Japan's government is designing a Japanese and daily-life learning programme for foreign residents, and the working paper behind it proposes checking whether people have completed it at three points in the residence system: the first extension of a period of stay, a permanent residence application, and a naturalisation application. The Cabinet-level roadmap sets the trial to begin from April 2028. None of it is in force, and none of it is decided.
The programme, 日本語・生活学習プログラム in its provisional name, comes out of the comprehensive measures the ministerial council adopted on 23 January 2026. A working group under the expert panel on orderly coexistence was established on 24 July 2026 to study how to trial and introduce it, chaired by Susumu Takahashi of the Japan Research Institute, and has met twice, on 18 August and 18 September 2026.
Two courses, pitched at different stages
The secretariat's working paper splits the programme in two. Course A covers learning before entry and just after arrival. Course B is aimed at people heading for permanent residence or naturalisation.
Daily-life learning would run mainly as on-demand e-learning built on the government's Living and Working Guidebook, with optional modules by life stage: childbirth, childcare, education, care. Course A Japanese would also be e-learning. Course B Japanese would be live, in two-way online or in-person classes at accredited Japanese-language institutions, with independent-user level as the endpoint.
The checks proposed at residence procedures
This is the part that bears on anyone holding a residence card. The paper proposes confirming pre-entry learning before arrival; Course A progress at the first extension of period of stay; Course B progress at a permanent residence application and at applications for stays of ten years or more or for a long period of stay; and Course B understanding at a naturalisation application.
On long stays it goes further, proposing that completion be examined as a condition of permission: 「一定の長期滞在を目的とする在留申請の際にも、学習プログラムの受講を許可要件とする方向で検討するべきである」. For permanent residence it would require proof of Japanese at B1-equivalent or above, and would test understanding of the daily-life content rather than attendance alone. Our page on extending and renewing a period of stay covers that procedure as it works now.
The Cabinet's economic and fiscal policy guidelines of 21 July 2026 point the same way, saying mid-to-long-term residents could be asked to take part as a condition of residence, framed as something to examine rather than a commitment.
Who would be covered
The paper's starting position is broad: 「基本的には、中長期の在留を目的とする外国人を幅広く対象として」, mid-to-long-term residents generally. Accompanying family members and spouses of Japanese nationals are named as groups who often cannot build enough Japanese at home.
Several categories are left open. Highly skilled professionals, people whose status already carries a Japanese requirement, and people already obliged to study under the Employment for Skill Development system would need their position clarified. For children, members leaned towards school rather than the programme.
Short-stay visitors sit outside all of this. The programme is a residence-side scheme and touches nothing about visa-exempt entry, tourist visas or arrival procedure.
What the working group argued about
The first meeting's summary records members pushing back on compulsion: 「義務として強制されると、かえってマイナスの側面が出てくる」, enforced as an obligation, it produces the opposite effect. One warned it would make Japan less attractive to workers, and requiring the programme before entry was called very difficult, because learning conditions abroad vary too much.
Members asked for exemptions and grace periods covering disability, illness, pregnancy, childbirth and childcare, and argued that nothing should feed into residence screening until real learning opportunities exist regardless of region, employer, income or age. On the state's role, one member said: 「今回作るのは、国道だと思うが、国道で家までたどり着けない」, what we are building is a national highway, and a highway does not get you to your door.
Members also wanted behaviour change as the measure rather than headcount, and said online-only study is probably enough for A1 while A2 and B1 need a qualified teacher in the room.
What happens before April 2028
The basic policy on accepting foreign nationals is scheduled for March 2027, and that document is where the direction on compulsion should become visible. Separately, the revised permanent residence guidelines already treat B1-equivalent Japanese as a factor from applications filed on or after 1 April 2027, independently of this programme.
Nothing here requires action yet. For anyone filing for permanent residence on or after 1 April 2027, the Japanese standard is the element already fixed, and the Japanese language requirements page maps B1 onto the tests that prove it. Watch the working group's page for a third meeting: its materials, not the ministry news lists, are where this programme's shape is being set.
Sources: Cabinet Secretariat — WG on the Japanese and daily-life learning programme, Cabinet Secretariat — main points paper, Cabinet Secretariat — WG meeting 1 summary, Cabinet Secretariat — review structure and roadmap, Cabinet Secretariat — background paper