Japan Tightened Its Language-School Student Visa: The A1 Proof and School Checks Indians Need for April 2027

If you are applying to a Japanese language school for the April 2027 intake, two things changed while nobody in India was looking — and one of them can get your application rejected on paperwork you were told you did not need.

Here is the short version. Japan's Immigration Services Agency has withdrawn the old route to proving you have beginner-level Japanese. For years, a letter saying you had completed 150 hours of Japanese classes was enough. It is not enough any more. From the October 2026 intake onward, the agency wants a test certificate or a documented interview — and the exemption it grants to graduates of overseas universities does not appear to cover Indian nationals.

The second thing is better news. Japan now runs two public registers of language schools, both free, both official, and between them they let you check a school in about ten minutes — including a published outcomes number that every school is legally required to produce and that, as far as we can tell, no one in the Indian market has ever asked for.

This article gives you both: exactly what you now have to prove and by when, the arithmetic on how rare accreditation actually is, four claims that cannot legally be true if an agent makes them, and a checklist for an April 2027 start. Published school deadlines for that intake cluster in mid-to-late October 2026 — so this is a five-to-seven-week window, not a next-year problem.

First, the part that hasn't changed: you've always needed basic Japanese

It is easy to assume a language school takes you from zero — and academically, it often does. But the student visa has never been a zero-Japanese visa. For years, Japan's immigration authorities have expected language-school applicants — especially from countries they screen more carefully, India among them — to show they have already reached a basic, beginner level of Japanese (about A1, defined just below) before the visa is granted. That expectation is not new, and it catches out a lot of Indian applicants who are told a school will "handle everything."

What has always been flexible is how you prove it. Until now, the accepted proof was simply a record of 150 or more hours of Japanese study — a letter from a coaching centre was usually enough. That single piece is what just changed (next section). The underlying requirement — arrive with a genuine A1 foundation — is the same one immigration has had all along. So this is less "Japan added a Japanese requirement" and more "Japan closed the easy way of proving the requirement it already had."

What "A1" actually means

A1 is the lowest rung of the reference framework Japan uses for this rule — its "Framework of Reference for Japanese Language Education" (日本語教育の参照枠), which mirrors the internationally used CEFR scale of six levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2). It is the true-beginner level: not fluency, not even comfortable conversation, just the foundation. At A1 you can, roughly:

• Read and write hiragana and katakana, and recognise a handful of the most basic kanji.
• Introduce yourself — give your name, nationality, and simple personal details, and ask someone the same.
• Understand and use everyday set phrases and very simple sentences, as long as the other person speaks slowly and clearly.
• Handle numbers, prices, days and times.

For Indian applicants, A1 lines up in practice with JLPT N5 — the easiest of the five JLPT levels — or the A1 band of the JFT-Basic test. (Strictly, N5 and A1 are different grading systems; ISA simply accepts an N5 pass as proof you are at A1.) Either is the usual way to put a certificate to it. For most people that is a few months of consistent study, which is exactly why booking a test or starting classes early matters when your deadline is in October.

What actually changed, and when it applies to you

In January 2026 the Japanese Cabinet adopted a package of measures on accepting foreign residents, two of which pointed straight at the student visa. The Immigration Services Agency acted on them in April 2026 and published the detail on its page for institutions enrolling foreign students. Two separate changes came out of it.

Change one — proof of Japanese ability. Previously, when the agency assessed your application, a record of 150 or more hours of Japanese study was accepted as evidence that you had reached A1. That route is closed. Now the school must confirm your ability by a language-test certificate or an interview, and record how it did so.

Change two — part-time work monitoring. Schools must now check, every three months, where each student is working and for how many hours, and report certain cases onward. More on that below, including the part that protects you.

The timing is the bit to get right, because it is different for different applications:

(Source: ISA, 第１ ３ 適用時期について.)

So if you are reading this in India planning an April 2027 start, you are in scope. The rule also applies to university 日本語別科 (Japanese-language divisions), not only to standalone language schools.

"I did a 150-hour course" is no longer an answer

This is the single most expensive misunderstanding available to an Indian applicant right now, because it is exactly what a lot of coaching centres and agents are still selling.

Here is the thing: the 150-hour route was never a qualification. It was an evidentiary shortcut — a way for the school to satisfy immigration that you were probably at A1 without testing you. The agency has now removed the shortcut and asked for the underlying evidence instead.

What counts now, per ISA:

• A test certificate showing roughly A1 or above. The two headline options for Indian applicants are the JFT-Basic (A1 band) and the JLPT (N5 or above). Our guide to which Japanese exam you should take walks through the choice; if you are deciding between the two specific options, JFT-Basic vs JLPT N4 compares them directly.
• Or a documented interview with the school, which may be conducted online.

And it does not have to be JLPT or JFT-Basic. ISA publishes an official list of tests it treats as A1-equivalent for this purpose, and it is longer than most agents let on. Alongside JLPT N5 and JFT-Basic, it currently accepts — each at its own stated minimum — the NAT-TEST (level 5), the J.TEST (F, or FG 250+), the JLCT (JCT5), TOPJ (Beginner A), J-cert (Beginner), BJT (300+), STBJ (350+), PJC Bridge (C−), JPT (315+), the Japanese Online Test (JT5) and the S-JEP (300+). This is genuinely useful in India: several of these run on a more frequent schedule than the twice-a-year JLPT, so if you cannot get a JLPT seat before your deadline, an ISA-recognised alternative may fit — check each test's own site for a centre you can reach. The current list and its thresholds live on ISA's own page and can change, so confirm there before you book: 日本語教育機関へ入学するための日本語能力について — ISA.

And the agency has published the level of detail it expects the school to record. Its own worked examples read, in effect: "the required level is A1; in the interview we asked questions from an N5 workbook in Japanese and the candidate answered X of Y correctly, against a pass threshold of Z." Vague is not acceptable. ISA also asks schools to interview applicants wherever possible even when a test certificate exists.

One practical consequence worth planning around: ISA notes that where a test certificate is used, it must be submitted with the visa application regardless of whether the school holds "適正校" (compliant school) status. Schools with that status have historically enjoyed lighter documentation requirements. On this point, that advantage is gone — so "our school is 適正校, don't worry about the test" is not a reason to skip it.

The exemption exists — but it does not look like it covers India

ISA does grant one exemption. If an applicant holds the nationality of a country on its published 別表 and has graduated from an overseas higher-education institution and submits the degree certificate, the Japanese-ability requirement is waived entirely.

Now read the list. The document is headed 慎重審査対象国 — "countries subject to careful screening" — and it works by exclusion: countries and regions other than the following are designated as careful-screening countries. It then lists 119 of them. The Asia block is: Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Türkiye, Brunei, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia (ISA, 別表 PDF).

India is not on it.

Komichi's reading, stated plainly so you can check it. The exemption applies to nationals of the countries listed in that 別表. India is not listed, which places India on the careful-screening side of the agency's split. Our conclusion is therefore that an Indian bachelor's degree does not exempt you from proving A1 Japanese — you will need the certificate or the interview either way. This is our interpretation of a Japanese-language document written as a double negative, not a statement the agency has made in English. We have linked the PDF above so you can read it yourself, and you should confirm your own case with your school and with the Embassy of Japan. If anything, we would rather you over-prepare: sitting N5 or JFT-Basic is useful regardless of which reading is right.

So the practical advice is simple. Book a test. The JFT-Basic in India runs in more frequent windows and is usually the faster route; the JLPT in India runs twice a year, in July and December, with each host city operating its own registration window. If your April 2027 application is due in October 2026 and you have no certificate yet, the realistic plan is to prepare properly for the school's interview while booking the next available test. Start with hiragana, then work through how to pass N5 — and be honest with yourself about how long Japanese actually takes.

If you have not started studying and need a classroom in India, our Japanese classes in India finder lists options by city.

The form your school now has to fill in — and why you should ask to see it

Alongside the proof, the school must complete and submit a 各種確認書 — a confirmation document stating how it verified your Japanese, ticking either "test" or "interview" and describing the method in specific terms. If you applied through the same school last time and have not changed institutions, it is not required again.

This is quietly useful to you. A school that cannot explain how it will assess you is a school that has not read the rule. You do not need to be confrontational about it. One email, before you pay a deposit:

"For the CoE application, will you be assessing my Japanese by test certificate or by interview? If by interview, could you tell me roughly what it covers so I can prepare?"

A school that answers clearly and specifically is doing its job. A school that says "don't worry, we handle everything, just send the fee" has told you something too.

Two registers, not one — and this is where most advice gets it wrong

Now for the part that we, and almost everyone else writing for Indian students, have previously got wrong.

You will read — including, until this article, on our own site — that a Japanese language school "must be accredited." That is not accurate today, and acting on it would make you reject most of the legitimate schools in Japan. Here is the real structure.

Japan is midway through a transition between two systems. Both currently produce valid student visas.

Both registers are real. A school on the older register is not a lesser or suspect school — the majority of well-regarded institutions in Japan are still working through the new process. But accreditation is a genuinely stronger signal, because the new standards are harder, and because of what the numbers show.

What the accreditation numbers actually show

MEXT publishes a summary after each round. There have been four completed rounds, and the pattern in them is the most interesting thing on this entire topic.

(Round-by-round figures from MEXT's accreditation results page and its past-results summary PDF. The 30 April 2026 round also placed 13 institutions under continuing review. MEXT's first-round summary accounts for 61 of its 72 applications and does not break out the remainder.)

Komichi's computation, with its limits stated. The totals row is ours — MEXT publishes each round separately and does not sum them. These are applications, not distinct institutions: an institution that withdrew can and often does reapply in a later round, so 294 overstates the number of schools involved and 169 overstates the number that gave up. Treat the ratio, not the absolute, as the finding.

And the ratio is striking. Refusals are almost nonexistent — five in four rounds. Withdrawals are the norm. More applications ended in a mid-review withdrawal than in an accreditation.

Why? Because of a rule most people never see. Under the education ministry's own guidance, withdrawing an application stops the review, produces no judgment, and is not published (認定法 FAQ, Q25). A formal refusal, by contrast, is published and bars the institution from applying in the very next round (Q23). So an institution heading for a refusal has every reason to pull out first.

What that means for you as a reader of the register: the register shows you the 96 that finished. It does not show you the ones that started and quietly stepped back. So "this school is not on the accredited list" is a weak signal on its own — it may mean the school simply has not applied yet. It is what the list does show that is useful: if a school is accredited, it has been through a hard review and come out the other side.

The queue just quadrupled, and the next results land around 31 October 2026

Here is the freshest number on the board. MEXT has confirmed the application count for the round now under review: 230 institutions, of which 161 are on the older 告示 register — against 58 in the round before (MEXT, 申請機関数).

That is a stampede, and the reason is a date. Every school on the older register must obtain accreditation by 31 March 2029 or it can no longer bring in students on a 留学 visa (認定法 FAQ, Q7; confirmed in ISA's own notice to 告示 institutions).

Rounds have been decided at the end of October and the end of March or April. Our practical point: results from this round are expected around 31 October 2026 — roughly a fortnight after the typical April-2027 application deadline. If your shortlisted school is one of the 161, its answer will land shortly after you have committed. That is not a reason to panic; students at a school that ultimately does not get accredited are not left stranded, because the deadline is 2029 and schools have further rounds to try. But it is a reason to ask the school directly: "Have you applied for 認定, and in which round?" A school that has applied will tell you. A school that has not applied at all, with under three years left, is worth a second question.

Where to check: MEXT runs a public accreditation portal listing every accredited institution, with machine translation into several languages. Our own Japanese language school finder covers schools with an eye to whether they actually accept Indian students, which the government registers do not tell you.

The outcomes number every school must publish — and the 70% line

This is the best question in this article, and almost nobody asks it.

Every school on the 告示 register is required by law to report to immigration and publish, by the end of June each year, what happened to the students who completed its courses: how many went on to higher education, how many were granted a change to a work status, and how many were certified at A2 or above. And there is a threshold: if that combined total falls below 70% of completers, the school must also submit an improvement plan (ISA, 告示基準 第1条第1項第44号).

Read that again. There is a government-defined quality line, at 70%, applied to the exact thing you care about — did people who did this course end up somewhere? — and the number is meant to be public.

The same reporting rules require schools to report students who drop out, and to report any student whose monthly attendance falls below 50%, including the name of the employer where that student is working part-time.

Your one-line email, which is worth more than any agent's brochure:

"Could you send me your most recent published figures under 告示基準 第44号 — progression to higher education, change of status, and A2-or-above certification, as a share of course completers?"

A well-run school has this to hand; it is required to publish it. If you get a straight number, you can compare schools on something real. If you get deflection, that is information too. And if you would like a second angle on the same question, how to choose a university in Japan applies much the same logic one step further up the path.

Four claims that cannot legally be true

A useful property of a rulebook is that it tells you what is not allowed. Each of these is a bright line you can check in a couple of minutes, drawn from the accreditation law and its official FAQ.

1. "Our centre in India is an accredited Japanese language institution." Not possible. Institutions located outside Japan cannot be accredited under this system at all (FAQ, Q20). A centre in Delhi or Kochi may be an excellent place to study — but it cannot hold this accreditation, and saying it does is a false claim.
2. "Join our accredited course" (from a school whose accredited course is a different one). Advertising a non-accredited course as an "認定コース" is illegal, not merely frowned upon (Q10). An accredited school may say it is accredited; it may not attach the label to courses outside the accreditation.
3. "You can do the first six months online from India and then fly over." Not for a student visa. Online teaching is not permitted for 留学-track courses (Q11, Q43). Pre-arrival online Japanese lessons are fine — but they are outside the accredited course, and they are not your visa course.
4. "Classes are in the evening, so you can work all day." Also not permitted. A 留学-track course must run in the daytime — in principle between 08:00 and 18:00 — precisely because the study is supposed to be the point (Q68). If the pitch is built around a full working day, the pitch is not describing a lawful student-visa course.

And one more, which is about your money. Accredited institutions must, as part of their mandatory self-evaluation, assess whether the commissions they pay to recruitment agents are appropriate — and failing to include that in the evaluation can trigger government guidance (Q15). Agent commissions in this market commonly run into a meaningful share of your first-year tuition. You are entitled to ask a school whether it pays a commission on your enrolment and how much. For the wider pattern of what to watch for, see our guide on spotting fake agents and job scams.

None of this means agents are bad. Many are genuinely useful. It means the incentive is real, and now there is a rule that acknowledges it.

The part-time work rules grew teeth — and gave you a protection

Since April 2026, schools must check on every enrolled student once every three months and record four things: whether the student holds permission to engage in activity outside their status, the names of all employers (not just one), what the work involves, and daily hours. Records must be kept; violations must be corrected and re-checked.

And the enforcement is not random. Under the Cabinet package, the agency cross-references employers' foreign-worker filings (外国人雇用状況届出) to identify students working at more than one place, and passes those names to the school for particularly careful checking (ISA summary PDF). Two jobs is the specific pattern being looked for. The 28-hour weekly cap applies across all your jobs combined, and it always has — what is new is that the cross-matching makes it visible.

Take this seriously. Your student visa is the thing that makes everything else possible, and part-time work was never going to fund the whole year anyway — at the 2026 minimum-wage guideline, the arithmetic is sobering, and we have run it in Japan's minimum wage and what it means for Indians. Budget on the assumption that work supplements your costs rather than covering them; our Can I Afford Japan calculator has a student mode for exactly this.

Now the part nobody tells you. The same ISA instruction names one specific situation the school must escalate: a student reporting that "my employer is forcing me to work more than 28 hours a week." That is written into the rule as a case to report to the immigration bureau.

So if an employer is pushing you past the limit, your school is a legitimate place to raise it, and the school has an instruction telling it what to do. An Indian student in that position often assumes that speaking up means losing the visa. The rule as written points the other way: the pressure from the employer is the thing being reported. That does not make it a comfortable conversation, and it does not remove your own obligation to stay within the cap — but you are not on your own with it.

Your checklist for an April 2027 start

Deadlines are set by each school, not by the government, and they vary. Two published examples: one Kyoto school lists 31 October 2026 and another school lists 15 October 2026 for the April 2027 intake (Nihongo Center; KOKO JAPAN). Treat mid-October as the realistic planning date and check your own school's page — do not work from a date you read on a forum.

Working back from there:

Now → early October 2026

1. Shortlist schools. Check each one on the MEXT accreditation portal and ask any school that is not listed whether it has applied, and in which round.
2. Email each shortlisted school two questions: the 第44号 published outcomes figures, and how they will assess your Japanese (test or interview).
3. Book a test if you can get a seat — JFT-Basic first, JLPT if the timing works. If no seat is available before the deadline, tell the school and prepare for the interview route.
4. Get your money ready. Schools commonly bill several months of tuition upfront and you will need proof of funds; tuition typically runs ¥700,000–900,000 a year, which at roughly ₹0.61 per ¥1 (rate as at 12 September 2026) is about ₹4.3–5.5 lakh, before living costs. Our comparison of studying in Japan versus Canada puts that in context, and the scholarship finder and study in Japan for free playbook are worth an hour before you assume you are paying full freight.

October 2026 → February 2027 5. School files your CoE application with immigration, with the confirmation form and your certificate. 6. Around 31 October 2026, the next accreditation results are expected — check whether your school appears. 7. CoE typically issued around late February for an April intake; you then apply for the visa at the Embassy or Consulate in India. The full mechanics are in our student visa and CoE guide. Note that Japan's residence-permit fees rose on 1 October 2026, which matters for your later extensions rather than the first entry.

Before you fly 8. Keep studying. Arriving at genuine A1 rather than paper A1 changes your entire first year — see what Japanese level each route needs, and student life in Japan for Indians for what the year actually feels like.

The one thing to take away

The bar moved, and it moved toward you having actual Japanese rather than a certificate of attendance. That is inconvenient in the short term and good for you in the long term — the students who arrive genuinely at A1 are the ones who make the year count, and the rest of the path, from a university place to a work visa, is gated on Japanese anyway.

Your move this week: pick three schools, check them on the MEXT portal, and send each one the two-question email. Then book a test. If you do only those things before mid-October, you will be ahead of most people applying for April 2027 — and you will be choosing a school on evidence instead of on a brochure.

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This article is general information, not legal, immigration, education, or financial advice. Immigration rules, accreditation status, school deadlines, fees, and exchange rates change and vary by individual circumstances — verify the latest details with the school, the Immigration Services Agency of Japan, the MEXT accreditation portal, and the Embassy or Consulate of Japan in India before you commit money, and consult a qualified professional about your own case. Currency conversions are approximate and were calculated at roughly ₹0.61 per ¥1 on 12 September 2026. Where this article draws a conclusion the sources do not state outright, it is labelled as Komichi's reading.