Jobs in Japan for Indians (2026): work visas, the points system, salaries, the Japanese-language bar and the honest odds

Searches for "jobs in Japan for Indians" cover three different questions: can an engineer or analyst with a degree be hired, can a cook, carer or welder go on a skills visa, and can someone simply arrive and look? In 2026 the answers are yes, yes with limits, and almost never — and for all three the permission comes from a Japanese employer’s application to the Immigration Services Agency (ISA), not from an agent in India.

The numbers first. The ISA counted 4,125,395 foreign residents at the end of 2025, of whom 58,999 were Indian nationals — the 13th-largest group, up 9.3% from 53,974 a year earlier (and 48,835 at the end of 2023). The Ministry of External Affairs’ estimate for January 2026 is higher, 66,887, because it counts 65,126 Indian citizens plus 1,761 people of Indian origin; the Embassy of India in Tokyo says "around 59,000" and notes that the community now includes many IT professionals and engineers, and on 25 August 2026 the Commerce Minister called it "nearly 60,000-strong". How those 58,999 hold their status shows who gets in: 14,567 on Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, 13,367 as dependants, 10,084 permanent residents, 2,487 students, 1,874 on Designated Activities, 1,358 technical interns, 758 Specified Skilled Workers and 648 spouses of Japanese nationals, with 12,765 in other statuses that the ISA’s press-release table does not split.

The labour ministry’s count of employed foreigners (October 2025, published 30 January 2026) found 31,636 Indians at work, 11.2% more than a year earlier, 69.8% of them in professional and technical statuses and 45.0% on the Engineer/Specialist status itself. Indians are only 1.2% of the 2,571,037 foreign workers in Japan, a workforce dominated by Vietnamese (605,906), Chinese (431,949), Filipino (260,869), Nepali (235,874) and Indonesian (228,118) workers — so employers are used to hiring foreigners, but not yet used to hiring Indians in numbers.

Japan is recruiting and tightening at the same time. In August 2025 the two governments set an "aspirational target" of more than 500,000 people exchanged in both directions over five years, including 50,000 skilled personnel and potential talents from India to Japan. Since then application fees rose on 1 October 2026, the permanent-residence guideline was rewritten the same day for applications from 1 April 2027, and the Business Manager visa has required ¥30 million of capital since October 2025.

What that means for you:

• If you are an engineer, developer, data, cloud or embedded specialist with a degree in a related subject, the Engineer/Specialist status is the legal door, with no quota and no lottery. The hard part is finding an employer — and, at most Japanese firms, the Japanese language — not the visa.
• If you have seven or more years of experience and expect ¥7 million or more, the Highly Skilled Professional points table can give you a five-year status, a working spouse and permanent residence in one to three years.
• If you are a fresh graduate in India, few employers will sponsor someone they have never met, and the J-Find job-search status is limited to graduates of universities that rank in the world top 100 on two of three lists — the ISA’s January 2026 list contains no Indian institution. The route that works is a Japanese master’s degree.
• If you are a cook, carer, welder, driver or factory worker, the Specified Skilled Worker status is the door, India signed a memorandum for it in 2021, and sectors fill up: certificate applications for the food-service sector received since 13 April 2026 are in principle not being granted.
• If an agent in India promises a "guaranteed Japan job", a Certificate of Eligibility for a fee or a place in the new skill-development system, walk away: the certificate is free, and that system does not start until 1 April 2027.

The rest of this page goes door by door. The Indians in Japan page has the events, groups and Indian businesses you arrive into, and the German, UK and Canadian twins of this guide show how the same search looks elsewhere.

Japan has no sponsor-licence system, and the Engineer/Specialist status has no numerical cap. You are admitted under one of the statuses of residence in the Immigration Control Act; the status names the kind of work you may do; and a Japanese employer (or you, for a company you set up) applies for a Certificate of Eligibility at an immigration office in Japan before you apply for the visa. The certificate costs nothing, the ISA’s standard processing time is one to three months, and since 17 March 2023 it can be received by email. The ISA’s J-Skip page states the rule that matters: a visa application at a Japanese embassy or consulate cannot be made without the certificate, and with it the landing check at the airport is quicker.

What it costs

The Certificate of Eligibility is free. Fees come when you extend your stay or change status, and they were rewritten on 1 October 2026: the flat ¥6,000 (¥5,500 online) became a scale that rises with the length of the permission — ¥10,000 for three months or less, ¥33,000 for one year, ¥48,000 for one to three years, ¥64,000 for three to five years and ¥75,000 for five years or more at the counter, or ¥65,000 online (plus a payment charge). Applications received by 30 September 2026 paid the old fee. Permanent residence rose from ¥10,000 to ¥200,000. The ISA can reduce a fee for people in serious hardship.

How the process runs

Your employer prepares the application, you supply passport, photo, degree and experience certificates (the ISA asks for a Japanese translation of foreign-language documents), and the certificate arrives by email. You then apply for the visa at a Japanese mission; on landing at Narita, Haneda, Chubu, Kansai, New Chitose, Hiroshima or Fukuoka airport you receive the residence card on the spot, and you register your address at the ward or city office within 14 days. The later sections take each door in turn.

Most Indian professionals in Japan hold one status, officially "Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services" and called gijinkoku in Japanese. It covers work under a contract with a Japanese organisation that needs knowledge or technology in the natural sciences or the humanities, or thinking and sensibility rooted in a foreign culture. The ISA’s examples are mechanical engineers, interpreters, designers, private-company language teachers and marketing staff; software and IT work sits squarely inside it. Of the 475,790 foreigners on this status at the end of 2025, 14,567 were Indian.

What the rule says

The landing criteria in the Ministry of Justice’s ordinance are short. For science, engineering and humanities work you must meet one of three tests: you graduated from a university, or received an equivalent or higher education, in a subject related to the work; or you completed a specialised course at a Japanese vocational college; or you have 10 years or more of practical experience, counting the years you studied the subject at university, college or school. For "international" work — translation, interpretation, language teaching, public relations, advertising, overseas trade, fashion or interior design, product development — you need three years’ experience in related work, except that a graduate doing translation, interpretation or language teaching does not. In every case you must be paid at least what a Japanese employee would receive for the same work. There is no yen figure in the rule, no quota and no points. The status is granted for 5 years, 3 years, 1 year or 3 months.

The four employer categories

The ISA sorts employers into four categories for paperwork. Category 1 is companies listed on a Japanese stock exchange, public bodies and designated innovation companies; Category 2 is organisations whose withholding tax on salaries in the previous year was ¥10 million or more; Category 3 is other employers that filed payroll statements; Category 4 is everyone else, including brand-new firms. Categories 3 and 4 submit more documents, and for applications from 15 April 2026 they must also give a declaration about the employer’s representative and — where the job mainly uses a language, such as interpreting or hotel front-desk work — evidence that you have a language ability at CEFR B2 level, which the ISA accepts as JLPT N2 or higher, a BJT score of 400 or more, and a few other proofs. A start-up or a very small firm therefore takes longer than a listed company.

Working through an agency

If you will be placed by a staffing agency under a dispatch contract, the ISA’s July 2026 note says the client company must be fixed when the application is made, the period of stay follows the length of the dispatch contract, and the ISA may check your duties with the client as well as the agency. The one exception is a new hire who is trained first and assigned afterwards, who submits training details instead. If an agency cannot tell you the client’s name, it cannot make a valid application.

Why the IT-exam shortcut does not help Indians

Japanese law lets IT workers without a degree or ten years of experience qualify by passing a listed information-processing examination. The ministry’s notice lists Japan’s own IPA examinations (Fundamental and Applied Information Technology Engineer, Project Manager, Network and Database Specialist and others) and examinations or qualifications from China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Singapore and Korea. No Indian examination is on the list, in the text last amended in July 2020. An Indian IT worker without a degree relies on the ten-year route.

Moving between employers

A change of job within the same kind of work does not need a new visa, but the employer change must be reported, and your actual duties — not your job title — must stay inside what the status allows. The Intra-company Transferee status is different: it is for staff sent by a group, needs one continuous year in the same kind of work at the overseas office immediately before the transfer, and is the usual door for Indian IT companies’ secondees.

The points system is the one place where Japan rewards experience, pay, age and Japanese in a table, and the prize is large. A foreign professional who reaches 70 points (and earns at least ¥3 million a year in a specialised or technical job) is certified as a Highly Skilled Professional, "(i)(b)" for most engineers. The ISA’s English leaflet, revised in April 2026, gives the table.

Three worked examples, our arithmetic from that table. A 28-year-old with a B.Tech, five years’ experience and ¥7 million scores 10 + 10 + 15 + 25 = 60, and JLPT N2 takes her to 70. A 33-year-old with a master’s degree, eight years’ experience and ¥8 million scores 20 + 15 + 10 + 30 = 75 with no Japanese at all. A 41-year-old with a master’s degree, 15 years’ experience and ¥9 million scores 20 + 20 + 0 + 35 = 75 — but at 40 and over, salary scores only from ¥8 million, so a ¥6 million job earns nothing on that line.

What 70 and 80 points buy

Certified professionals get a five-year status, permission to combine activities, and priority processing — about 10 days for the Certificate of Eligibility and 5 days for stay applications. The spouse may take a job in an Engineer-type or teaching status without meeting the degree or experience rules. A parent may join to care for a child under seven or a pregnancy if household income is ¥8 million or more, and a domestic worker may join at ¥10 million. The biggest prize is permanent residence after three years at 70 points, or one year at 80 points. A Highly Skilled Professional (ii) status, with an indefinite stay and almost any work, is open after three years of the (i) status. The ISA’s permanent-residence guideline kept these routes in its August 2026 draft, and the Agency’s pages carry them today.

J-Skip

The Special Highly Skilled Professional ("J-Skip") route skips the points: a master’s degree and ¥20 million a year, or ten years’ experience and ¥20 million, for researchers and specialists, and five years’ management experience and ¥40 million for executives. Holders get the same package, permanent residence after one year, and the (ii) status after one year.

J-Find

The J-Find status, in force since April 2023, gives up to two years to look for a job or prepare a start-up. You must have graduated within five years from a university ranked in the top 100 on at least two of the QS, Times Higher Education and Shanghai lists, and hold ¥200,000 in savings. The ISA’s list, dated January 2026, names no Indian university, so for Indian graduates J-Find is in practice a route for those who studied abroad.

Not every Indian who works in Japan is a graduate in an office. The Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) status, created in 2019, admits people with a skill and a basic level of Japanese into sectors with labour shortages, and it is one of the routes behind the two governments’ talk of "skilled and semi-skilled" Indian workers. At the end of 2025 only 758 Indian nationals held it, against 164,352 Vietnamese; the ISA’s June 2026 top five for SSW (i) was Vietnam 163,154, Indonesia 107,242, Myanmar 52,993, the Philippines 37,859 and China 22,200.

The 19 sectors and the caps

SSW (i) now covers 19 sectors: nursing care, building cleaning, linen supply, industrial-product manufacturing, construction, shipbuilding and marine industries, vehicle maintenance, aviation, accommodation, road transport, railways, logistics warehousing, agriculture, fishing, food and drink manufacturing, food service, forestry, the wood industry and resource recycling. Linen supply, logistics warehousing and resource recycling were added in January 2026. The Cabinet decision of 23 January set the intake cap to March 2029 at 805,700 for SSW (i); on 31 July 2026 there were 432,016 holders, 53.6% of the cap. Industrial products (199,500), food and drink manufacturing (133,500) and nursing care (126,900) have the biggest ceilings. Caps can close a sector: food service reached 98.6% of its 50,000 ceiling, and the ISA temporarily stopped issuing Certificates of Eligibility for applications received from 13 April 2026; on 16 October 2026 it was still working through 7,361 applications received between 7 February and 12 April.

SSW (i) allows up to five years in total, no family, and a skills test plus Japanese at A2 level — the JLPT N4 or the computer-based JFT-Basic, which the ISA recommends to people who were considering the JLPT N4 or N5. SSW (ii), open in 11 sectors, has no limit on renewals and allows a spouse and children as dependants. Total SSW holders reached 444,256 at the end of June 2026, of whom 18,295 were on (ii).

India’s agreement

India and Japan signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on SSW in January 2021. Its stated purpose is to protect workers and to eliminate malicious intermediary organisations; it names the Ministry of External Affairs’ Overseas Indian Affairs Division-I and the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship as India’s contact points, and it sets up a joint working group. It lists practices the two governments will share information about: holding a worker’s money as a deposit, contracts with penalties for breach, fees without a stated basis, forged documents and abuse. The Embassy of India in Tokyo adds that, for India, using a sending organisation accredited by the Government of India is not required — it is optional. On 25 May 2026 the Indian Ambassador named the expansion of certified Japanese-language training in India as a priority and pointed to language training combined with vocational education in Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

The new system from 1 April 2027

The Technical Intern Training Program is being replaced by Employment for Skill Development (ESD), which the ISA’s English outline, revised July 2026, says comes into operation on 1 April 2027. It aims to produce SSW-level skills in three years of employment in 17 fields (all SSW fields except road transport and aviation), starts with Japanese at A1 (JLPT N5 or JFT-Basic, or classes), requires A2.1 after a year and A2.2 at the end, and lets workers change employer after one or two years by field once they pass exams. A worker who fails the SSW tests may stay one more year to retake them. A government briefing in March 2026 gave an upper limit of about 430,000 ESD workers over the first two years from April 2027.

The ISA lists ESD memoranda with six sending countries as of 20 October 2026: Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste and Laos. India is not among them. The practical conclusion is blunt: nobody can place an Indian worker in the ESD system before 1 April 2027, and with no India memorandum listed yet, anyone selling a place should be asked what legal basis they rely on. Until then the channels for Indians are SSW and whatever remains of technical intern training (1,358 Indians held that status at the end of 2025). Time on technical intern training or SSW (i) does not count towards the five work-status years that permanent residence needs; the ISA’s guideline does not exclude SSW (ii).

Founders face the largest single rule change in this guide. The Business Manager status — for people who run or manage a business in Japan — was rewritten on 16 October 2025. Under the ministry’s ordinance an applicant now needs an office in Japan; a business of at least ¥30 million in capital or invested assets; at least one full-time employee living in Japan who is Japanese, a special permanent resident or the holder of a status such as Permanent Resident, Spouse of a Japanese National or Long-term Resident (a work-visa holder does not count); someone running or working full-time in the business with a high independent-user level of Japanese; and either a master’s, doctoral or professional degree in a relevant field or three years’ management experience. The status runs for up to five years.

The ISA’s question-and-answer page for the change explains the transition: people already holding the status will not be refused at renewal solely for missing the new standards until 16 October 2028, and a sole proprietor does not need a ¥30 million share capital — the sum is the total invested in the business, including the office, a year’s pay for staff and equipment. It also warns that labour-law breaches, unpaid social insurance and missing licences count against a renewal even when the books are healthy.

Start-up routes that need less capital

The Startup Visa under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) gives up to two years to prepare a company, under the supervision of a local government or private operator that METI has certified; and some local governments run schemes that adjust the Business Manager capital test for people they support. J-Find also allows start-up preparation for up to two years, but only for graduates of the listed universities, none of which is Indian. Whichever route you use, the company must meet the Business Manager test before you can run it on that status.

Be careful what you are sold

Any "business visa" package that describes the rule before October 2025 is out of date. A paper company and a rented desk do not satisfy the office, capital and full-time-employee tests, and the ISA treats the visa as a status with ongoing duties — taxes, insurance and employment law — not a one-off purchase. Ask an immigration lawyer registered in Japan for the current ordinance text before you transfer capital.

Sponsorship is not the filter in Japan; fit and language are. The jobs that hire from India sit in a few places and a few kinds of employer.

The map

The ISA’s prefecture table for 31 December 2025 shows where Indian residents are: Tokyo 21,224, Kanagawa 7,946, Chiba 3,068, Saitama 2,904, Ibaraki 2,708, Aichi 2,420, Osaka 2,158, Hokkaido 1,961, Gunma 1,857 and Hyogo 1,794. Tokyo and its three neighbours hold about 60% of all Indian nationals (35,142 of 58,999). Inside Tokyo the register of 1 January 2026 shows 20,003 Indians, and two wards hold 62% of them: Edogawa 8,248 and Koto 4,239, ahead of Taito (804), Setagaya (630) and Minato (522). Edogawa’s Nishi-Kasai (Nishikasai) is where the community holds its annual Diwali festival, and the Embassy of India lists an "Indian Community of Edogawa" among the Indian associations in Japan. The Tokyo guide covers renting, schools, groceries and temples there. The Embassy also notes that Indian jewellery merchants from Gujarat and Maharashtra are a prominent group in cities such as Kobe, and it runs consulates in Osaka and Fukuoka.

Technology

Technology and office work are where the data put most Indian professionals. The labour ministry’s figures show 14,248 Indians on the Engineer/Specialist status in October 2025; the Embassy says the Indian community has changed with "the arrival of many professionals, including IT professionals and engineers"; and the Embassy lists about 100 Indian companies working in Japan. Two with dated pages: HCLTech says HCL Japan Ltd was established in February 1998, has more than 750 employees in Japan (650 engineers, of whom 450 are bilingual) and offices in Tokyo (Akasaka and Ojima), Osaka and Fukuoka; Wipro says it has more than three decades in Japan and gives its address as Yokohama Landmark Tower, Minato Mirai. Among Japanese employers, Rakuten’s English careers site runs separate mid-career and new-graduate engineer pages, and Mercari publishes an English engineering portal and lists a group company in India, Mercari Software Technologies India Private Limited — neither page says whether it sponsors visas, so ask.

Engineering, manufacturing and care

Japanese manufacturers have long operated in India — Panasonic since 1972, Suzuki and Denso from the early 1980s — and a joint survey by the Embassy of Japan in India and JETRO, quoted on the Embassy of India’s page, counts about 1,434 Japanese companies and 5,200 establishments in India, half of the companies in manufacturing. That is the pipeline for Indian engineers hired into Japan: the Ambassador said in May 2026 that Japanese companies are being connected with IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati, IIT Delhi, Savitribai Phule Pune University and the University of Mumbai. At the other end, the Commerce Minister listed demand in August 2026 for caregivers, nurses, welders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, drivers, engineers, AI professionals, chartered accountants and seafarers.

The Bengaluru corridor and CEPA

The India–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement has been in force since 1 August 2011, covers the movement of natural persons, and has a sub-committee on it; the seventh Joint Committee met in Tokyo on 2 March 2026. The Digital Partnership 2.0 signed in August 2025 includes digital talent. The JLPT, the test most employers ask about, is held in India at New Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Santiniketan and Karur.

There is no public register of Japanese sponsors, because any employer can apply for a certificate for you; the search is for employers who hire in English or at your level of Japanese, and who know the paperwork.

Government channels

• JETRO’s "Japan – Open for Professionals" portal publishes the "List of Japanese Companies – Open for Professionals", a database of firms that say they want global talent, links to METI’s case studies of 50 companies that employ highly skilled foreigners, and an online job fair; JETRO also lists a career meet-up for international students in Tokyo on 6 November 2026.
• Hello Work, the labour ministry’s public employment service, matches job-seekers with jobs nationwide; JETRO’s page lists Employment Service Centers for Foreigners for highly skilled foreign professionals in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka.
• The Foreign Residents Support Center (FRESC) in Yotsuya, Tokyo, houses government counters for foreign residents, including the Tokyo Labour Bureau’s consultation desk and the legal-aid body Houterasu’s international desk.

Boards and company sites

LinkedIn and Indeed carry international listings, and English-language boards for Japan such as Daijob, GaijinPot Jobs and TokyoDev (for developers) list roles aimed at international candidates; check each advert for visa support. Large employers recruit through their own sites in two tracks — new graduates, once a year, and mid-career hires all year; Rakuten’s English careers page, for example, has separate entries for each. Search for "visa sponsorship" and "English", and treat a posting that says "Japanese N1 required" as a statement about daily work, not a formality.

Your network

Referrals matter in Japan as elsewhere. The Embassy of India’s list of associations includes the India I.T. Forum, Japan; the Indian Commerce and Industry Association Japan; the IIT Alumni Association Japan; the Japan–India Industrial Promotion Association; the All Japan Association of Indians and the Indian Community of Edogawa. The Indian events in Japan calendar and the Tokyo events page show where the community meets.

What the employer is weighing

Hiring you costs an employer no licence fee and no certificate fee; it costs paperwork, one to three months of waiting for the certificate, and the risk that your Japanese will not carry you through a team meeting. A listed company or one with a payroll history files a lighter application than a start-up. What persuades an employer is a short wait and a clear job: a degree certificate in a subject that matches the role, an experience letter that proves ten years if you lack a degree, a start date you can honour, and a plain statement of which status the job fits.

Timing from India

Plan around the certificate: one to three months of standard processing after the offer, then the visa and the flight. For candidates who qualify as Highly Skilled Professionals the ISA aims to process the certificate in about ten days. Keep a spreadsheet of applications and send tailored ones rather than the same CV everywhere.

The law asks for less Japanese than people fear, and employers ask for more. The Engineer/Specialist rule contains no language test. But the ISA now requires B2-level language evidence for language-based jobs at Category 3 and 4 employers, the points table pays for N1 and N2, permanent residence will require B1 from 2027, and daily life — the ward office, the bank, the school — runs in Japanese.

The JLPT in one table

The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test has five levels, N5 (easiest) to N1. N4 and N5 test basic Japanese learned in class; N2 and N1 measure the Japanese used in a broad range of real situations, and N3 bridges the two. From the December 2025 sitting, certificates show a reference CEFR level for passers: N5 at 80 points or more is A1; N4 at 90 or more is A2; N3 at 104 or more and N2 at 90 to 111 are B1; N2 at 112 or more is B2.

The JLPT is held in India in New Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Santiniketan and Karur, and outside Japan it may be held only in July or December in some cities. Beware of fakes: the JLPT office warns of falsified result documents, and the SSW memorandum names proxy test-taking.

The CV

Japanese employers expect two documents in Japanese applications: the standard-form résumé (rirekisho), with photo, education and a short motivation, and a work-history sheet (shokumu keirekisho) that lists employers, roles and results. Many English-language tech employers will take an English CV with the same content: dates to the month, tools, outcomes in numbers, and your status and start date on the first page. State your JLPT level honestly; "business Japanese" without a certificate reads as "none".

The interview

A typical process is an online first round, one or two technical or case rounds, and a final meeting with a manager or HR. Prepare answers to three questions: why Japan, how long you intend to stay, and what your notice period is and when you could start once the certificate arrives. Salary is quoted in yen a month or a year; ask whether bonuses are contractual and how many months they usually are, because the official statistics below exclude them.

The rule text does not ask for a degree-recognition certificate for ordinary jobs. The test is the one quoted earlier, and the immigration officer applies it to your documents.

What the rule asks

For the Engineer/Specialist status you must have graduated from a university, or have received an equivalent or higher education, in a subject related to the job. Two things follow. First, the subject matters: a B.Com in a software-development job, or a B.Tech in a translator’s job, invites questions, and the job description in the application is read against your marksheets. Second, the rule says "equivalent or higher", and it does not name Indian degrees or set a number of years of schooling; in practice the officer judges from the documents. If your qualification is unusual — a three-year degree, a diploma, a distance degree — ask the employer’s immigration lawyer what has worked for similar applicants before you resign anywhere.

The ten-year route

If a degree does not fit, ten years of practical experience can replace it, and the years in which you studied the subject at a university, college or school count toward the ten. The "international business" category needs three years of related experience instead. Collect experience letters on company letterhead stating dates, role and duties, and payslips or tax returns to back them.

The documents

Expect the employer’s immigration lawyer to ask for your degree certificate and a full transcript, experience letters, your CV, passport and photo; the employer supplies its own registration and payroll documents and the contract or job offer with salary and duties. The ISA asks for a Japanese translation of foreign-language documents, and certificates issued in Japan must be less than three months old. Ask the lawyer early whether your certificates need an apostille or a notarised copy in your case.

Regulated professions

Doctors, nurses, lawyers and other licensed professionals need Japanese licences, not just a degree, and the licensing bodies set their own language requirements; none of them is covered by the Engineer/Specialist status, which excludes medical work, legal and accounting work and education. This guide does not cover them.

The labour ministry’s Basic Survey on Wage Structure is the main public source on pay, and the 2025 edition (published 24 March 2026, covering June 2025) includes a table for foreign workers by status. Its "scheduled cash earnings" are monthly pay before tax and without overtime pay; bonuses are reported separately and are not in these figures.

Our arithmetic: ¥313,200 a month is ¥3,758,400 over twelve months before bonus and overtime, close to the ¥3 million floor for Highly Skilled Professionals, and the information-and-communications figure for 30–34-year-olds, ¥363,400, is ¥4,360,800 a year before bonus. The minimum wage rose from 1 October 2026 to ¥1,280 an hour in Tokyo (from ¥1,226), ¥1,279 in Kanagawa and ¥1,231 in Osaka; the national weighted average is ¥1,177, up from ¥1,121, and other prefectures’ rises take effect between October and December.

What comes off the payslip

Your employer withholds social insurance, income tax and, from your second year, resident tax. Social insurance is the biggest. Under the Tokyo branch’s rate table from March 2026, health insurance is 9.85% of your standard monthly pay, split half and half with the employer; long-term care adds 1.62% from age 40 to 64; a new child and child-rearing support levy of 0.23% applies from April 2026; and Employees’ Pension is 18.3%, also split. On a standard monthly remuneration of ¥300,000 your half is ¥14,775 + ¥345 + ¥27,450 = ¥42,570, about 14.2%, plus employment insurance. Income tax uses national brackets of 5% up to ¥1.949 million of taxable income, 10% to ¥3.299 million, 20% to ¥6.949 million, 23% to ¥8.999 million, 33% to ¥17.999 million, 40% to ¥39.999 million and 45% above, plus a 2.1% reconstruction surtax. Taxable income is far below salary: a ¥6,000,000 salary becomes ¥4,360,000 of "employment income" under the National Tax Agency’s formula before your premiums and personal deductions come off. Resident tax is 10% (4% prefecture, 6% municipality) on the previous year’s income, charged to people living in the municipality on 1 January, so most arrivals first pay it in the June after their first 1 January in Japan.

The offer

Ask whether the salary is monthly with bonus months, what overtime is paid and whether it is included in a "fixed overtime" amount; ask about commuting allowance, housing allowance and relocation costs, and whether the employer pays your fees for the Certificate of Eligibility paperwork. Compare the total package, not the monthly figure.

A 22-year-old with an Indian degree and no experience will rarely be hired from India into Japan. The Engineer/Specialist rule would allow it — a related degree is enough — but an employer must prepare the application, wait one to three months and train someone who has not met the team or usually has no Japanese. The J-Find status, which is Japan’s answer to the job-seeker problem, is limited to graduates of universities in the top 100 on two of three world rankings, and the ISA’s January 2026 list of eligible universities includes no Indian institution. The route that works for most is to study in Japan.

The study route

At the end of 2025, 2,487 Indian nationals held student status. A Japanese university gives you a student status, limited permission to work part-time under the ISA’s rules for activity outside your status, and a Japanese degree, worth 10 points on the Highly Skilled Professional table. After graduation, former students who stay to job-hunt can use job-hunting activity permissions, and the ISA’s guidance for international students’ employment covers the steps. JETRO’s "Open for Professionals" portal holds the company list and events for students, including a career meet-up in Tokyo on 6 November 2026 and an online job fair.

The graduate-hiring calendar

Japanese firms hire new graduates in an annual cycle and often start recruiting a year before graduation; mid-career hiring runs all year. Rakuten’s careers site, for instance, separates the two. A student who learns the calendar in the first year, builds Japanese towards JLPT N2 and takes an internship is a lower risk to an employer than an applicant who has never been to Japan.

If you already have a job in India

If you are already working, the realistic route is the Engineer/Specialist status once you have some years of experience, or an intra-company transfer if you work for a firm with a Japanese office. For a first job at a fresh-graduate salary, the national figures from the labour ministry’s survey are ¥262,300 a month for a new university graduate and ¥299,000 for a new graduate-school graduate, before bonus.

Scholarships

The Embassy of India in Tokyo keeps a page of scholarship and study-in-Japan information, and the Embassy of Japan in India publishes a "Study in Japan" booklet. Treat any agent who sells admission, visa and job as a package with the same suspicion as a job agent: universities and the Japanese state publish their own application rules.

The Dependent status is for the spouse and children of people on most work statuses: professor, artist, journalist, Highly Skilled Professional, Business Manager, Engineer/Specialist, Intra-company Transferee, Skilled Labour, Specified Skilled Worker (ii) and student, among others. The period is set individually, up to five years. At the end of 2025, 13,367 Indian nationals were in Japan on it — more than the number of permanent residents.

Who cannot bring family

Specified Skilled Workers on the first-level status are not on the ISA’s list of supporters, so SSW (i) holders cannot bring a spouse or children; the second-level status can. Technical interns are not on the list either. People on J-Find may bring a spouse and children on a Designated Activities status, and the spouse needs permission to work.

Can my spouse work?

A person on the Dependent status needs permission to engage in activity other than that permitted by the status — and the ISA’s rule is clear. A comprehensive permission allows paid work or a business with up to 28 hours a week; work beyond that, or a job whose hours cannot be shown, needs an individual permission, and the period of that work may not exceed half of your permitted stay. Work at adult-entertainment businesses, in the licensed categories the ISA lists, is excluded. The standard processing time for the permission is two weeks to two months. A spouse with an offer for a full-time degree-level job should instead change status to Engineer/Specialist.

The exception is the Highly Skilled Professional: the spouse may work full-time in an Engineer-type or educator status without meeting the degree or experience requirements. J-Skip holders get the same.

Parents and domestic workers

A Highly Skilled Professional’s parent may join if they will care for a child under seven or a pregnancy, the household earns ¥8 million or more, and they live together. A domestic worker may join a household with ¥10 million or more, up to one (two for finance people at ¥30 million), paid at least ¥200,000 a month. Other work-status holders cannot bring parents to live with them; parents come as visitors.

Schools

Tokyo has CBSE schools, among them the India International School in Japan, which the Embassy of India links, and the Embassy’s list of Indian associations includes regional groups from Bengal, Odisha, Rajasthan and elsewhere. The ISA’s Guidebook for Life and Work, which exists in a Hindi edition, has chapters on childbirth and parenting and on the Japanese school system.

Japan front-loads little paperwork on the employee, because the employer handles insurance. Five things need your attention in the first weeks.

1. The residence card and your address. At seven airports — Narita, Haneda, Chubu, Kansai, New Chitose, Hiroshima and Fukuoka — you receive a residence card on landing. Register your address at the ward or city office within 14 days of settling; the same office handles the notifications you will need later. You must carry the card at all times.
2. Health insurance, enrolled by your employer. Employees’ Health Insurance and Employees’ Pension Insurance are compulsory at companies with five or more employees and at all incorporated companies, whatever your nationality, and the employer must file your enrolment within five days. Premiums are split between you and the employer; you pay 30% of medical costs from age 6 to 69, and dependants in the insurance do not pay premiums. Benefits include a sickness allowance from the fourth day of absence and a childbirth lump sum of ¥500,000 per child.
3. Pension, and what happens when you leave. Your Employees’ Pension contributions (9.15% of pay, with the same from the employer) build a Japanese pension. If you leave Japan with less than 120 months (10 years) of eligibility, you can claim a lump-sum withdrawal payment within two years of leaving, calculated on up to 60 months, with 20.42% income tax withheld on the Employees’ Pension part and refundable through a tax return filed by a tax agent. Taking the lump sum cancels all Japanese coverage periods before the claim.
4. The India–Japan social security agreement. In force since 1 October 2016, it appears on the Japan Pension Service’s list of agreements that both avoid double coverage and add up (totalise) coverage periods; the Service’s March 2026 leaflet names India among the totalisation partners. For an employee seconded from India, the Embassy of India’s seminar slides (dated 2016) explain that an employee expected to stay five years or less can stay in the Indian scheme and be exempt from Japanese pension contributions, with a Certificate of Coverage from the Indian side; ask your HR team for the current rules. If totalisation lets you reach the 10-year minimum, you cannot claim the lump sum.
5. Tax and a bank. Your employer withholds income tax each month; resident tax starts from the June after your first 1 January in Japan. A bank account and a mobile number are easier once the card and address are registered.

Changing employer

When you leave an employer on a status that requires it, notify the ISA within 14 days. If you find a new job inside the same status, you may keep the card, but keep your pension and tax records, because both build permanent residence.

Help in Hindi

The ISA’s Guidebook for Life and Work (7th edition) covers medical insurance, pensions, tax, housing and employment, and its page lists a Hindi edition; the Embassy of India in Tokyo runs the consular services. The Indians in Japan page lists the events and groups for the first weekend.

Permanent residence (PR) is the status that ends dependence on an employer: indefinite stay, any job, no renewals. Indians held 10,084 of Japan’s 947,125 PR cards at the end of 2025.

The rule today

The ISA’s guideline, as it stood on its website on 23 October 2026 (last revision dated 24 February 2026), asks for good conduct, enough assets or skills to live independently, and the public obligations met — taxes, pension and health-insurance premiums, notifications to the ISA — with late payment viewed negatively. The residence requirement is 10 years or more continuously, of which five years must be under a work or residence status; technical intern training and SSW (i) do not count. Your current status must be held at the longest period of stay on its schedule, but until 31 March 2027 a 3-year stay counts as the longest. Highly Skilled Professionals can apply after three years at 70 points or one year at 80, and J-Skip holders after one year. Spouses of Japanese nationals and PR holders need three years’ marriage and one year in Japan.

What changes from 1 April 2027

The ISA revised the guideline on 1 October 2026, according to Kyodo’s report that day, which describes it as part of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s push to tighten rules on foreign nationals; the ISA’s guideline page, as read on 23 October, still carried the February text. The ISA’s August 2026 draft, summarised by a Japanese immigration firm, and Kyodo agree on the main points: applications from 1 April 2027 will be judged against a household income above the average for Japanese households of the same size, a projected pension equal to 30 years of Employees’ Pension enrolment at your income (with assets able to make up a shortfall), and Japanese at the B1 level of the national framework; spouses of Japanese and PR holders will need five years’ marriage and three years’ residence (up from three and one), and their children three years (up from one). Kyodo reported that the income test would apply retroactively to applications filed from April 2026 onward, and the draft says the income and public-burden items also reach applications still pending on the revision date. The draft left the 70-point and 80-point routes unchanged. Because a 3-year stay stops counting as the longest period after 31 March 2027, you will in practice need a five-year status, which the ISA grants at its discretion. One law-firm reading of the draft is that years on the Intra-company Transferee status may not count towards the five work years — if you are an Indian IT secondee, ask a lawyer before you rely on them.

The fee

Since 1 October 2026 the permanent-residence application costs ¥200,000, up from ¥10,000, paid at the counter.

Citizenship

The Ministry of Justice sets the minimum for naturalisation at five years’ continuous lawful residence, adulthood, good conduct, a stable livelihood, respect for the constitution and — in principle — loss of your previous nationality. It adds that applicants must be integrated into Japanese society, giving as examples Japanese sufficient for daily life, speaking, reading and writing, and residence of ten years or more. Japan does not let adults keep two nationalities long-term — naturalised citizens give up the earlier one, and dual nationals must choose — and India does not allow dual citizenship either, so a Japanese passport means surrendering the Indian one and applying for an OCI card through the Embassy’s OCI service, which asks for the cancelled Indian passport or a cancellation certificate. Many Indians therefore stop at PR.

Japan’s rules make most frauds aimed at Indians unnecessary — and they work because the victim does not know the rules.

• "Certificate of Eligibility for a fee." The certificate is applied for by an employer or a sponsor in Japan, it is free, and the ISA decides. An agent in India who sells one is selling a forgery or a real certificate attached to a job that does not exist, and a false application can count against you in later ones.
• "Guaranteed Japan job." Check the employer: the company’s registration, its own website and switchboard number, and the name of the person who will sign the application. For jobs placed through an agency, remember the ISA’s July 2026 note — the client company must be named in the application, so an agency that cannot name it is not placing you.
• "A place in the new skill-development system." The system starts on 1 April 2027, and the ISA’s list of memoranda with sending countries, updated 20 October 2026, does not include India. Anyone collecting money for it from Indians now is selling something that does not yet exist.
• Skills-visa brokers. The India–Japan SSW memorandum names the practices the two governments will share information about: holding a worker’s money as a deposit, penalty clauses for breaking the contract, fees without a stated calculation, forged documents and abuse. The Embassy says an accredited sending organisation is not required for Indians, so a "Government-approved agency" fee is a red flag.
• "Business visa" packages. The Business Manager rule needs ¥30 million, a full-time employee and Japanese ability; a paper company does not satisfy it.
• Fake language certificates. The JLPT office warns of falsified result documents, and the SSW memorandum names proxy test-taking; both can end in a refusal.
• Calls that claim to be the Embassy. The Embassy of India’s advisory says criminals spoof its telephone numbers to demand money, and that no such calls are made from the Embassy.
• Working outside your status. Doing paid work beyond your permission — for a dependant more than 28 hours a week, or in an excluded business — can lose your status, whoever suggested it.

Where to get honest advice

FRESC in Tokyo is a government one-stop centre for foreign residents; the Tokyo Labour Bureau’s consultation desk for foreign workers handles wages, hours and dismissals; the Embassy of India in Tokyo runs the consular services and publishes an emergency line for Indians in distress. If you have already paid, you are the victim, not the offender: keep every receipt and message, report to the police in India and to the Embassy, and tell the groups around you so the next person does not pay.

Japan’s Indian community is small — 58,999 in the ISA’s count — and concentrated in a handful of places.

Where people live

Edogawa Ward had 8,248 registered Indian residents on 1 January 2026, more than any other Tokyo ward, followed by Koto (4,239) and Taito (804). Nishi-Kasai (Nishikasai) is the neighbourhood the community has made its own: Edogawa City’s page for Diwali Festa Nishikasai lists it for Saturday 7 November 2026, from 10am to 4.30pm in Takino Park, free and with no registration, and lists the Embassy of India, Edogawa Ward and Air India among its supporters. Diwali itself falls on Sunday 8 November, and it is not a public holiday in Japan. The Diwali in Japan page and the Diwali in Tokyo page have the details.

Networks that help with work

• Professional and alumni groups: the India I.T. Forum, Japan, the IIT Alumni Association Japan and the Japan–India Industrial Promotion Association, all on the Embassy’s list of associations.
• Regional and language associations, from the Bengali Association of Tokyo to the Assam, Bihar and Jharkhand, Odisha and Rajasthan groups, for festivals and for the community contacts that answer first-week questions.
• Business and trade: the Indian Commerce and Industry Association Japan, the Indian Jewelers Association of Japan and the Indian Restaurant Association Japan.
• Government help: FRESC, the Embassy of India, and — for labour disputes — the Tokyo Labour Bureau’s consultation desk.

Finding them on Namaste

The Indians in Japan page gathers the events, groups, businesses and city pages; the Indian events in Japan calendar lists the pujas, concerts and Diwali programmes; and the Tokyo events page narrows it to the capital.

If Japan does not work out

The skills travel. A Japanese employer on the CV, a Highly Skilled Professional record or a pension record that the India–Japan agreement can total, and some Japanese language are all assets elsewhere. The other Namaste jobs guides — Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, the UK and the USA — show what the same search looks like there.