I’ve had this intuition, curiosity, and desire to move to Japan for a few years now and actually want to start looking into it more seriously, I’ve slowly started learning the language and have been doing research on the culture, places to live, work, etc and how moving there as an American would work. I was curious as to what the best route would be to get a visa there if I didn’t have a college degree, I’m not sure exactly what I would do for work yet although I know figuring that out is important, what all do I need to know and any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated, also recommendations for work would be great too
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The short answer is no degree, no visa.
You could look into the working holiday visa but that’s only 6 months to a year in length.
Please read the wiki: https://reddit.com/r/movingtojapan/w/index
As others have said, the wiki has a lot of good info. Not to crush your dreams, but Japan generally doesn’t let unskilled workers in and there’s no working holiday visa for US citizens. I believe the only way to move without a degree is 10 years of work experience in a skilled field and even that is iffy. The longest you could stay as a tourist is 3 months and you’re not allowed to work. If you’re really desperate to stay 6 months, the best option to get a visa without a degree would likely be to go to a language school. [It’ll be near ¥1,000,000 or $7,600 USD](https://gogonihon.com/en/language-school-faq/) minimum though and I don’t know if you’d be allowed to work.
If you got a degree, your options will be different! You could also get a student visa to get your degree in Japan, but that’ll be costly, too. There are some degree programs in English but tuition and cost of living isn’t cheap. Best of luck to you!
Impossible without a degree.
Probably quickest way is to enlist in the US army then get deployed to okinawa (since you don’t have a degree).
Quickest way if you do have a degree is to become an English teacher
>I was curious as to what the best route would be to get a visa there if I didn’t have a college degree
The best, and ***only*** route available to you is to go back to school and get the degree.
Immigration requires a bachelor’s degree or higher to issue pretty much every class of work visa.
You could do language school. It’s certainly not free but you’d get a visa. Or just wait till the borders are open to tourists and visit for a short time. If you want to live and work here the only real option is earning a degree. But why not? Never knew anyone to regret getting a degree.
With your conditions the only option you have is going to a language school. You can get a visa for 1 year, but you have to prove you have at least 1.5 million yen (I think. May be 2 mill) in a bank account. Tuition for a year will run between 800,000 and 1,000,000. You can apply for an exemption that will allow you to work up to 28 hours a week. The only jobs you’re likely to get will be hotel cleaning, conbini, or restaurants.
Speaking from the UK, we can get a 3 month tourist visa and extend that to another 3 months on request while still in the country. So that makes your 6 months. If you have the same you can’t work then, but you can save up funds to support yourself and then go out. Maybe you get lucky and find a job while you’re out there, but you’d have to get them to convert you to the proper visa before starting.
get a degree and a job. if you’re dead set on getting to japan eventually, make sure the job is in IT and that you’re really good at it and have a strong career going.