Working as a physician in Japan
What official sources say about working as a physician in Japan: how foreign qualifications are recognised.
Physician is a regulated profession in Japan. Foreign qualifications go through: Foreign medical-school graduates or foreign medical-license holders require Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare recognition of eligibility to sit the Japanese national examination; the document lists physician among the covered qualifications.
- Regulation
- Regulated
- Recognition route
- Foreign medical-school graduates or foreign medical-license holders require Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare recognition of eligibility to sit the Japanese national examination; the document lists physician among the covered qualifications.
Regulation and recognition
Physician is a regulated profession in Japan.
- Recognition route
- Foreign medical-school graduates or foreign medical-license holders require Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare recognition of eligibility to sit the Japanese national examination; the document lists physician among the covered qualifications. MHLW screens foreign education/licence documents for eligibility. An eligible direct-route applicant can take the national exam; another route requires the preliminary exam and, after passing it, at least one year of clinical and public-health practical training before the national exam.
- Recognition authority
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare; MHLW grants exam-eligibility recognition for foreign medical-school graduates or foreign physician-licence holders.
- Language requirement
- Applicants undergo a Japanese clinical-ability assessment of medical interviewing, listening, speaking, writing, reading and examination; the published pass rule is at least 60/100 overall and no zero rating. The authority does not state a CEFR equivalence.
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APA citation
ImmigrationDB. (2026, October 16). Physician in Japan: recognition [ImmigrationDB compilation; version 7254cee8afaa76a4c67fcd200056a294]. ImmigrationDB. https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/physician/japan/ Retrieved 2026-10-16. Compilation license: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/BibTeX citation
@misc{immigrationdb_immigrationdb_physician-in-japan-recognition_397fc5f72f8f,
author = {ImmigrationDB},
title = {Physician in Japan: recognition},
publisher = {ImmigrationDB},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-16},
version = {7254cee8afaa76a4c67fcd200056a294},
url = {https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/physician/japan/},
note = {Retrieved 2026-10-16. ImmigrationDB compilation. Compilation license: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/},
}Markdown citation
[Physician in Japan: recognition](https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/physician/japan/) — ImmigrationDB; ImmigrationDB; version 7254cee8afaa76a4c67fcd200056a294; retrieved 2026-10-16; built 2026-10-16.This citation identifies the ImmigrationDB compilation/page. Underlying source publishers and datasets retain their own terms; inspect the Sources section and cite those records separately. View the underlying source records.