National Assembly question n°11730) reversed course: remote work from France for a foreign employer, with income paid and taxed abroad and no activity benefiting a France-based business, is 'non-active' and IS compatible with visiteur status - no work permit needed. The visiteur visa has no fixed income figure in law; consulates require proof of 'sufficient and regular resources', commonly benchmarked against the SMIC. The Profession Liberale visa (resources ~SMIC, figure above) or the Talent Passport remain the applicable routes only if the work is integrated into the French economy (French clients, French-paid work, staff supervised in France). SMIC-linked figures rise with each revaluation - confirm the current amount and exact thresholds with your consulate.
source · verified 2026-07-16
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
source · verified 2026-07-08
General rule tied to the 6-month cap; confirm your own residency position.
source · verified 2026-07-05
Family may accompany on the long-stay visa; each adult typically needs their own status/resources.
source · verified 2026-07-08
Spouse or child of a digital nomad may accompany under the same Designated Activities category.
source · verified 2026-07-05
EUR 99 long-stay visa application fee (paid to the consulate); confirm with the consulate. Separately, the mandatory post-arrival visa validation fee (OFII/interior-ministry portal) rose from EUR 200 to EUR 300 effective 2026-05-01. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-19: this rise now traces to a specific legal source - Article 128 of Loi n. 2026-103 du 19 fevrier 2026 (Loi de finances pour 2026) - corroborated on several prefecture .gouv.fr pages, not just aggregator guides. The figure itself is unchanged; this only upgrades how well-sourced it is. A separate OFII stamp fee (~EUR 25) is reportedly unaffected but single-sourced - unverified.
source · verified 2026-07-19
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
source · verified 2026-07-08
No single canonical MOFA-stated figure found; based on convergent consulate guidance (Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles). Confirm with your consulate.
source · verified 2026-07-12
Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: France 2026-07-16, Japan 2026-07-12.