Yes. Your Highly Skilled Professional (高度専門職) status is tied to the specific employer and role you scored 70 or more points on, not to the label in the abstract, so a new job can lower your score even when your income stays flat. You must notify the Immigration Services Agency (出入国在留管理庁) of the change, and if your new position no longer clears the threshold, notification alone will not preserve your status.
Do I Have to Notify Immigration When I Change Employers on an HSP Visa?
Yes. The Highly Skilled Professional category is one of the status types explicitly covered by the Notification of Affiliated (Contracted) Organization (所属(契約)機関に関する届出), filed with the Immigration Services Agency under the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (入管法) when your contract with your sponsoring employer ends or a new one begins.
The commonly cited filing window for this notification is 14 days from the date of the change. This is a separate step from any points recheck: filing it on time satisfies the notification duty but says nothing about whether your new role still supports your HSP status. See our companion piece on what happens when a J-Skip holder changes employers for how the equivalent question plays out under a different high-skill status.
How Can a New Job Lower My HSP Points Score Even at the Same Salary?
Because several point categories in the Highly Skilled Professional (高度専門職) system are tied to your employer's characteristics, not just your personal profile. Age, education, professional experience, annual income, and Japanese-language proficiency travel with you, but bonus categories such as employment at a small or medium enterprise with a growth-sector designation, or a role inside a national strategic zone, belong to the employer, not the person.
Take the worked example in our HSP points worked-example guide: a 32-year-old software engineer on a JPY 12 million salary with a master's degree and JLPT N2 clears roughly 60 base points before bonuses, then reaches 70 or more once a bonus category applies. If that same engineer moves to an otherwise comparable role at a large employer with no growth-sector designation and no strategic-zone activity, the bonus points disappear and the score can fall back under 70, even though age, income, education, and language ability are unchanged.
Key points:
(a) Notification and eligibility are separate questions. Filing the change-of-organization notice on time does not confirm your new role still scores 70 or more.
(b) Bonus categories are employer-linked, not person-linked. A same-salary move to an employer without a qualifying bonus designation can drop your score below the 70-point threshold.
(c) A score that falls below 70 after a job change is a Change of Status of Residence situation, not a notification-only situation, since the visa was granted on a points profile your new role no longer supports.
Does Changing Jobs Reset My Path to HSP-2 or Permanent Residence?
It depends on whether your qualifying activity continued without a gap. HSP-1 status carries a period of stay that is periodically renewed, and upgrading to HSP-2, which confers near-permanent-residence privileges, is available after three years on HSP-1, or after just one year if you score 80 or more points. Both the renewal and the upgrade require your points to still clear the relevant threshold at the time you apply, so a job change that lowers your score can delay or block the upgrade even if it does not disturb your current period of stay.
A job change that keeps your score at 70 or above, and ideally at 80 or above if you are pursuing the accelerated one-year track to HSP-2, does not interrupt your progress. One that drops you below 70 puts you back on a standard work visa track rather than the Highly Skilled Professional track, which also removes the accelerated route toward permanent residence that HSP-2 provides. Our guide on HSP vs Management Visa for company executives covers a related fork many founders and senior hires face when a role change also changes which visa category fits best.
Frequently Asked Questions
My new employer pays me more. Do I still need to worry about my HSP points score?
Yes, because income is only one of several point categories, and a higher salary does not automatically offset a bonus category you lose by changing employers, such as a small or medium enterprise growth-sector designation. Check the full points table for your category (1号イ, 1号ロ, or 1号ハ) against the new employer's actual profile before assuming a raise keeps you above 70.
What happens if my points score falls below 70 after I switch jobs?
Falling below 70 means your new role no longer supports Highly Skilled Professional status on its own terms, which is a Change of Status of Residence question rather than a routine notification. In practice this means confirming promptly whether a different status, such as the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services category, fits your new role, since staying on HSP status without a supporting score creates a compliance gap the Immigration Services Agency can act on at your next renewal or review.
Do I need to refile my whole HSP application every time I change jobs?
Not necessarily a full fresh application, but at minimum the Notification of Affiliated (Contracted) Organization within the commonly cited 14-day window, plus a genuine points recheck against your new employer's profile. Whether that recheck requires a formal Change of Status application depends on whether your score still clears 70, so treat the recheck as the step that determines what filing, if any, comes next.
Conclusion
An HSP visa holder changing jobs faces two separate obligations: a routine notification to the Immigration Services Agency, and a substantive recheck of whether the new role still scores 70 or more points, since employer-linked bonus categories can move even when income and education do not. Confirm both before assuming last year's score still applies, and route substantive cases through the Immigration service line rather than treating a job offer as a formality.
This article is informational only and does not constitute legal, tax, or regulatory advice. Consult a qualified advisor before acting on the content. Last updated: August 2026.