Japan implements language proficiency requirements for certain visa applicants
japantimes.co.jp
japantimes.co.jp
> Immigration authorities say the move is aimed at preventing cases in which foreign workers obtain visas under one category, but then engage in unrelated or lower-skilled work.
The claim appears to be that people were using up visa slots for things like interpreters or other jobs where clearly you'd need good language skills to actually do the job, including in Japanese, with the intent all along of doing some other job instead. An up-front test should let through almost all of the legitimate claimants of these visas, and stop almost all the fraudsters. Probably a lot cheaper than a similarly-effective level of after-the-fact auditing, or more-extensive checks into applicants' work situation.
[EDIT] I mean, in the framing provided by the government, the above appears to be what's going on. Governments may lie, of course.
As for regulation costs, airbnbs are notorious for not adhering to regulations. Depends on how well Japan is able to police it.
I do have the impression Tokyo is getting similar dynamics to the rest of the world on this front: builders don't care where the money is coming from and so if money from outside the country can get buildings built they're happy.
A friend of mine moved into a sold-out Yokohama tower mansion recently... and despite the bike and car parking being fully booked even more than 6 months in it was _quite_ empty. I have a feeling a lot of people are buying into the market expecting to get easy rental money and not really seeing it.
the chinese government owns all land and all banks. they snap their fingers and you have nothing.
you put it into japanese, usa, canadian housing, etc. etc. under a company flagged in bermuda and you're covered.
Its not restrictive as this (B2 is pretty high level in any language, here its weak B1) and resefved for 'higher' permits like C, for which you anyway need 10 years of residency in normal circumstances.
But japan is japan and one of most closed societies globally, nobody should be surprised by this.
And twelve years ago, the Swiss voted to restrict EU FoM for itself and the backlash was instant.
Can't blame the government, this is the Swiss voting public doing their best to be dickheads.
Japan is a bunch of islands, yes it's pretty closed, but Switzerland is a land-locked village with fewer people than London and entirely dependent on trade and the movement of people and money for all they have, and barely a scrap of a language to call its own. English is super common there, probably as a way of democratically inconveniencing everyone.
But none of the german, french, italian etc politicians have the balls to let society decide for themselves, controversial topic or not. And people then wonder why in extremely left-leaning country like France there is high popularity for extreme right parties.
Maybe british with their one self-kneecaping brexit vote cured them, but public voting in general was never on the table.
Swiss are the most free nation globally. At least I havent hears of any on similar level. They vote responsibly, heck they have 3x the amount of immigrants per capita then next top country in Europe, but they want only people who can find work there, plus they host tons of refugees. And yes they dont want to lose their unique identity, they have enough examples around them to be wary and smart. I'd say they do their share and some more
Japan is worse.
you can piddle around about a few tiny islands elsewhere, e.g. okinawa, but the main islands are undisputedly "japan"
Japanese population is still over 120 million. Forecasts put it falling below 100 million at some point in the second half of this century.
Things will have to change in order to keep population stable in the long term, but the Japanese approach seems IMHO more sensible than that of other countries.
Cohesive democratic societies are fragile.
The birth rates of the immigrant waves would presumably just plummet quickly anyway as they join the culture. Since that seems to have happened with all our other health problems.
Emphasis on slightly younger. Fertility is declining basically everywhere. Much of the developing world is now below replacement including India and China.
The aged society scam can only persist as long as they can exploit the younger generation. When that collapses, the end result is either going to be leaving the elderly to die or things start collapsing in new and interesting ways
The only reason why people 'prefer' this is for the same reason 'prefer' to believe climate change doesn't exist. Eventually reality catches up.
Immigration is not a long term solution to an aged society. The societies of target countries are aging as well and not far behind.
What you advocate is to bolster the work force of a country with a fertility rate of ~1 and falling, with people from a place with a fertility rate of ~2 and falling.
Of course if you have active criminal record no point doing that. If you keep going away for 6+ months often it gets reset. If you have obviously lied on your tax return thats an issue too.
I know this intimately since right now going through this proces. One american colleague is doing the same. Right now, its much easier than ie in France.
Japan has those issues as well, look up Zainichi Koreans
Yes, previously they were forced to choose Japanese names to naturalize, but this has not been the case for a long time.
Which one?
And because Switzerland has mandatory military service, a lot of men born in Switzerland don’t _want_ to naturalize, especially those with EU passports.
Switzerland isn’t really that much different from other EU countries when it comes to citizenship, except for the 10 year requirement. That one is on the high side.
But for some reason it gets a lot of press as a particularly difficult country to naturalize in.
More accurately it's a New World thing. Almost all (30 out of 35) of the countries that have jus soli are North or South American. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
We all know that there are two groups of foreigners: people from first world countries and the rest.
Ofcourse the Netherlands constitution says that you have to treat everyone equally but that's just hippie talk.
Everything in that quote has been always been true though, and my guess is that they never allowed significant numbers of migrants at any time from about 800 (i.e., after the end of migration period) until whenever they started letting in large numbers of immigrants (some time after 1990 probably) (but not large enough numbers to suit you, I gather).
(edit: ~strike~)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/desi...
see also: half of the middle east on fire.
Although i do wonder what my son's 国語 text books teach if Japanese is not the official 国語.
That being said, there is a broader trend, that Japan's immigration authorities are becoming more foreigner-hostile, reflecting a broader political view shift in Japanese society (see: Sanseito political party) and one could argue in the US and globally.
One data point: a few months back we had one of our employees denied a Permanent Resident Visa due to a clerical error where our company forgot to notify the immigration bureau of an address change--we literally moved our office across the street, same city block. Our lawyer said such a case was unheard of a few years ago; these were always handled as simple corrections, instead the poor chap had to go to the back of the 9+ month waiting queue.
Our lawyer says the news is too new to know what concrete ramifications it will actually have on us, a tech company which uses English as the main language for engineering roles.
- Client company address changed 4 years ago and the paperwork wasn't filed within 2 weeks.
- A late pension payment 2 years ago.
- Pension and health insurance were paid on time, but the date stamp on the physical payment slips was smudged and so "did not prove" that it was paid on time.
- City hall workers didn't send out health insurance slips in time, applicant (through no fault of their own) couldn't pay by the deadline.
This level of strictness is affecting people's lives, ability to make plans, get mortgages etc.
To add to this, permanent residency application times are now very long. After you complete your application some people are waiting nearly 2 years to get a response. There is a lot of vagueness about what happens if the rules change during your application period.
So it's good for foreigners, while also placating the anti-foreigner group.
I know many foreigners here that work in absolutely atrocious working conditions, getting kicked by bosses, seeing crushing death of their coworkers in the factory (and still expected to return to the same unsafe work the next day), tiny wages while living half-dozen people in tiny apartments. It really is sad, and the problem is the companies... not the foreigners.
Might ofc also be that the immigration officers got tired of working till 10pm every day
And second - it’s really hard to participate in society if you can’t speak the language. I think this creates resentment for both Japanese citizens and foreign residents alike.
I regret not studying sooner and harder, and a clear language requirement probably would have influenced me to try harder.
If you are doing work with a world market, you are kind of expected to speak the language of that work and not necessarily the country you are in.
I basically agree, but there are two problems with this:
1) the JLPT is a test of fairly academic reading and listening (for those unfamiliar, it’s basically the equivalent of the US SAT reading/vocab section in terms of difficulty). There’s no speaking or communication requirement. I probably cannot pass N2, despite being conversant and functional in everyday life at a high B1 level.
2) The populations who are most likely to abuse the current system are fairly notorious for being able to pass the exam without real communication ability. I know a fair number of people who were able to pass without being able to have even a basic conversation at the time.
Language schools here are essentially factories designed to shove kanji readers through the JLPT in minimum time, with little attention paid to conversation. Overall, this feels like a sledgehammer approach to a screwdriver problem.
That's why at least one category of applicants abusing the visa (Chinese) will continue to do so without any issues.
I don't have a dog in the fight. I just think the current "solution" is blunt, and will end up damaging both the Japanese economy, and a bunch of people who were never "the problem", per se.
Permanent residency applications are being judged incredibly strictly. Citizenship applications need 10 years of continuous residence up from 5. Business manager visas have gone from needing 5m yen of capital to 30m yen.
It seems pretty clear that the goal is to get workers in for some productive years but make the path for staying difficult. I guess that's one way to solve an aging population problem.
To put things in perspective, Japan is an island and has entry and exit controls on the borders, so it is estimated that 0.05% of the population is illegal immigrants (people not leaving when their visa runs out). And the police can and do stop visible minorities to confirm their residence status on the spot. It is compulsory to carry identification documents if you are a foreigner. (There are questions about the legality of this but it is common and widely practiced).
[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/10/27/india-valua...
> Japan ... has entry and exit controls on the borders, ... It is compulsory to carry identification documents if you are a foreigner.
This is true for almost all the countries in the world, especially the second part.
B2 is upper intermediate. Probably 2-5 years of study
https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-referen...
(The scale starts at N5 and lower numbers are harder)
But I think this arrangement is actually quite...realistic? Charitable? It's very hard to become conversationally fluent in a language - especially one as foreign for most learners as Japanese is - without the kind of serious immersion you can most easily get just by living in the country (though maybe I'm just making excuses for myself). Asking learners to do the groundwork and get the foundations at home before getting hit with that immersion is going to set them up for success, facilitate their smooth integration, and demonstrates a candidate's seriousness. My impression is that in such a situation most learners will improve their speaking skills quickly, but there's no getting around months and years of drilling kanji.
Hellotalk or italki are great for this.
I’m learning Spanish and find it disheartening that many of the ex-pats [1] I hung out with don’t even attempt to learn Spanish. I’m currently somewhere around an A2/low B1.
[1] yes I also am against people calling themselves “ex-pats” instead of “immigrants”
Though being fluent in the local language will, of course, make your life a lot easier
If I'm applying for a work visa where the work I'm doing would require me to know Japanese, I should know Japanese.
Japan has been on a recent anti-immigration kick via making visas harder and more expensive to get while also blaming them for all of their problems which, isn't really gonna work out for multiple reasons.
I just looked up the definition/qualifications for it and I misunderstood the bit.
I thought it was sub categories. Engineers, who are Specialists in Humanities, who are doing International Services.
But it's more like three different categories. Engineers OR Specialists in Humanities OR International Services.
It seems like they could just move International Services to its own category. (Based on the information in this link: https://portal.jp-mirai.org/en/work/s/highly-skilled-hr/giji...)
There are smarter ways to implement a language requirement, and really this is part of a trend of Japan tightening up restrictions on foreigners to try and solve a perceived problem by a fraction of a fraction of individuals.
Just because you work in a multinational company where they have English speaking teams does not mean that you should not know the language. It is weird to assume that just because your first job is with an English speaking team you will always work with those teams or in that company at all.
What about daily life? Communication is a fundamental part of your activity as a civilian imo. Not understanding what is going on in a country without using some device to translate for you is not acceptable. Whether in a train or during an earthquake you must always be able to communicate.
I knew an American guy who worked for Yahoo Japan in Tokyo for 10 years, and still had zero desire to learn the language.
the naturalization act of 1906 and the immigration act of 1917 , in the US, were some of the hardest fought-for and controversial laws ever put in place.
The immigration act got vetod by 3 different sitting presidents in different forms , and the naturalization act included a 'free white persons & natives' clause that screwed over a lot of people.
It was pretty widely seen as a method to minimize poor working people. Both laws were used a ton during the commie red scare against citizens, and the 1917 law is essentially held responsible for the separation of families / 'port of entry tragedies' that separated families based on things like language.
now : i'm not saying that Japan is walking in the same foot-steps, just pointing out that language/culture exclusivity within legal spheres usually ends poorly for the people.
If I'm applying for a work visa, it's because I expect to be in that country to work, not as a permanent resident.
Aren't work visas basically the only realistic path to permanent residency for most people?
The alternative is that the company must provide evidence, but I don't see how this is better.
So either you vet the companies offering those jobs, or you vet the visa applicants.
slightly more seriously though work is one place where language acquisition happens organically, work is where culture emerges and despite the grievances I have with Anglosphere one great aspect of it is that they are never so frail to think that language can or must be imposed by a commissioner.
One of the first things the Anglosphere did was enforce language customs. I think you should review a bit of the history here. Why do you think the standard language for flight is English? To the extent that language acquisition happens at the office, it comes at the expense of actually getting work done.
Sure, there's a libertarian argument against limiting visas, imposing taxes, and issuing grants, but if you are going to, it requires some amount of enforcement to prevent rampant fraud.
On the other hand, I don't like immigration control as a concept - countries should not operate like hereditary country clubs, and people should not have less freedom of movement than bags of money. More self-interestedly, I'm an American, and I know my country's infrastructure - both political and otherwise - is failing horribly. I don't want out yet, but I know I'm going to need out at some point in my lifetime. So every time I see a favorable country locking their doors, I shudder.
There's probably going to be at least one reply from a European saying this is a good thing - that American citizens (or, if things get really bad, American refugees) should be denied entry, under the theory that immigration is a welfare / free money for thieves program and that letting people leave destroyed countries just rewards people for destroying them.
This is, of course, bullshit, both because it's victim blame-y, AND because it covers up a shortcoming of the country making the excuse. The real reason countries try to avoid taking in refugees is that most countries are built like hereditary country clubs. They don't take in immigrants, so they don't know how to integrate immigrants. Japan in particular has a community of poorly-integrated American emigrants that largely just stick to themselves.
America, ironically enough, is one of the few countries that actually cracked the code on immigration. We used to have really generous family reunion visa programs, we have basically every immigrant population you can think of in every major city, and immigrants that come here integrate way better than ones that go to Europe. So it's not like countries have to be restrictive on immigration.
Instead, what I'm seeing is that immigration is being used by politicians to distract from their own countries' failings. It's the same story as what happened in America[1]: when shit breaks, people get rich off selling the fix, and so they pay[0] politicians to keep the system broken enough that they can continue profiting off of it. But this only works if you give the people some kind of excuse. The politics of scarcity are brutal, but scarcity becomes a far easier sell if you have a scapegoat. Some magical source of systemic burden you can shed without backlash. "The state-run insurance system isn't broken because we don't pay our doctors, it's broken because we have too many poor patients from other countries!"
[0] Not necessarily in the "bribery is free speech" way America does it, of course.
[1] Which would indicate to me that perhaps leaving the country is a fool's errand, if every other country is on the same curve.