The Benefits of Taking IT Notification Exams
The IT Notification, published by the Ministry of Justice, mainly relates to the following content.
- Relaxation of the Conditions for the "Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services" Visa
- Point Bonus for "Highly Skilled Professionals"
Relaxation of the Conditions for the "Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services" Visa
First, let's look at one of the conditions for the "Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services" visa.
Foreigners who want to work in jobs that require technical and academic knowledge in the fields of natural sciences or humanities must meet any one of the following conditions.
- Graduated from a university with a major related to the technical and academic knowledge
- Completed a relevant course at an advanced vocational school in Japan
- Have 10 or more years of relevant practical experience (including periods spent studying related technical and academic subjects at a university or higher vocational school)
Jobs related to this condition include online game system development, programmers, etc.
In practice, the condition is usually met by graduating from university or completing a course at an advanced vocational school in Japan.
However, if you want to work in IT-related jobs, passing the exams mentioned in this IT Notification allows you to bypass this condition. You don't need a university degree, completion of an advanced vocational school course in Japan, or 10 years or more of relevant practical experience to get the benefit of this condition.
*The ordinance stipulating the standards under Article 7, Paragraph 1, Item 2 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (Ministry of Justice Order No. 16, Heisei 2), the table in the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services section of the lower part of Table 1-2, and the exception provision under the first item of the lower part of the activity section.
Point Bonus for "Highly Skilled Professionals"
The Highly Skilled Professional system offers a much lower threshold for obtaining permanent residence in Japan compared to other foreign residents. If you meet the score requirements of the Highly Skilled Professional system, which is 70 points or higher, you have two options. The first option is to change your current visa to the "Highly Specialized/Technical Occupation 1" category, or directly obtain it. The benefit of this option is that you can immediately receive a 5-year period of stay, and after another 3 or 1 year, you can apply for permanent residence. The second option is to keep your current visa and directly apply for permanent residence after 3 or 1 years.
The scoring criteria for the Highly Skilled Professional system includes factors such as annual salary and educational background. As long as you meet the criteria, you can earn points. In the "Advanced Specialized/Technical Field", there is a scoring item for "Qualifications". If you hold any of the following qualifications or pass the relevant exams, you can earn 5 points per qualification or exam, with a total of up to 10 points.
1. Japanese national qualifications related to the business (exclusive qualification for business or title)
2. Pass the exams specified in the IT Notification, or hold the specified qualifications
The first type of exclusive qualification or title must be related to the job you are working in, and many qualifications have a high level of difficulty. Whether it is related to the job you are working in may not be known until the visa change process. It is even possible that after obtaining the qualification, the inspector may say it is not related to your job and you will have wasted time and effort.
The second type of IT Notification exams, since they are publicly announced by the Ministry of Justice in advance, passing these exams definitely allows you to earn points. This benefit is that during the subsequent visa review process, one source of uncertainty is eliminated. If you pass two or more exams, you can definitely get a 10-point bonus.
Exams Mentioned in the IT Notification
The exams included in the IT Notification and the study time required for each exam are listed in the table below. Please note that the study times listed in the table are for reference only. If you already have some knowledge of the exam content, the required time may be shorter than the times listed in the table. Conversely, if you start from scratch, it may take longer than the times listed in the table.
Other than the exams listed in the table, there are more than 20 additional exams. However, only these remain available for examination at the moment. If you have taken similar exams in the past, please check the 
Official Website of the Immigration and Refugee Bureau to confirm.
- Exam
- Study Time
- Information Security Engineering Professional
- 150〜500 hours
- IT Strategist
- 100〜200 hours
- System Architect
- 100〜200 hours
- Project Manager
- 100〜200 hours
- Network Specialist
- 50〜150 hours
- Database Specialist
- 150〜200 hours
- Embedded Systems Specialist
- 150〜300 hours
- IT Service Manager
- 100〜150 hours
- System Auditor Technician
- 100〜150 hours
- Applied Information Technology Professional
- 200〜500 hours
- Basic Information Technology Professional
- 100〜200 hours
- Information Security Management
- 50〜200 hours
The Exams Listed in the Notification Are Not Only in Japan
The exams listed in this IT notification include not only Japanese examinations, but also IT-related examinations from multiple countries and regions such as China, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
This means that it is not necessarily a Japanese exam. As long as you pass the relevant examination in your local area, you can also meet the conditions for relaxing the requirements of the "Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services" visa, as well as receive the point bonus for the "Advanced Specialized/Technical Field", making it easier to obtain the relevant visa.
Regarding examinations outside Japan, you can check the Official Website of the Immigration and Refugee Bureau.
Summary
You can now roughly understand that the exams listed in the IT Notification are related to visas and highly skilled professionals. If you don't have any resistance to IT-related exams and there's an exam you're interested in, it's worth giving it a try. Moreover, the content covered by these exams is applicable across various industries, so they will not only be helpful for visas but also beneficial for your work.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope it has been helpful to you.
If you have any questions about the IT Notification, please feel free to consult us via LINE（Computer users can add Line ID: leonghoufaioffice）.
Notes
To make the article easy to read and understand, some legal terms may be appropriately converted into everyday language without changing the original meaning.
For ease of understanding, terms such as "Residence Qualification" or "Stay Qualification" may be written as "Visa".
External links appearing in this article may become invalid or be deleted for certain reasons. If you find any such issues, please inform us through the consultation method. Our office will immediately correct them, and we appreciate your contribution to this website.
Except for the Japanese version, this article also has a traditional Chinese version and a simplified Chinese version. Our office will strive to keep the content of all versions consistent, and try not to change the original meaning. However, due to differences in language habits and reading fluency, it is not possible to achieve a complete translation. If this causes any damage to you, our office will not be responsible.
Regarding the Japanese term "Eiju", we use the term "permanent residence", please take note.