Friends · the finding nobody expects
Your Japanese friends will not come from your university. They will come from your part-time job.
When the government asked international students where they actually mix with Japanese students, the winner was not a class, a club, or an orientation event. It was the place they went to earn money.
Based on JASSO's FY2023 survey · 7,867 responses · 9 min read
Shares of all the places named by the 5,554 students who mix with Japanese students at all, so they sum to 100. At Japanese language schools the part-time job figure rises to 40.6% — higher than every school-organised option combined.
China 131,097 · Nepal 100,239 · Vietnam 43,366 · Myanmar 29,413 · Sri Lanka 17,626 · South Korea 14,612 · Bangladesh 11,392 · Taiwan 7,989 · Indonesia 7,032 · United States 4,579 · Mongolia 3,994 · Thailand 3,538 · Malaysia 2,599 · Uzbekistan 2,519 · Philippines 2,492 · France 2,378 · India 2,095 · Pakistan 1,976 · Russia 1,404 · Germany 1,215 · United Kingdom 1,007
Enrolment as of 1 May 2025. Each page shows the language-school split, the money, and the route people from that country actually take. All twenty-one together.
The Japanese student sitting next to you spends between ¥1,067,200 and ¥2,689,100 a year
Japan's own survey of its own students, published this March, leaves international students out on purpose. Income rose 3.2% in two years. Spending rose 10.7%. And two facts decide almost the whole bill.
Over a million people applied for the JLPT in one sitting. The exam Japanese universities built for admissions is held in thirteen countries
The JLPT runs in 81 countries. The EJU, which replaced it for undergraduate admission in 2002, runs in 13 — all in Asia. And 266 Japanese institutions will admit you on it before you ever travel.
A Japanese university has already published what happens in week 11 of a class you have not enrolled in
The week list, the marking split to the percentage point, and the notes at the bottom about the laptop you will need. Two ordinances make it public. Two universities let you read it in English with no account.
Every doctoral thesis in Japan is required to be online. Almost nobody applying has read one
A ministerial ordinance requires the abstract and the examiners' review within three months, and the full text within a year. You can read exactly what a lab produces before you write to it.
Japan is famous for its science. 1.7% of the international students here are studying it
Every English guide leads with robotics and materials science. The May 2025 census counts 4,633 international students in the natural sciences — and 17,332 in art.
Osaka's average August night is 25.8°C. That is the number nobody quotes
Kyoto and Osaka have the lowest relative humidity of any major city in Japan, and the most oppressive air in it. The measure everybody quotes is the wrong measure — and the one that matters is taken at night.
Two in five undergraduates went to a Japanese language school first. One in seven doctoral students did
Whether you need a language school before you apply depends almost entirely on what you are applying to. 63.1% of students came straight in — but only 48.2% of undergraduates.
Language school or university, the income is the same. Where it comes from is not
¥169,000 a month against ¥171,000. But the scholarship is worth ¥31,000 a month at a university and ¥5,000 at a language school, and work fills the gap.
Half the students who arrived expecting the worst of Japanese people changed their minds
40.0% say their impression of Japanese people improved, 8.7% say it got worse — and the group that moved most is the one that arrived doubtful.
Half of you are worried about making friends. That is not the thing that goes wrong
Feared beforehand: relationships 49.8%, studies 49.4%, money 38.3%. Reported afterwards: money 71.4%, relationships 17.0%, studies 11.1%.
Nepal has more than doubled, and vocational schools have overtaken universities — both in two years
279,274 students in May 2023; 408,069 in May 2025. Most published advice describes the map from before.
49.5% of you will struggle to find information. What you will find instead is one person's story
The three most-used sources are all people. Every official channel is at the bottom — JASSO itself is consulted by 3.7%.
The city you pick costs you twice what the school does
71.4% call Japan expensive. Broken apart, the choice of city moves your monthly cost about twice as much as the choice of institution.
85.2% are satisfied with their school. Everything they are not satisfied with happens outside the classroom
Teaching quality is named as a strength five times more often than a weakness. Only three items come out negative: housing, clubs, and meeting Japanese students.
Two in three students fall ill in Japan. One in seven of them just waits it out
68.0% report illness or injury since enrolling. The share who saw neither a doctor nor a pharmacist has risen in every survey since 2019.
The law lets you work 28 hours a week. At a language school, most of you will use nearly all of them
65.2% have a job. But 72.1% of working language school students are at twenty hours or more, against 19.5% doing a master's.
More of you will work twenty hours a week than will study twenty — until you reach graduate school
Two questions, asked separately, that nobody has put side by side. The balance tips at exactly one point: the undergraduate degree.
77.7% of you will choose your room by price. 2.7% will think about who you might meet there
And the data says they are right to. What the room actually decides is whether you will need a guarantor — 54.9% renting privately, 29.6% in a school dorm.
Almost half of you will be asked for a guarantor. Most of you do not have one
A guarantor agrees to pay your rent if you cannot. 48.7% were asked for one, and only 19.3% used a guarantee company.
Your Japanese friends will come from your part-time job, not your university
The four channels a school organises add up to 43.6%. The part-time job alone is 25.4% — and at a language school, 40.6%.
54.4% of you want to work here afterwards. What you ask for is not a job — it is a faster visa change
Asked what would help most when job hunting, students named the immigration paperwork first — and that answer has grown at each of the last three surveys.
At a Japanese language school, that is the share of working students putting in twenty hours a week or more
The legal ceiling is 28 hours. 27.2% of them report 25 or more — a band with only three hours of room above its floor.
At a master's programme the same figure is 3.6%. Same country, same visa, same rule. A different life.
Read the breakdown →Can you actually afford Japan?
Your family's support, your working hours, your hourly rate — against what students in that region really spend.
Should you count on a scholarship?
65.3% at a doctoral programme. 13.2% at a language school. And what each is worth once you spread it across everyone.
Which route do people from your country take?
408,069 students as of May 2025. Nepal is now 100,239 of them, up 54.7% in a single year.
The numbers on this page have an expiry date
They come from a survey taken in 2023, when Japan had 279,274 international students. It now has 408,069 — and the fastest-growing groups are the ones that survey covers least. When the next round is published we recalculate every figure here and send you what moved.
Free. Every figure links to the government source it came from. What we do with your address.