Answers

First of all congrats on finding a job in Tokyo.
There is a point to all the formalities, its the law, and if you are working on the wrong visa you can be fined and or kicked out of the country.

I have not had to look into this before, so I dont have the info on hand, but I will try to find some information for you on how to best go about transfering your visa. Your biggest concern is finding someone to sponser you. You said you have a new job, so if they are willing to do it that is great, they have a few formalities to follow to, such as a formal job offer,  And maybe other things such as a company registration document and maybe a company brocher.

Also as a side note, just to let you know that since you found employment already in japan (not haveing waited til after the compleation of your contract and then one month) you have forfited your return tick home. Not to be mean, just wanted to through that out there just in case it sneeks up on you last min.

mark

Thanks Mark--yes, I was aware that I would be forfeiting the ticket; I couldn't go home then anyways, as it'd be probably looked down upon to skip back home for a couple of weeks right when my new job started, and then I'd still have to get the money to come BACK to Japan afterwards. I'll just put off another trip home until Christmas.

The company I'm with shouldn't have problems getting all of that done--though they're quite small and run entirely by foreigners-living-in-Japan. I suspect that means they're quite familiar with how to go about getting the visa set up, so I'll consult with them as well. I just thought perhaps someone here might have a quick-and-dirty explanation, and figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Thanks again for any help!

Courtney,

I'm actually in the exact same situation as you -- moving to Tokyo in August to start a new, non-JET job.  (The one difference being that my visa expires in July, so I would have to renew it either way.)

At any rate... yes, to be safe, you probably want to apply for a change in visa type (you could theoretically run into problems later on if your visa type doesn't reflect your current work status.)  In my case, after I was accepted for the job, the company gave me a set of documents needed to apply for a visa change/extension -- these included a 証明書 to certify that I'll have a job with them, a short summary of the company plus a set of earnings/profit reports (no doubt to prove that it's a legitimate company in good standing), and a sample of the visa extension form illustrating what to fill out for certain blanks (such as "# of foreign employees at this company", "capital", etc.)

If your company has sponsored visas for non-Japanese employees before (which I would assume they have), they should be able to provide you with this and any other necessary documents.  I'd just ask them.  They might even tell you that your 教育/educator visa will work for your new job as well -- if so, I imagine you could take their word for it, but it'd be best to double-check just to be safe.

Hope this helps,

John