u/forgedbygeeks

After talking with the mod team, I have decided to create this post and AMA (even with Rule5, I was instructed to make this an AMA) to explain in more depth in a way that hopefully future readers of the subreddit can find it easier with searching. While I have set the time to 48 hours for the AMA, I will probably keep watching this for a long time and reply if anyone needs advice.

This is an offshoot of the following comment I made about 4 months ago - Youtube work in Japan : r/movingtojapan

Feel free to ask any questions and I will answer to the best of my ability.

Note: I will reply to this thread myself with some images of forms and stuff that I created and the lawyers edited and submitted. Probably not many and definitely not all of them. Anonymized of course...

Note++: I am exposing my YouTube channel here. This is clearly a risk. As you can see from it, I have not posted any content on it since I received approvals and did not post anything from the point I arrived in Japan until that date. I am not sharing this in hopes of getting traffic, revenue, or anything else. It is more to prove this is real and no someone full of BS like I see regularly online. I know, shocker, it matches my Reddit alias.

Forged by Geeks - YouTube

Moving to Japan and YouTube

The first thing you need to know is that I did not move to Japan with the intention of creating YouTube content here. I came here on a Dependent Visa with my wife who obtained an HSP80 Visa.

My top priorities of activities in Japan in priority order are as follows:

1. Support my partner in any way I can. This mostly involves cooking, shopping, paying some bills, making bi-weekly exploration plans, and solving any issues we encounter as much as I can.
2. Learning Japanese. While my partner is N1 and far beyond that, I am now just about N5. I have a long way to go. We intend to be here a long time so this is important for me personally.
3. Being healthy and happy. This mostly means going to the gym a couple times a week, playing video games, watching anime, yoga every couple weeks, and playing with our cats. This is the first time since I was 14 years old I haven't had a job, so its been an adjustment and learning experience to say the least.
4. Making YouTube content. This is a priority, just far down the list. The primary goal is to continue to build an audience for myself to support future endeavors. I originally started the channel to build an audience I could sell a board game to that I was working on. It definitely helped with that, and I have a few more I have been working on as a side hobby for years, and hope to one day leverage the channel for this purpose again.

Lawyering Up

So, this wasn't even a discussion or required much thought. I am not an idiot as it were. I didn't even try to do this myself. I found and hired a law firm out of Tokyo with English capable staff to do everything for me and walk me through the process.

I made initial contact on August 25th.

The total bill was 60,500円.

We had a 30 minute free consultation and they basically told me "Japan doesn't want more foreign social media influencers. They are being extremely critical and almost no one is getting granted. Your chance of success is extremely low". Then basically told me they would be happy to take my money if I wanted to try anyways. This led to a discussion about what could increase my chances of success and they laid out a few things on the call my notes recorded.

• Having an existing business that had been in operation for at least 3 years (to show I started well before any possibility of moving to Japan)
• Channel has no content that could be objectionable to Japan
• If I made revenue from the channel, it would not cross thresholds for Dependent Visa
• Plan for creating content that would be for the betterment of Japan
• Willingness to stop producing content if any issues in the future
• Demonstrated knowledge of restrictions on "Working outside of the scope of Visa" requirements and ability to comply with laws and regulations

Documentation Hell

Next up was complying with documentation requests. We talked about how I would handle the laws and regulations a bit then they sent me the following. Below is a couple screenshots of the PDF I received, but basically

• Copy of Residence Card
• Copy of Passport
• YouTube Channel URL
• Documents to Prove Company Ownership
• Proof of Time Activity
• Proof of Earnings

I replied back with the following

_____________________

Passport and Residency Card

• Attached are photos of the passport and both sides of the residency card.

Youtube URL: http://www.youtube.com/forgedbygeeks 

Attached Documents to Prove Company ownership in the United States

• 2025 Annual Report which also calls out formation of company on June 2, 2014
• Confirmation letter of receipt of 2025 Annual Report
• Forged by Geeks LLC EIN (employer identification number) Issuance by US Internal Revenue Service
• Washington State Secretary of State acknowledgement of formation of Forged by Geeks LLC with UBI (unique business identification) number present

Proof of Activity Time 

• I have not performed even a minute of work on Forged by Geeks LLC since arrival in Japan on XXX, 2025.  I do not intend to perform any work unless and until explicitly permitted to do so.
• If approved to work outside of Dependent Visa, I will document all time using Clockify with ability to export to CSV upon any request for proof of activity.

Proof of Earnings

• Attached is a photo of the channel's earnings for channel Lifetime showing $X USD total.
• My Youtube page is presently demonitized because I do not meet the watch time required for monitization in the past 12 months.  I have attached a screenshot showing this state.

______________

In a later reply, I clarified details on how I would perform the time tracking. They also requested details on my planned video subject matter.

• I will utilize the Clockify application and service to track time. Whenever I start any activities, I will clock in for each activity and clock out when complete. I will include all activities, even if no currently required by law, in my tracking. This includes but is not limited to researching locations and topics, planning activities, any commutes to location, filming, editing, publishing, reviewing comments, commenting. I do not intend to track time associated with any self-education for tools I intend to use for activities. Clockify can export in CSV file format. If requested, I will export all time and provide to the government in less than 24 hours to the best of my ability. If I am sick or injuried, outside the country, or if Clockify has a service outage, is hacked and loses date, or goes out of busienss with no notice, my ability to do so may be impacted. In the event I am notified Clockify will cease services, I will immediately perform an export, if still possible, save it, and find another similar service to utilize. If I am ever working hours beyond expectations, I will export, load the CSV in Excel, and create charts and analysis to ensure my hours will not exceed legal requirements for a 7 day window.
• To be transparent here, I am not including my business plan and betterment of Japan details. I consider those to be extremely personal and confidential to me, my business, and my activities. I also, frankly speaking, don't need people criticizing or otherwise dismantling my plans, etc...

Statement of Reason and Time Estimates

Next I was requested to show what work I planned to perform along with time estimates for each activity in a way that would demonstrate I would not work over 28 hours in a rolling 7 day window (note: permission is not for 28 hours in a calendar week, it is a rolling window).

______________

Yes, I can confirm I have not performed any work at all since arriving in Japan on XXX, 2025.  This request is to be permitted to perform work while in Japan.  If, and only if approved, will I perform any work in Japan.

Below is a rough schedule of how I would intend to spend my weekly time.  I am only targeting 15 to 20 hours per week.  This ensures that I stay below the required time of 28 hours even if I find I have to put in extra time at any point.

Note, the below is an example schedule.  Any given calendar week the days may and will likely vary, but the examples of work will likely be consistent across calendar weeks.

Monday - 3 hours

• Travel to filming site (60 minutes)
• Capture b-roll footage (short videos of a given area to use as background for a video) (30 minutes)
• Capture speaking footage (me standing somewhere discussing a topic) (30 minutes)
• Travel back home (60 minute)

Tuesday - 2.5 hours

• Download video content to PC (30 minutes)
• Edit video content (2 hours)

Wednesday - 2.5 hours

• Record additional voice over audio (30 minutes)
• Final edits to video content (1 hour)
• Export and save final video (30 minutes)
• Upload video to YouTube, including editing description, tags, etc... (30 minutes)
  • This includes scheduling the automated publication time of the video for roughly 10am ET the following day

Thursday - 3.5 hours

• Read and respond to comments on my videos (1 hour)
• Research future location options for videos (1 hour)
• Plan next week's trip (30 minutes)
• Write scripts for short videos (1 hour)

Friday - 6 hour

• Read and respond to comments on my videos (1 hour)
• Record 6 short videos (3 to 5 minutes each) utilizing b-roll footage or footage recorded at my home (2.5 hours)
• Edit the short videos and export and save final videos (1.5 hours)
• Upload short videos to YouTube, including editing description, tags, etc... (1 hour)
  • This includes scheduling the automated publication time of the videos to be approximately 1 per day for the following week

TOTAL TIME = 17.5 hours

___________________

The lawyers translated it and produced pretty much the following. I have removed some personally identifiable details.

私は申請人のXXXと申します。私は、2025年月日に「家族滞在」の在留資格を持ち、入国し、「高度専門職」を取得した妻と共に生活しております。この度、私は日本でYouTubeチャンネルを運営する活動を続ける予定に伴い、資格外活動許可を申請したく、活動内容の詳細をご説明させていただきます。

■    活動内容について

　私のYouTubeチャンネルは、アメリカの「Forged by Geeks LLC」という会社に所属しており、私はその唯一のオーナーです。YouTubeでの活動を開始してから既に10年の実績があり、今後も引き続き動画編集、撮影、そして動画のアップロードなどの作業を行う予定です。この活動の詳細について、アメリカ側からの各種証明書類を添付しておりますので、ご確認いただけますようお願いいたします。

■    活動時間について

活動時間については、私は毎週17.5時間程度を見込んでいますが、急遽時間が増加することがあっても、資格外活動の規定である一週間28時間を超えることはありません。以下に示すのは、活動予定のサンプルスケジュールです。なお、実際の活動日はカレンダー週ごとに多少変動する可能性がありますが、内容は一貫している予定です。

月曜日 - 3時間

撮影地への移動（60分）

Bロール映像の撮影（30分）

スピーチ映像の撮影（30分）

自宅への帰宅（60分）

火曜日 - 2.5時間

動画コンテンツのPCへのダウンロード（30分）

動画編集（2時間）

水曜日 - 2.5時間

ボイスオーバー録音（30分）

動画編集の最終調整（1時間）

完成動画の書き出し（30分）

YouTubeに動画をアップロード（30分）

（動画の説明文、タグ付けなどを含む）

（翌日の午前10時ETに自動公開の設定）

木曜日 - 3.5時間

コメントへの返信（1時間）

次回撮影地のリサーチ（1時間）

来週の旅行計画（30分）

短編動画の脚本作成（1時間）

金曜日 - 6時間

コメントへの返信（1時間）

短編動画の撮影（3～5分程度のものを6本撮影）（2.5時間）

短編動画の編集および書き出し（1.5時間）

短編動画のYouTubeへのアップロード（1時間）

（動画の説明文、タグ付けなどを含む）

（翌週の1日1本公開設定）

合計時間 = 17.5時間

■    活動報酬について

報酬に関してですが、私のYouTubeチャンネルは過去12ヶ月間で400ドルを超える収益は得ておらず、最新の収益は2023年7月1日から9月2日までの間で約68ドル程度です。過去の収益状況については、再生回数が不足しているため現在は表示されておらず、そのスクリーンショットも申請書類に添付しております。今後、日本での収益はおおむね同程度を見込んでおり、事業の成長性を考慮して、予想される月収を最大で100ドル（約15,000円）程度に設定しています。

どうか、上記の内容をご高配頂き、私の資格外活動許可申請をご許可いただけますように、心からお願い申し上げます。

Application Form and Submission

The lawyers also assembled the final application form. Its actually just an XLS sheet they filled out and sent as an XLS. Editted screenshots below.

Finally, they sent me an empty envelope and had me ship them my zairyu card as well my US passport. Needless to say, not having either while living in a foreign country made me nervous, so at my request, after they received them, they also sent me a letter confirming receipt, vouching for holding them, and including contact information any police could utilize if I was stopped.

Regardless of having this, I basically didn't leave my residence until after I got them back. RocketNow loved me.

Everything was mailed to them on September 12th, they submitted on September 18th. I received them back on September 21st. On October 22, the lawyers informed me they had received my approval. This resulted in another round of mailing out the card and passport, then receiving them back, with the card stamped, on October 29th.

All told from first contact with the lawyers on August 25th, it took 2 months and 4 days to complete and receive my stamped card back.

Thanks for reading and I hope this is helpful to others moving to Japan who wish to engage in social media projects.

Just a quick note for travelers and tourists, the popular life sized Unicorn Gundam Statue will be taken down in late August 2026. The next 3 months are the last chance to see it.

https://soranews24.com/2026/05/15/tokyos-life-size-gundam-anime-mecha-statue-will-be-removed-this-summer/