From March 2027 the Immigration Services Agency will begin receiving residents' tax and insurance records directly from other government bodies, rather than asking applicants to produce certificates at the counter. National health insurance premium payment status is scheduled to join that feed three months later, from June 2027.
The vehicle is the Digital Agency's 公共サービスメッシュ, the My Number-based information-sharing network. The agency set out its own timetable in a paper prepared for the sixth meeting of its policy roundtable on 20 August 2025: 「番号利用法の省令やシステム等の整備を行い、令和９年３月の運用開始を目指す」 — ordinances under the My Number Act plus the supporting systems, aiming at a March 2027 start.
What the agency receives from March 2027
The first tranche is 住民税課税情報 (resident tax assessment), 年金給付関係情報 (pension benefit records), 医療保険被保険者等資格情報 (medical insurance enrolment status) and 戸籍関係情報 (family register information). Enrolment status, not premium payment history.
The Cabinet-level commitment sits in the 総合的対応策 adopted by the ministerial council on foreign nationals on 23 January 2026, at measure 7: 「令和９年３月以降、出入国在留管理庁が関係機関から国民健康保険料及び国民年金保険料の納付情報、地方税の課税情報、医療保険被保険者等資格情報等の提供を受け」. Four bodies are named as responsible — the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and the Digital Agency.
National health insurance premiums follow in June 2027
Premium payment data is phased in behind the rest. The agency's own line is 「国民健康保険料の納付情報は、令和９年６月からの情報連携を目指す。」 — information linkage for national health insurance premium payments targeted from June 2027.
The stated benefit runs the other way too: 「公共サービスメッシュを用いて情報連携することで、行政機関発行の証明書等の提出が不要となる。」 Once the link is running, applicants should not have to attach government-issued certificates to a renewal or change-of-status application.
Arrears already count against you, since June 2026
None of this is a new ground for refusal. The guideline for change of status and extension of period of stay, last revised in June 2026, already deals with it under item 7, 納税義務等を履行していること. Unpaid tax is a negative factor, and the guideline extends that to premiums: 「国民健康保険料など、法令によって納付することとされているものについて、高額の未納や長期間の未納などが判明した場合も、悪質なものについては同様に取り扱います。」 Large arrears or long-running arrears, where deliberate.
The same item carries a note that the June 2026 revision added: 「当庁からの求めに応じ、関係機関から提供を受けた納税義務等の履行状況に関する情報を踏まえ、許否判断を行う場合があります。」 The agency may already decide on information obtained from other bodies at its request. March 2027 makes that flow automatic rather than case-by-case.
If you pay national health insurance and national pension yourself
Students, the self-employed, freelancers, people between jobs and their dependents pay 国民健康保険 to their municipality and 国民年金 to the pension system directly, and these are the records the June 2027 link covers. Find out now, not in 2027, what your municipal office has on file. The two documents the agency currently accepts as proof are a 国民健康保険料（税）納付証明書 and either a copy of 国民年金保険料領収書 or a 被保険者記録照会（納付Ⅱ）. If you cannot pay, municipalities and the pension system both have formal reduction, exemption and deferral procedures; the guideline does not say how a granted exemption is treated, but it is not the same thing as leaving a premium unpaid.
If your employer deducts insurance and pension from your pay
Company employees on 健康保険 and 厚生年金 are outside the national schemes, and premiums come out of payroll before they see them, so arrears of the kind item 7 describes are structurally unlikely. Showing an insurance card has been requested at application counters since 1 April 2010, and since card issuance ended on 2 December 2024 the guideline is explicit that 「健康保険証等を提示できないことで在留資格の変更又は在留期間の更新を不許可とすることはありません。」 Short-stay visitors are not enrolled in either scheme and have no renewal to apply for, so none of this reaches them.
Refusal is policy for Specified Skilled Worker, under consideration elsewhere
The roundtable paper records a measure aimed squarely at one status: 「国民健康保険・国民年金については、保険料を一定程度滞納した者からの在留期間更新許可申請や在留資格変更許可申請を不許可とする等の対策を講ずる。」 That is written for Specified Skilled Worker holders. Applying the same treatment to other statuses is recorded as still under consideration, so a resident on another status faces the existing 悪質 test, not an automatic refusal threshold.
The reason the agency wants the data link is in the same paper: of 1,719 municipalities, only 68 took part in the existing national health insurance non-payment notification scheme as of the end of June 2025. Before March 2027 arrives, applicants should check what the agency weighs at present: the reference guidance on extending or renewing status of residence and on changing status of residence sets out the current document requirements.
Sources: ISA — 出入国在留管理政策懇談会 第６回会合資料, Cabinet Secretariat — 外国人の受入れ・秩序ある共生のための総合的対応策, ISA — 在留資格の変更、在留期間の更新許可のガイドライン, Cabinet Secretariat — 外国人の受入れ・秩序ある共生社会実現に関する関係閣僚会議