What Is the SSW Visa in Japan?

SSW stands for Specified Skilled Worker. In Japanese, it's called Tokutei Ginou. It's a Japan work visa for foreigners that started in 2019, because the country doesn't have enough workers in certain jobs.

With this visa, you don't need a degree. You just need to pass two tests, one for your skills, and one for basic Japanese language. This is why people often call it Japan's main visa route for unskilled and semi-skilled jobs, even though "unskilled" isn't quite fair, since you still need to pass a real skills test.

Japan has a lot of older people and fewer young workers. So there aren't enough people to work in places like hospitals, farms, factories, and construction sites. That's why Japan opened the SSW visa to foreign workers, gaikokujin roudousha, including people from India.

The government has set a five-year target for SSW workers, according to figures published by Japan's Immigration Services Agency. As of the end of December 2025, the agency reported a record 390,296 SSW visa holders in Japan, so there's still a lot of room for more applicants, including from India. Because this number changes every few months, always check the Immigration Services Agency's latest published statistics before relying on any figure, including this one.

From what I've seen working with candidates on this specific visa, the applicants who move fastest aren't always the most qualified on paper, they're the ones who start their Japanese language prep early and don't wait until they've "decided for sure" to begin studying.

SSW covers 19 types of jobs. Here are some of the main ones:

Each field has its own test. So the caregiver skills test for the Nursing Care field is different from the test for a driver or a farmer. Note that this SSW field is officially called Nursing Care, and covers nursing-care worker (caregiver) roles, not registered nurse positions, which follow a separate licensing path in Japan. If you're specifically looking at nursing-care jobs, we've covered that in full detail in our Nursing Jobs in Japan guide.

There are two levels: Type 1 and Type 2. Here's the simple difference:

Most people start with Type 1. A few, in certain jobs, can move up to Type 2 later. One thing to know: nursing care jobs don't have a Type 2 option right now. Nurses who want to stay longer use a different visa for that.

People often mix up SSW with Japan's Student Visa or the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities visa. Here's how they're actually different:

SSW vs Engineer/Specialist in Humanities Visa

The Engineer/Specialist in Humanities visa is for office jobs like IT, marketing, or translation. It usually needs a bachelor's degree, or 10 years of work experience if you don't have one. SSW doesn't need a degree at all, just a skills test. So if you don't have a degree, SSW is usually the easier route.

SSW vs Student Visa

A Student Visa is for studying at a school in Japan, not for full-time work. Students can work part-time, up to 28 hours a week, only with special permission. It doesn't lead to a real job visa on its own. SSW, on the other hand, is a full work visa from day one, with real pay and real working hours.

SSW vs ESD (Formerly TITP)

ESD, Employment for Skill Development, is the system Japan enacted into law on June 21, 2024 to eventually replace the old Technical Intern Training Program. It's set to take effect on April 1, 2027, confirmed on the Immigration Services Agency's official ESD program page. TITP still operates today, and the two systems are often confused, so it's worth knowing they serve different purposes and are on different timelines.

You can check the current, official rules for both statuses directly on the Immigration Services Agency website, since program details are periodically updated by the Japanese government.

You can apply if you:

You don't need a college degree. That's what makes this visa easier to get than the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities visa, and more useful than a student visa if your goal is a real job in Japan.

Pay depends on the job, but most SSW workers earn between ¥180,000 and ¥280,000 per month. That's roughly ₹1,00,000 to ₹1,55,000 a month, though this changes with exchange rates. This is before extra pay for night shifts or overtime.

By law, you must be paid the same as a Japanese worker doing the same job. That's a real rule, not just a promise. What can be different between jobs is whether your housing is covered. Always ask about that before you accept an offer.

You need to pass two tests:

You don't need to already speak Japanese to start preparing. Most people learn it through a training course before they take the test.

Below is the simple path candidates take to go from picking their sector to flying to Japan.

The visa paperwork itself usually takes 1 to 3 months once everything is ready. But getting ready, learning Japanese and passing your tests, usually takes several months to about a year, depending on how much Japanese you already know.

Yes. India and Japan made an official agreement in 2021 for this program. It's coordinated on India's side by NSDC International. So it's a real, government-approved path for Indians, not just something private agencies offer.

At NAVIS HR, we help Indian candidates apply for SSW jobs in nursing, driving, and engineering. This includes Japanese language training, test preparation, and help with your visa. If you're weighing SSW against other ways to work abroad, our guide on foreign jobs from India covers the wider picture beyond Japan too. You can also read about our story on the About Us page.