The Immigration Services Agency has consulted on adding a five-year period of stay to Specified Skilled Worker (ii), and Jiji Press reported on 4 August 2026 that the government intends to bring it into force in January 2027. Nothing has changed yet: the agency's page for the status still lists periods of three years, two years, one year and six months, and the longer term does not exist until the amended enforcement regulation is in force. The consultation on that amendment ran from 4 August to 3 September 2026 and is closed. No promulgation date has been published.
Who this reaches, and who it does not
Specified Skilled Worker (ii) is open in eleven fields, fixed by the Cabinet decision of 9 June 2023 and in operation since 31 August 2023: construction, shipbuilding and marine industry, building cleaning, materials and industrial machinery and electrical-electronic manufacturing, automotive maintenance, aviation, lodging, agriculture, fisheries, food and drink manufacturing, and food service. Nursing care was left out, and the agency gives the reason plainly: the separate professional status Kaigo already exists, so care workers move into that instead. Fields brought into the system after 2023 are not covered by that decision, and the agency has published no consolidated second-tier field list since.
Holders of Specified Skilled Worker (i) are not affected. Their maximum single period is still set case by case within three years.
The period granted also fixes the renewal fee: since 1 October 2026 an extension granted for three to under five years costs ¥64,000 at the counter, against ¥75,000 for five years or more. The full bands are on our page covering the 2026 fee changes.
The cap that is not moving
Specified Skilled Worker (ii) has no cumulative limit on time in Japan. Specified Skilled Worker (i) does: five years in total, counted across every permission, and reaching it ends the status regardless of how the job is going. A longer second-tier period does nothing for anyone still in the first tier.
The counting is where people lose years they assumed they had. Time in Specified Skilled Worker (i) while not working counts against the five years. So does time spent outside Japan on a re-entry permit, including deemed re-entry permission, and any period held under Designated Activities while transitioning into the status.
Three things do not count: a period abroad where return was impossible for unavoidable reasons, maternity and postnatal leave together with childcare leave, and leave for illness or injury. Medical leave qualifies only where it runs more than one continuous month, and is capped at one year in most cases, three years for a work-related injury.
The sixth year, for a test narrowly failed
There is a documented route to six years, and it is narrow. Someone who sat the tests required to move into Specified Skilled Worker (ii) and did not pass can be granted a sixth year if they scored at least 80 per cent of the pass mark on every required test, pledge to keep studying and sit it again, and have an employer willing to keep them on and support the preparation.
The timing is unforgiving. The application must be filed in the window running from three months before the five-year cumulative period expires until the day it expires.
Which result notices qualify is set field by field, with cutoffs for when the notice was issued or the test taken, and several fields are still marked under consideration. The Grade 2 automotive mechanic certification and the airman competence certificate are not currently expected to count toward the six-year treatment.
The permanent residence element that bites on 1 April 2027
The revised permanent residence approval guidelines apply to applications filed on or after 1 April 2027, and one element asks whether the applicant holds the longest period of stay available for their status. A transitional concession treats a three-year period as satisfying that element, but only for applications filed on or before 31 March 2027.
If the five-year period arrives in January 2027, a Specified Skilled Worker (ii) holder on a three-year permission would stop holding the longest period available once the concession lapses. The agency has published nothing on how the two changes interact. The dates are three months apart. The requirements as they currently stand are on our page covering permanent residency.
What to act on before 31 March 2027
If you hold Specified Skilled Worker (i) and are within eighteen months of the five-year mark, work your cumulative total out from your own records rather than from your permission's expiry date, and request your entry and departure records from the agency if the re-entry gaps are unclear. If the evaluation test is the obstacle, put the three-month filing window in your calendar now.
If you hold Specified Skilled Worker (ii) on a three-year permission and permanent residence is the plan, the choice is between filing by 31 March 2027 under the concession and waiting for a five-year permission that has no promulgation date attached. The amendment will surface first on the agency's Specified Skilled Worker status page: the period-of-stay list on it is the line to watch.
Sources: Immigration Services Agency — 在留資格「特定技能」, Immigration Services Agency — 特定技能1号の通算在留期間, Immigration Services Agency — 特定技能2号の対象分野, e-Gov — 入管法施行規則改正省令案の意見公募手続, Jiji Press — 特定技能２号に「在留５年」＝政府、来年１月施行方針