Japan Mulls Obliging Airlines to Deny Boarding without JESTA

Tokyo, Feb. 25 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese government is considering obliging airlines to refuse boarding to foreign nationals who do not apply for the Japan Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or JESTA, or whose applications have been turned down, an outline of a planned bill to revise the immigration control law showed Wednesday. Also in the outline, the government indicated a plan to raise fees for foreigners applying for residency by up to 30 times. The government plans to adopt the bill soon at a cabinet meeting and submit it to the ongoing session of the Diet, Japan’s parliament. Travelers subject to JESTA, which is planned to be introduced in fiscal 2028 to simplify passport control procedures, will be short-stay inbound visitors from visa-free countries. In 2025, the number of short-term visitors entering Japan for tourism and other purposes was 38.46 million. Of them, around 80 pct came from visa-free countries. Such travel authorization will not be needed by Japanese nationals and foreign residents of Japan. With JESTA, the government aims to reduce congestion at airports by making post-arrival procedures more efficient through the utilization of prior screening, while tightening immigration controls to prevent illegal stays. According to the outline, the bill calls for obliging airlines and shipping companies to submit passenger information such as names to the Immigration Services Agency during boarding procedures, and it stipulates that such firms would be prohibited from allowing the boarding of passengers whose entry the agency had not approved. It also seeks to impose fines of up to 500,000 yen on violators. Reflecting rising administrative costs following increases in the number of foreign residents, the bill seeks to significantly raise fees for renewing periods of stay and other procedures, from up to 10,000 yen at present. Fees are planned to be hiked to as much as 100,000 yen for renewing period of stay or changing residency status, and to up to 300,000 yen for permission for permanent residence, respectively. The actual level of the fees will vary with the length of stay. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]