For folks who don’t have a foreign license, what’s the least expensive way to get a DL in Japan?

20 comments

1. u/Inexperiencedblaster did a camp for his

2. The driving test here isn’t testing your ability to drive. It’s testing your ability to memorize the test. You instantly get docked points for not going to driving school.

   Even if you do everything right, the cops will still fail you out of principle

3. Just curious, why do you think you know how to drive if you never had your licence in the states, and haven’t driven here either?

4. I think the least expensive way is actually to pay for the licensed driving school like Koyama. Any other way will require you to take the test at the license center multiple times until you nail it or they think they extorted enough money out of you. The examiner at the license center will also be extra harsh than the one in school which will make it hard to nail. If you pass the driving test at the licensed driving school you just do the paper test at licensing center and be done with it.

5. You aren’t going to pass the full exam without hours of guided practice.

6. > Never got my license in the states

   yet

   > already know how to drive (which I do).

   Something seems off.

   Anyway, yes, you can take the test blind (aka one-shot test), but….

   You first need to get a provisional license, and then get 5 days of documented road practice under supervision with a licensed driver.

   Then you need to pass the written test – 95 questions, 90% or better to pass.

   Finally there’s the practical test. Only 5% of applicants who did not attend driving school pass the practical on their first attempt. – for one shot, it’s only held on weekdays during the day. The median number of attempts to pass the practical when doing the one-shot exam is 12 attempts.

   So – up to you.

7. I had a license in the US, but not an instantly transferable one, so I needed to take a short paper test and the road test.

   I paid a driving school for four hours of course practice. The school I chose had English speaking instructors. The first three hours we did in English, the final hour we did in Japanese so I could learn the correct Japanese to understand what I was being told to do.

   It’s good to practice on a Japanese course, as there are some special maneuvers on the Japanese test that you’d never learn in the US.

8. I would be careful and do driving school for you. I passed it first time without driving school but I had years of driving experience.

   Many people fail their first time here and I’ve heard of people going like 6 times to the DMV.

   Good luck OP.

9. When I got my licence in 2009 here, I went the non school route.
   Failed Karimen twice which drove up the price some but I passed the main test, both written and practical on my first go.
   All in all it cost me 100k then, and that’s including the 5 obligatory lessons between Karimen and the real test.

10. I paid an instructor ¥5000 for a 30 minute crash course on driving in japan, passed the driving test on the second try, it’s not a test of how well you can drive but how good you can follow their rules and memorizing the route

11. I found a Brazilian-run driving school that took me out on the course for a couple hours and then took me to the DMV for the written and practical test. I can’t remember exactly how much it cost, but it was less than 10,000. There were 5 other foreigners and I on test day and I was the only one to pass. I had about 3 years driving experience in the US and an international permit for a little while in Japan for experience, though. As for having a US license, I was told that because laws are different per state that I had to start from scratch…I have no idea how it works now because that was 14 years ago.

12. First, do you really need one? Japan public transpo is pretty robust.

13. If you really know how to drive and have read a recent book from a driving school, the least expensive way to get it directly from the driving license test center. You have to take three tests (paper, practice licence, and regular license), with a mandatory wait of some time between each, not least because you have to put in some hours of driving when you have the practice licence. I had to pay about ¥10,000 for a one-day refresher course at a local driving school before I was issued an actual license; I presume that is mandatory.
    Note that I did it about 10 years ago at the Fuchu (Tokyo) driving center. The most difficult part for me was the driving test for the practice licence because the curbs on some parts of the course were almost invisibly low. The final driving test was on the streets in actual weekday traffic.

14. The answer is “it depends”.

    On paper, the absolute cheapest route is just going to the licensing center/DMV and taking the tests for your learners permit and actual license there.

    In practice, it might actually be cheaper to go to a proper driving school, since unless the cop working as an examiner that day likes you very much, you might spend 6 or more months (in Tokyo, there’s usually a gap of 3 or so weeks between attempts) and an amount of money comparable to the driving school fee doing repeat tests over and over. Personally, I only know one person who got his license that way and he always brags about it because even among Japanese people it’s considered notoriously difficult.

    Myself, I just decided to suck it up, went to a 合宿 driving school and got my license there in 2 weeks with 0 hassle.

15. You don’t *have* to take driving school; you can just study on your own and then schedule the test.

    But if you don’t have a license from your home state, you’ll need to pass the full written test, not the abbreviated test given when you’re already licensed in your home state.

    And your friends *can’t* let you practice driving in their car before you pass both the written and driving tests.

16. Definitely try the test without the school and then come back and tell us how you did. Don’t leave us hanging.

    I can tell you from experience they will fail you because the instructors all know when someone comes in without having gone to the school. They don’t want to pass you, and I guarantee you their #1 objective is to find reasons to fail you. They don’t want drivers on the road who didn’t get driving lessons, so they consider it an honorable mission to make sure you don’t.

17. Least expensive would be to find an affordable driving school (e.g., 200k yen).

    Just taking the tests is like gambling. You could end up throwing more money away trying to pass/win (if you do). Then on top of that, you’d have to go to driving school (200k yen) if you didn’t pass and didn’t give up. Since you have a lot of extra time, it’s a good time to go to driving school.

    Just stop and think. If there were a cheaper way that was feasible, most young Japanese would be going that route too.

18. Your experience will vary wildly based on who is supervising your test. Going to driving school is almost seen as a right of passage, a necessary step to getting a drivers license. As such, don’t be surprised if on more than one occassion the supervisor fails you and gives you the feedback off, “You are no good at the basics of driving, you need to go to driving school” – I am not saying they are right, but that is just the attitude of a lot of people in the test centers.

    Also, don’t be surprised if you have to take the test up to 12 times either. Some people call it strict, but to be honest, I think it’s kinda bs the reasons they have for failing people.

    Finally, if you’re Japanese isn’t good, you may struggle in the tests. The licence center examiners neither slowed down or simplified their instructions while I did my tests. At that time, my Japanese was rudimentary. If I hadn’t known the courses ahead of time, I would have really struggled. They will fail you for not following the course precisely – my first fail was because on a two lane right turn, I was in the left lane instead of right. I noticed after the turn when ahead I saw my lane goes only into the mall, so I switched lanes and carried on. In the UK, that would have been no issue, here it was the reason I failed my first on-road test.

    I haven’t seen anyone else mention it yet but you will also have to attend a first-aid course as part of getting a drivers license here. I don’t think people have to when converting, but going fresh like the locals then it is a requirement. Driving schools usually arrange this.

    Honestly, I would at least get in touch with a driving school and see if theres a deal to be made. I see in other posts you are confident, boarding on arrogant if truth be told, but a few catch up lessons – especially to learn the courses for the tests and get used to the small narrow roads, could end up saving you money in the long run.

19. op be driving like fast and furious in tokyo drift.
    Sure why not trying to book a test at the license center and surprise the judges by how good you are driving on the right side of the road in front of other examiner applicants

20. The least expensive route here is to get then textbooks for the practical and the actual written test for free or for cheap, study it until you’re good enough to pass both easily, and then just go and ace the practical tests cause you know how to drive.

    Realistically speaking, they will demand very specialized knowledge and have you follow pretty strict instructions and rules and procedures, and there’s a good chance you’ll get points docked for not following these procedures during the practical, and you’ll probably get some questions wrong during the written tests just because they use weird wording and some laws are pretty Japan specific.

    The *easiest* way for someone to go from 0 knowledge in Japanese road and traffic laws is to go to drivers camp and get your learners permit there and then just graduate from there with all the practical tests done, go to the closest examination center from where you live, and finish the final written test. “Easiest” meaning that it’s relatively safe and you’ll probably end up getting it all done within like 2-3 weeks.