🇯🇵 Japan vs 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Digital Nomad Visa Compared
Japan offers Designated Activities (Digital Nomad) - Notice No. 53. United Kingdom has no visa officially called a "digital nomad visa". 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
- 10,000,000 JPY / year
- TBD
- Visa duration
- 6 months
- 6 months
- Tax regime
- 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.
- A visit that stays within the Standard Visitor visa's 6-month cap is not automatically outside UK tax residence: the Statutory Residence Test (SRT) can make you UK tax-resident from as few as 46 days a year if you have strong UK ties, or up to 183 days with none. Nomads working remotely from the UK should count SRT days, not just visa validity.
- Family (spouse / children)
- Spouse + children admitted
- Spouse + children admitted
- Application fees
- 15,000 JPY
- 135 GBP
- Health insurance
- Processing time
- Reported ~5 business days when applying with a Certificate of Eligibility (COE); 2 weeks to 1 month without one
- Typically around 3 weeks for standard processing
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
The UK has no digital nomad visa and the Standard Visitor visa has no fixed income figure in the Immigration Rules. Appendix V requires only that applicants show 'sufficient funds to cover all reasonable costs in relation to their visit without working or accessing public funds' (accommodation, subsistence, and the return/onward journey). Informal guidance commonly benchmarks this around GBP 100-150/day after accommodation and travel are paid, but that is not an official figure, so it is left TBD rather than stated as fact - verify current expectations with UKVI before applying.
6 months, NON-renewable. A stay under 6 months generally keeps you a non-tax-resident of Japan.
source · verified 2026-07-05
Standard Visitor visa: up to 6 months per visit, not renewable/extendable in-country for this purpose - you must leave and can reapply for a new visit. Remote work must stay incidental to the visit, not its primary purpose, or the visit itself is out of category.
source · verified 2026-07-16
General rule tied to the 6-month cap; confirm your own residency position.
source · verified 2026-07-05
Figure is the Statutory Residence Test's day-count thresholds (46/91/183 depending on UK ties), not a visa rule - the visitor visa itself imposes no tax regime. Foreign income taxed only if UK tax-resident under the SRT; confirm your own tie count before relying on the automatic overseas test.
source · verified 2026-07-16
Spouse or child of a digital nomad may accompany under the same Designated Activities category.
source · verified 2026-07-05
Spouse and children can accompany as visitors on their own Standard Visitor visas (or visa-free if from a non-visa-national country); each family member is assessed and, where required, pays separately - there is no family/dependant visa tied to remote work under this route.
source · verified 2026-07-16
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
GBP 135 for a 6-month Standard Visitor visa, effective from the 8 April 2026 fee rise (up from GBP 127). Visa-national applicants pay this fee; non-visa-nationals (many nationalities, including most of the EU, US, Canada, Australia) do not need a visa at all for stays up to 6 months, but as of 2026 they do need a separate Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) before travel - mandatory carrier-level enforcement for all visa-exempt nationalities went live 2026-02-25, and the ETA fee rose from GBP 16 to GBP 20 on 2026-04-08. So a visa-exempt remote worker doesn't pay a visa fee but does now pay GBP 20 for a mandatory pre-travel ETA (2-year multi-entry) - not "nothing" - and the same permitted-activities rules still apply either way.
source · verified 2026-07-17
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. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-11: the JPY 3,000-to-15,000 fee rise (2026-07-01) is now strongly corroborated by mainstream press (Japan Times, CNBC, Nippon.com, Euronews, all dated mid-to-late June 2026) rather than only consulate-checklist sourcing - confidence strengthened, figure unchanged. Income, duration and processing time all reconfirmed. No material change.
source · verified 2026-07-12
source · verified 2026-07-16
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to process a digital nomad visa for Japan vs United Kingdom?
Japan's stated processing time is Reported ~5 business days when applying with a Certificate of Eligibility (COE); 2 weeks to 1 month without one; United Kingdom's is Typically around 3 weeks for standard processing, per each country's own sourced fiche. Actual processing time varies by consulate and caseload.
Related comparisons
Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: Japan 2026-09-05, United Kingdom 2026-09-05.