If you work an office job in Japan as a foreign national, this is almost certainly your status of residence. Its full name is Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services, or 技術・人文知識・国際業務 in Japanese, usually shortened to gijinkoku. It is one status covering three kinds of work, and it accounts for the largest share of work-based residents in the country.
The three categories inside one status
- Engineer. Work grounded in the natural sciences. Software development, systems engineering, civil and mechanical engineering, architecture, chemistry.
- Specialist in Humanities. Work grounded in the social sciences. Accounting, legal work, consulting, corporate planning, human resources, finance, marketing analysis.
- International Services. Work that draws on being foreign: translation and interpretation, language instruction at private companies and language schools, international trade, and design or product work that depends on a foreign cultural background.
You do not choose between them on the application. Immigration decides which one your job sits in, and the answer determines which qualification rule applies to you.
The degree has to match the job
This is the rule that sinks the most applications. Your university major must have a demonstrable relationship to the work you will actually do. A computer science graduate hired as a developer is straightforward. A literature graduate hired as a developer is not, and neither is an engineering graduate hired into a sales role that the company describes loosely.
The degree can come from a Japanese or overseas university, or from a Japanese senmon gakko (specialised training college) where the diploma is in a related field. Immigration looks at the transcript, not just the degree title, so a minor or a substantial run of relevant coursework can carry an application that the major alone would not.
If your degree does not match
There are two ways around it:
- Ten years of professional experience in the field, for the Engineer and Specialist in Humanities categories. Years spent studying the subject at university or college count toward the ten.
- Three years of professional experience, for the International Services category. This is the far more accessible route, and it is why experienced translators, interpreters and trade professionals without a matching degree can still qualify.
For IT roles specifically, certain national and foreign IT qualifications recognised by the Ministry of Justice substitute for the degree entirely. The list is published and updated periodically; check it before assuming the ten-year route is your only option.
Pay has to match what a Japanese national would earn
The law requires remuneration equal to or above what a Japanese national would receive for the same work at the same company. In practice, immigration reviewers treat roughly ¥200,000 a month as a floor for new graduates and look harder at anything below the local market rate for the role. An offer that undercuts your Japanese colleagues will be refused even if every other box is ticked.
What this status will not let you do
The work has to be professional or technical. Manual and routine jobs are excluded, and this catches people out when a role is partly professional and partly not. Waiting tables, working a factory line, stocking shelves, driving, cleaning: none of these qualify, even at a company that also employs engineers. Training rotations that put you on the shop floor for a few months are tolerated when they are genuinely time-limited and documented as training, but a job that is mostly floor work will be refused.
If the work you want is in that category, look at the Specified Skilled Worker status instead, which was built for exactly these fields.
Period of stay and renewals
First grants are usually one year or three years, occasionally five for a large, stable employer. Renewals tend to lengthen as your record with immigration builds. The period you hold matters beyond convenience: from April 2027 a permanent residency application generally requires you to hold the longest period available for your status, so a string of one-year grants can slow down a PR plan.
Your employer's size changes the paperwork
Immigration sorts sponsoring companies into four categories, and the documentation burden falls almost entirely on the company rather than on you:
- Category 1 covers listed companies, large public bodies and similar. Minimal documents, fastest review.
- Category 2 covers companies whose annual withholding tax statement shows ¥10 million or more.
- Category 3 covers other companies that have filed a withholding tax statement.
- Category 4 covers everyone else, mainly new companies with no filing history. Expect to supply a business plan, financial statements and a detailed explanation of why the role exists.
A Category 4 sponsor is not a problem, but it is slower, and it is worth knowing before you commit to a start date.
Changing jobs
You can move to a new employer without changing status as long as the new job falls within the same three categories. You must notify immigration within 14 days of leaving and within 14 days of joining. Before you resign, it is worth applying for a Certificate of Authorized Employment, which is immigration's written confirmation that your new role qualifies. It is optional, but without it you discover any problem at renewal time, when your options are narrower.
Where to go next
If your salary is high or your qualifications are strong, check the Highly Skilled Professional points table before applying. Clearing 70 points gets you a five-year period of stay and a much shorter route to permanent residency.
For the application itself, start with the Certificate of Eligibility and the required documents checklist.
Back to Work Visas.