Specified Skilled Worker, or 特定技能, is Japan's answer to labour shortages in industries that the professional work visas deliberately exclude. It was created in 2019 for care homes, construction sites, farms, restaurants and factories, and it has been expanding steadily since. Unlike the Engineer/Specialist status, it asks for no university degree. It asks you to pass a test instead.
Two tiers, and the gap between them is large
SSW (i) is the entry tier. You can stay a maximum of five years in total, renewed in increments of four months, six months or one year. You cannot bring a spouse or children. Time on SSW (i) does not count toward the work-status portion of a permanent residency application.
SSW (ii) is the tier that turns a job into a life. There is no cumulative cap, renewals can continue indefinitely, family members can join you on Dependent status, and the years count toward permanent residency. Reaching it requires passing a higher-level skills exam and, in most fields, accumulating supervisory or practical experience first.
The distinction is the single most important thing to understand before you accept an SSW job. Five years and out, or a route that keeps going.
The fields covered
Sixteen fields are currently open:
- Nursing care
- Building cleaning
- Manufacturing of materials, industrial machinery, and electric and electronic equipment
- Construction
- Shipbuilding and ship machinery
- Automobile repair and maintenance
- Aviation
- Accommodation
- Automobile transport (driving)
- Railway
- Agriculture
- Fishery and aquaculture
- Manufacture of food and beverages
- Food service
- Forestry
- Timber industry
Three more, logistics warehousing, resource circulation and linen supply, have been approved and are due to open from 2027. All three start as SSW (i) only; whether they get an SSW (ii) track has not been decided.
Nursing care is the one field with no SSW (ii) tier, because Japan already has a separate Nursing Care (介護) status of residence that care workers move into after qualifying as a certified care worker. That route is open-ended and allows family, so it functions as the equivalent step.
How you qualify
There are two doors into SSW (i):
- Pass the tests. A skills evaluation test for your specific field, plus a Japanese language test. The language bar is JLPT N4 or the JFT-Basic test at A2 level. Nursing care adds a separate care-specific Japanese test on top. Both exams are held in Japan and in a rotating list of countries in Asia and beyond.
- Complete Technical Intern Training (ii). Former technical interns who finished the second stage of the programme in a matching field transfer into SSW (i) without sitting either test.
The skills tests are genuinely field-specific and practical. Food service candidates are tested on hygiene, preparation and customer service; construction candidates on the trade they will actually work in.
What your employer has to do
SSW comes with obligations that fall on the company, not on you, and they are a fair indicator of whether an employer is serious. A sponsoring company must pay you at least the same as a Japanese national doing the same work, and must put a support plan in place covering pre-arrival orientation, help opening a bank account and finding housing, Japanese language learning opportunities, and a grievance route in a language you understand. Companies that cannot do this in-house contract a registered support organisation to do it for them.
If an employer is vague about who provides your support plan, that is worth pressing on before you sign.
Changing jobs
You can change employer within the same field without changing status, which sets SSW apart from the old technical intern programme, where workers were effectively locked to one company. Moving to a different field means passing that field's skills test. Either way, notify immigration within 14 days of each change.
The long game
If you intend to stay in Japan, plan the move from SSW (i) to SSW (ii) from your first year, because the five-year clock on tier one does not pause. In fields where SSW (ii) exists, the requirement is typically the advanced skills test plus documented experience directing or supervising other workers, which means arranging the right work, not just doing the work.
Once on SSW (ii), the years begin counting toward the ten-year residence requirement for permanent residency, and your family can join you on Dependent status.
Where to go next
For the language tests in detail, see Japanese Language Requirements. For the application mechanics, see the Certificate of Eligibility page.
Back to Work Visas.