🇮🇹 Italy vs 🇯🇵 Japan: Digital Nomad Visa Compared
Italy offers Digital Nomad / Remote Worker Visa - Decree Law No. 79/2024. 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
- 24,789 EUR / year
- 10,000,000 JPY / year
- Visa duration
- 12 months, renewable
- 6 months
- Tax regime
- If you become an Italian tax resident (183+ days), income is taxable under IRPEF. Two optional favorable regimes (cannot be combined): Regime Forfettario (5% flat for self-employed under EUR 85k, first 5 years, 15% after) or Regime Impatriati (50% of qualifying income exempt for 5 years). Employees kept on a foreign contract may be taxed under treaty rules.
- 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
- 116 EUR
- 15,000 JPY
- Health insurance
- Required - Min EUR 30,000 (or USD 50,000) covering medical care, hospitalization and repatriation. Cited by the consulate as the number-one cause of visa rejection.
- Required - Private health insurance covering the full 6-month stay with medical coverage of JPY 10 million or more.
- Processing time
- Reported 30-60 days for remote employees, 90-120 days for freelancers/self-employed, plus consulate appointment backlog
- Reported ~5 business days when applying with a Certificate of Eligibility (COE); 2 weeks to 1 month without one
Some consulates round up to ~EUR 28,000 - confirm with your consulate. Income must derive from the remote work; passive income (pensions, rent, stocks) is excluded. Eligibility also needs a degree OR 5 years' experience (3 for ICT) + 6 months remote-work experience. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-23: the ~EUR 28,000 figure some 2026 guide sites cite does not trace to any 2026 Gazzetta Ufficiale decree - the operative decree is still the original 2024-02-29 one (GU Serie Generale n. 79); ~EUR 28,000 looks like consulate-level rounding of the same formula, not a sourced threshold rise. EUR 24,789 remains the better-sourced figure.
source · verified 2026-07-23
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
National visa then a 1-year residence permit (permesso di soggiorno), obtained within 8 working days of arrival and renewable locally at the Questura.
source · verified 2026-07-05
6 months, NON-renewable. A stay under 6 months generally keeps you a non-tax-resident of Japan.
source · verified 2026-07-05
Secondary tax sources. Regimes have conditions (e.g. Impatriati needs 3 years' prior non-residence + a 4-year residency commitment; the two regimes cannot be combined). Verify with the Agenzia delle Entrate. UPDATE 2026-07-15: the 2026 Budget Law was enacted as Law No. 199 of 30 Dec 2025 (Gazzetta Ufficiale), extending the Regime Impatriati (D.Lgs. 209/2023 - 50% tax-base reduction, EUR 600,000/year cap, arrival year plus 4 more) to foreign workers who transfer tax residence to Italy from 2026. It is unresolved whether this is the same measure other 2026 sources still describe as a separate, still-undefined 'Digital Nomad Tax Bonus,' or a distinct one - treat the extended Impatriati terms above as the confirmed baseline and re-check for a dedicated DNV-specific bonus once a primary text (Gazzetta Ufficiale or an Agenzia delle Entrate circolare) is read directly.
source · verified 2026-07-15
General rule tied to the 6-month cap; confirm your own residency position.
source · verified 2026-07-05
Spouse (not legally separated) and a child under 18. Children over 18 and parents cannot currently be sponsored.
source · verified 2026-07-05
Spouse or child of a digital nomad may accompany under the same Designated Activities category.
source · verified 2026-07-05
EUR 116 visa application fee (non-refundable). Plus ~EUR 116 for the residence permit on arrival (contributo EUR 40 + electronic permit EUR 30.46 + stamp EUR 16 + postal kit EUR 30). The consular visa fee varies quarterly by the EUR/USD rate.
source · verified 2026-07-05
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 2026-07-05
source · verified 2026-07-05
No single official government figure exists; range is a consulate-guidance consensus across independent 2026 immigration-guide publishers, with freelancers/self-employed applicants taking longer due to more document scrutiny. Consulate appointment-booking backlogs (New York, London, Los Angeles) add further weeks-to-months on top of processing itself. Confirm with your specific consulate.
source · verified 2026-07-25
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: Italy 2026-07-25, Japan 2026-07-12.