I am one of the 1.3 million. My family moved from Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur at the end of 2019.
Living outside Japan makes me interested in the people making the opposite journey.
Japan had 4,281,026 foreign residents at the end of June 2026. The foreign ministry counted 1,298,170 Japanese nationals overseas in October 2025.
Japan hosts more than three foreign residents for every Japanese citizen living abroad.
Many of these lives are being built for the long term.
Japan’s Permanent Resident status covered 961,342 people in June. In a separate classification, the foreign ministry counted 588,486 Japanese abroad as permanent residents.
Those are different legal and statistical categories, but neither describes a population made up only of temporary visitors.
The composition of Japan’s foreign population is changing too.
China remains the largest nationality group, with 941,031 residents. Nepal accounts for 334,850 and Myanmar for 211,602. The Specified Skilled Worker category, introduced in 2019 for designated industries, has reached 444,256.
For a business, these numbers can look like an answer to a labor shortage. For the people counted, a job is only part of the decision.
There is also somewhere to live, a language to navigate, children to educate and a future to consider.
These are questions any family moving countries has to think about, including ours.
The foreign-resident population grew by about 324,000 in the year to June 2026, after roughly 368,000 the previous year. Growth has slowed; the number of people building lives in Japan has not stopped rising.
I think Japan’s immigration debate would be more useful if it spent less time discussing these residents as an abstract future possibility.
They are already neighbors, colleagues and customers. How Japan treats them will help determine whether they stay.
Sources:
Immigration Services Agency, June 2026
https://lnkd.in/egPVTaYy
MOFA, Japanese nationals overseas, October 2025
https://lnkd.in/eUVFyHzf
