Why 100,000 Nepalis Are Studying in Japan — and Only About 2,000 Indians: The Real Reason

Here's a statistic that sounds impossible until you check it. According to the latest JASSO survey (international students counted on 1 May 2025), Nepal — a country of about 30 million people — had 100,239 students in Japan. India, with roughly fifty times Nepal's population, has 2,095.

Both numbers come from the same official source: JASSO's International Student Survey, Japan's government census of international students, counted on 1 May 2025. Nepal is now the second-largest student nationality in Japan, ahead of Vietnam and behind only China. India is 17th — behind Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and even France.

If you're Indian and weighing Japan for a degree, this gap is worth ten minutes of your attention. Not because you should copy the Nepali route — parts of it you shouldn't, and we'll be honest about that — but because the gap proves something most Indian families don't believe: Japan's student door is wide open — India just hasn't developed the same pathways to it yet. This article shows you what that road looks like, what it costs the people using it, and the version better suited to most Indian applicants.

Data note: The latest JASSO International Student Survey covers students enrolled as of 1 May 2025 (published May 2026). Every Nepal–India comparison here uses that one survey, so both countries are measured on the same basis. Japan's Immigration Services Agency also publishes year-end residence counts on a different basis and reference date — the two should not be mixed directly.

Key takeaway: The Nepal–India gap is not about desire, money, or merit — the strongest evidence points to infrastructure: an ecosystem built over decades of consultancies, language institutes, and family networks that makes "study in Japan" a default option in Kathmandu and an exotic one in Kochi. Adjusted for population, Nepal sends over 2,000 times more students to Japan than India does. The routes Indians are best placed to use — English-taught degrees, MEXT and other scholarships, and direct university admission — are actually stronger than the language-school route most Nepali students take, and far less crowded.

The numbers, side by side

Japan hit a record 408,069 international students in May 2025 — up 21.2% in a single year (JASSO, 2025 survey). Here's where South Asia stands in that total:

Read that table again. It's not just Nepal. Sri Lanka sends 8 times more students to Japan than India. Bangladesh sends 5 times more. Even Pakistan is close to overtaking India. Among major South Asian countries, India — the world's largest exporter of students, with over 1.3 million studying abroad (MEA, 2024) — is a clear outlier among the major South Asian source countries in the survey.

The per-capita math nobody runs

Divide by population and the gap becomes staggering. Nepal has roughly 3,400 students in Japan per million people at home — using JASSO's 1 May 2025 student counts and approximate national populations, about one in every 300 Nepalis was enrolled as a student in Japan. India's rate is roughly 1.4 per million — about one in every 700,000. That's a per-capita gap of more than 2,000× between two neighbouring countries applying under the same broad Japanese student-residence framework.

When a gap is that extreme, the explanation is never "Indians don't want to study abroad" (they demonstrably do) or "Japan doesn't admit Indians" (it demonstrably does — Indian numbers grew 24% last year). The strongest evidence points to migration infrastructure — networks, consultancies, and established pathways. So let's look at Nepal's.

What Nepal built that India didn't

1. A consultancy ecosystem that defaults to Japan. Every Nepali studying abroad needs a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from Nepal's Ministry of Education. In fiscal year 2080/81 (mid-2023 to mid-2024), Nepal Ministry of Education (MoEST) data reported by Abroad Advise shows 34,731 NOCs issued for Japan in FY2080/81 — nearly double second-place Canada's 15,982 (source). Japan was Nepal's largest destination by NOCs issued that year. Kathmandu's streets are lined with Japanese-language institutes and education consultancies that handle everything — language prep, school selection, visa paperwork — the way Indian consultancies do for Canada or Australia. In India, try finding an agent in a tier-2 city who has ever processed a Japan student visa.

2. A 300,000-strong diaspora network. There were 300,992 Nepali residents in Japan at the end of 2025 — the fifth-largest foreign nationality, up from just 24,071 in 2012 (Immigration Services Agency, end-2025 statistics). Indians in Japan number about 59,000 (58,999 at the end of 2025). A JICA-funded study by Kathmandu's Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility found that family, friend, and relative networks in Japan influence every major step of a Nepali student's migration — choosing Japan, choosing the school, even choosing the part-time job (CESLAM, Nepali Migration to Japan, 2026). When your cousin can receive you at the airport and your uncle's restaurant can give you your first shift, the leap stops feeling like a leap.

3. A standard on-ramp: the language school. Here's the structural detail that explains almost everything. Of Nepal's 100,239 students, 44,632 — nearly half — are enrolled in Japanese language institutes, not degree programmes. Nepalis are the single largest nationality in Japan's language schools, ahead of even China (JASSO). The model: enrol in a 1–2-year language course (with generally less demanding academic entry requirements than a university degree programme), work part-time up to the legal 28 hours a week to offset costs, then progress to a vocational college, university, or a work visa. It's a low-barrier, well-worn path — every consultancy in Kathmandu can package it.

India's 2,095 students are the mirror image: about 79% are in higher education (Komichi calculation based on JASSO data) — universities, graduate schools — and only around 400 in language institutes. Indians who go to Japan are much more concentrated in higher education than in language institutes. For those who want to study in English, Japan also offers a growing number of English-taught degree programmes — there are simply very few Indian students overall.

Komichi calculation based on JASSO 2025 data:

One line under it: Same country next door, opposite shapes — Nepal's numbers are built on the language-school pipeline; India's small population is concentrated in higher education.

The honest part: what the Nepali route actually costs

This is where we tell you not to romanticise the pipeline — because the same CESLAM study documents its price.

In the CESLAM study, 80.6% of the 93 student-visa respondents reported or expected total migration costs of NPR 1–1.5 million (about ₹6–9 lakh, depending on the exchange rate) to get to Japan through the consultancy-plus-language-school route. Nearly a quarter finance it with loans from banks, cooperatives, and relatives (CESLAM 2026). That debt then has to be serviced on part-time wages — and the earn-while-you-learn math is tighter than agents admit. At Japan's FY2026 national weighted-average minimum wage of ¥1,177/hour, working the full permitted 28 hours a week comes to about ¥143,000/month gross (~₹89,000) — more in Tokyo (¥1,280), less in lower-wage prefectures — and that's before rent, food, and the next semester's language-school fees — we've run that math honestly in our minimum wage guide and student life guide.

Japan's regulators have noticed the strain in parts of this pipeline too: MEXT now publicly designates institutions with "improper international student enrollment management" for corrective guidance — one university appears with that flag in the JASSO survey's own top-30 list. And a language school certificate, by itself, is not a degree: the route only pays off if you complete the next step.

The lesson for Indians isn't "do what Nepal does." It's narrower and more useful: the gap shows Japan's student pathway is genuinely accessible at scale — over 100,000 enrolled students from one small neighbouring country — while the strongest routes into it remain uncrowded.

Why this is actually good news if you're applying from India

Because India skipped the language-school wave, Indian applicants are concentrated in pathways with relatively little Indian competition:

English-taught degrees. Japan has hundreds of English-taught bachelor's and master's programmes — our finder currently lists over 500 — no Japanese required for admission. Nepal's pipeline barely touches these. Browse them with our English-taught programs finder, and see the full cost comparison vs Canada, Germany, and Australia — a two-year MS at a Japanese national university runs roughly a quarter of the Canadian bill.

Scholarships. The MEXT scholarship pays full tuition plus a monthly stipend, and relatively few Indians currently apply — our MEXT guide walks through the embassy route. Beyond MEXT, dozens of university and foundation scholarships accept Indian applicants; filter them by level and amount in the Scholarship Finder.

A cleaner visa path. University-admitted students apply for a Certificate of Eligibility through their school — no consultancy required. The process, timeline, and documents are in our student visa & CoE guide. If you do want the language-school route, it exists for Indians too — read our honest guide to Japanese language schools first, including when it makes sense and when it doesn't.

India's 24% growth last year suggests this is starting to change. Because India's student numbers remain small, Indian applicants currently face relatively little India-specific competition in Japan-focused pathways — an advantage that tends to shrink as a country's pipeline matures.

FAQ

Why do so many Nepalis choose Japan over Canada or Australia? Established infrastructure and cost. Japan issues more Nepali study NOCs than any other country — nearly double Canada — because consultancies, language institutes, and a 300,000-strong diaspora make it the low-friction default, and the language-school entry route has far lower academic and financial entry barriers than a Canadian degree (MoEST FY 2080/81 data).

How many Indian students are in Japan right now? 2,095 as of 1 May 2025, per JASSO — up 24.3% year on year. About 1,661 are in higher education (universities and graduate schools) rather than language schools.

Is it harder for Indians to get a Japanese student visa than for Nepalis? No — the visa category and requirements are the same. The difference is application volume, not approval policy. Indians typically apply with direct university admission, which is generally a well-documented, school-sponsored process. See our CoE guide.

Can I fund my studies in Japan with part-time work like Nepali students do? Partially, not fully. Student visas allow up to 28 hours a week; at typical wages that may cover living costs in a modest city but rarely tuition too. Treat part-time income as a supplement, not a funding plan — the honest math is here.

Do I need to know Japanese to study in Japan? Not for admission to English-taught programmes, though everyday Japanese makes life (and part-time work, and job hunting after) far easier. For Japanese-taught degrees, N2 is a common guideline, though actual requirements vary by institution and programme — start with why study in Japan and the Study hub to map your path.

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Should an Indian copy the Nepali route?

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Nepal answered the question "can ordinary South Asian families send their kids to Japan?" a decade ago, a hundred thousand times over. The question left for you is only which route fits. Start tonight: run the Scholarship Finder and shortlist three funded programmes you could apply to this cycle.

This article is general information, not legal, immigration, tax, financial, or medical advice. Rules, fees, and figures change and vary by individual circumstances — verify the latest details with official sources (e.g. the Immigration Services Agency of Japan and the relevant embassy or test body) and consult a qualified professional before making decisions.

Sources

• JASSO — Result of International Student Survey in Japan, 2025 (student counts by nationality and institution type; accessed 8 Aug 2026)
• JASSO survey full data (PDF) (language-institute and higher-education splits; accessed 8 Aug 2026)
• CESLAM / JICA — Nepali Migration to Japan: Pathways, Costs and Decision-making (2026) (migration costs, loans, social networks; accessed 8 Aug 2026)
• Abroad Advise — Country-wise NOC report, FY 2080/81 (Nepal MoEST NOC figures; accessed 8 Aug 2026)
• Immigration Services Agency — foreign residents, end-2025 (Nepal 300,992) (accessed 17 Sep 2026)