The Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) Visa

The Specified Skilled Worker visa (特定技能, SSW) was created to fill staffing gaps in industries facing serious labour shortages. Unlike the office-and-technical work visa, it is built for skilled frontline work — care, food service, construction, farming, manufacturing — and it now covers a defined list of 16 sectors after a major 2024 expansion.

This guide explains which sectors qualify, the all-important split between Type 1 and Type 2, the skills and language tests that gate entry, how the status handles family and long-term settlement, and how it connects to the Technical Intern system that is being replaced from 2027.

The 16 sectors

The status is only open to designated labour-shortage fields, so the first question is always whether your line of work is on the list. As of the 2024 cabinet decision there are 16 fields, including:

• Caregiving (介護)
• Building cleaning
• Industrial product manufacturing (a merger of the former materials, industrial-machinery, and electrical-electronics fields)
• Construction
• Shipbuilding and ship machinery
• Automobile repair and maintenance
• Aviation
• Accommodation
• Agriculture
• Fishery
• Food and beverage manufacturing
• Food service (restaurants)
• Automobile transportation — added in 2024
• Railways — added in 2024
• Forestry — added in 2024
• Timber industry — added in 2024

Each field has its own supervising ministry and its own skills test, so the exact job tasks that count vary sector by sector. The four fields added in 2024 had their detailed operational rules and tests rolled out through 2024 and 2025, so if you are targeting road transport, railways, forestry, or the timber industry, confirm the current test schedule for your country before committing. If your work is not on this list at all, SSW is not the route — an office or technical role belongs on the work visa instead, and there is no way to force an unlisted job through the SSW category.

Type 1 vs Type 2

There are two tiers, and the difference shapes your whole future in Japan.

Type 1 (特定技能1号) is where almost everyone begins. It is deliberately time-limited: the total stay is capped at five years, and you cannot normally bring family. It is designed as a working stint, not a settlement track.

Type 2 (特定技能2号) is the prize. The period of stay is renewable with no total cap, and you can bring a spouse and children. It requires a higher, more supervisory level of skill, but it turns SSW from a temporary job into a genuine long-term life. Until recently Type 2 existed in only two fields; the 2024 reforms opened it across almost the whole list, which is why planning toward it now makes sense for far more workers.

Passing the tests

To qualify for Type 1 you generally need to pass two things: a skills test for your specific sector and a Japanese-language test showing you can function at work and in daily life. The skills test is set by the ministry that supervises your field; the language test is usually the JFT-Basic or an equivalent JLPT level.

There is an important shortcut. People who have completed the relevant Technical Intern Training in a matching field can often transition into SSW Type 1 without retaking the skills and language tests — the intern experience is treated as evidence of the same skill. This is the main pipeline into SSW today, and it is exactly the pipeline the Ikusei Shūrō system will reshape from 2027.

For applicants coming from overseas rather than from an internship, the tests are the gate, and they are held both inside Japan and in a growing number of sending countries. The skills test proves you can actually do the sector's core tasks; the language test proves you can take instructions, follow safety rules, and manage daily life. Passing both, plus a job offer from an employer in a qualifying field, is the standard cold-start route into Type 1.

SSW, Technical Intern, and Ikusei Shūrō

It is easy to confuse the three programmes, because workers move between them. Technical Intern Training was officially a skills-transfer programme rather than a labour scheme, and it fed workers into SSW once they finished. From April 2027 it is replaced by Ikusei Shūrō (育成就労), a new system explicitly designed to train workers toward Specified Skilled Worker status rather than pretend to be something else. In other words, the on-ramp is changing name and design, but the destination — SSW — stays the same, which is why understanding SSW itself matters more than ever.

The practical takeaway: if you are early in this journey, aim your skills and language study at the SSW tests directly, because they are the common gate no matter which on-ramp you arrive through.

Family, settlement, and permanent residency

Because Type 1 blocks family and caps the stay at five years, it is not by itself a path to settling in Japan. Type 2 is. Only Type 2 lets your family join you, and only Type 2 has the open-ended stay that a long-term life needs.

There is a further nuance if permanent residency is your goal. Permanent residency asks for around ten years of residence, of which at least five must be on a work status — but time on Specified Skilled Worker Type 1 does not count toward that five-year working portion. Type 2 years, by contrast, are ordinary working-status years. In practice this means the realistic route from SSW to permanent residency runs through Type 2, not Type 1 — another reason to treat Type 2 as the target rather than a bonus.

The employer's support obligation

SSW carries a duty that other work statuses do not put on the employer in the same way. A company hiring a Type 1 worker must provide a defined package of registered support: a pre-arrival orientation, help opening a bank account and finding housing, interpreting and language assistance, guidance on public procedures, and a route for consultations and complaints. Employers that cannot run this in-house must contract a registered support organisation (登録支援機関) to do it.

For the worker, this is a genuine protection rather than paperwork. It means Type 1 comes with a legal expectation that someone is responsible for helping you settle in — a meaningful difference from arriving cold on a general work visa. When you compare job offers, it is worth asking who provides the support and how, because the quality of that support shapes your first year more than almost anything else.

From application to arrival

The mechanics otherwise resemble other work statuses. You line up an employer in a qualifying sector, pass (or waive, via Technical Intern experience) the skills and language tests, and your employer supports the application — a Certificate of Eligibility if you are overseas, or a change of status if you are already in Japan. Once on Type 1, your period of stay is granted in shorter blocks that you renew, up to the five-year total cap; each renewal is a fresh check that you are still employed in the sector and still meeting the conditions. The Certificate of Eligibility is free to file, while a change of status or an extension inside Japan costs 6,000 yen in person or 5,500 yen online since the April 2025 fee revision. The strategic goal throughout those five years is to build the skill and record that let you test into Type 2 before the cap runs out.

Where SSW fits among Japan's work statuses

Specified Skilled Worker is the right answer when the job is skilled frontline work in a shortage sector. If your role is office, technical, or professional, the Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services work visa is the correct status instead, and high earners or advanced-degree holders should look at the Highly Skilled Professional route for its faster settlement benefits. Within SSW itself, the whole game is moving from Type 1 to Type 2: that step is what unlocks family, an unlimited stay, and a credible path to permanent residency.

This is general information only and not legal advice.