The Japan visa from Pakistan
Japan
The short answer. A Pakistani passport needs a visa for Japan, applied for through the Japanese mission. The document that decides a Japanese tourist file is the day by day schedule: a written plan of where you are each day, where you sleep each night, and how you move between them. Nowhere else on this list asks for it in that detail.
Japan is the trip people plan for a year. It is also the application with the most precise paperwork on this page, and the precision is the point rather than an obstacle.
The schedule, which is not an itinerary
Most visa applications accept an itinerary: arrive on the 4th, Tokyo, Kyoto, leave on the 12th. Japan asks for something closer to a diary.
Day one, arrive at Narita, train to the hotel in Shinjuku, name of hotel. Day two, Tokyo, which districts. Day four, shinkansen to Kyoto, the hotel's name. Day eight, Osaka. Day eleven, back to Tokyo, fly home on the twelfth.
Every night accounted for with a named booking. Every move between cities accounted for. This is not bureaucracy for its own sake; a schedule like that is almost impossible to write for a trip somebody does not intend to take, and that is exactly what it is for.
It is also the part of the file this office actually builds for you, because writing it properly means knowing which train, which pass and which hotel is a sensible walk from which station.
Around the schedule
- Passport, photographs and the application form.
- Bank statements and your employment or business papers, as with any visitor
visa.
- Flight bookings in and out.
- Hotel bookings for every night that is not covered by a host.
The family visit route
If somebody in Japan is receiving you, the file changes shape. A guarantor or inviter in Japan supplies their own documents: proof of their status, their income, and a letter accepting responsibility for the visit. Japanese paperwork for this is specific and your relative there will know the forms by name. Their documents answer who is receiving and supporting you; yours still have to answer what you are returning to.
When to go, and why it matters for the file
Two seasons dominate and both are the expensive ones. Cherry blossom runs roughly late March into April and the exact week moves with the weather every year, which is a real problem for a file that needs confirmed hotel bookings months ahead. Autumn colour runs through November and is more predictable.
Both seasons sell hotels out early. For Japan, more than anywhere else on this page, the order is: decide the dates, hold the hotels and the trains, then build the file on top of what you hold.
Why does Japan want a day by day plan when nobody else does?
Because it answers the question every visitor visa is really asking, which is whether this is a real trip, more convincingly than a bank balance does. A detailed schedule with named hotels and booked trains is evidence of intent in a way that a round number in an account is not.
Can I change my plan after the visa is issued?
In practice trips change, and nobody expects you to stand in a particular district on a particular afternoon. What the schedule has to be is honest at the time you submit it. Submitting a plan you already know you will not follow is a different thing, and it is the kind of thing that is noticed on a second application.
Is a JR Pass or train booking needed for the file?
Not usually required, but it strengthens the schedule because it shows the moves between cities are real and paid for. We book them as part of the itinerary anyway, so it costs nothing extra to have it in the file.
How long should I allow?
Three months for cherry blossom or autumn, because the hotels go long before the appointments do. Six to eight weeks for the quieter months, which are also cheaper and in many ways a better trip.
Before you pay anything
Japanese requirements, the route an application takes and the documents asked of Pakistani applicants change. We confirm the current list with the mission before every submission rather than trusting any list, including this one.
Tell us the dates and who is travelling. We will build the schedule, hold the hotels and the trains, and tell you what the rest of the file needs.