Hey gang. Im trying to figure out a way to acquire a work visa and it seems like my skill set would fit for skilled labor. I’ve been working as a personal trainer with a highly accredited certification for 8 years and have training in martial arts/kickboxing for most of my life and have had amatuer fights. Ideally I would love to open a facility to train kickboxing/be a strength training coach for kickboxers. I understand that could be tough and I might need to get my foot in the door first.
Is a visa for this sort of work possible? I think it fits under the definition of skilled labor. Even if i was to try the “get my foot in the door” option of working as a personal trainer in a commercial gym would they hire an american whos not fluent in japanese?
Thanks in advance I’m also open to any suggestions that could work in this career field.
Edit: forgot to add I’m not picky about the location in Japan if that changes anything.
6 comments
Eh, this is not gonna be super doable.
You *could* get a visa for starting a business in Japan… but the process of making yourself eligible for that would require a huge amount of effort, locking yourself into a very arduous and financially expensive path that I would really not recommend for anyone who isn’t completely wedded to life in Japan for some other reasons.
You couldn’t get a visa to cover this work as a foreign worker; there’s no class that would cover you, AFAIK, and there would be almost no work possible without fluent Japanese. Martial arts instructors are just not in demand.
This is the kind of career that’s only really possible for people who are *already* permanently resident in Japan (ie. without a need for a work visa of some kind).
Nope, no visa for that unfortunately.
Most common jobs people get to come here are English teaching or IT/coding.
Business Manager visa is what you will need. Requiment is 5 million yen investment as well as all licenses and a physical office/location.
Realistically around 7-10 mil. You will also need a business plan fully written and prepared in Japanese. You will need Japanese translators and a lawyer or two.
Skilled visa is a no go for you. So ethier the above or get married to Japanese partner or study in Japan. If you have a 4 year bachelor’s degree you can also teach English.
Also as said above an English only speaking Martial Arts teacher won’t make it very far.
>I’ve been working as a personal trainer with a highly accredited certification for 8 years and have training in martial arts/kickboxing for most of my life and have had amatuer fights.
The trouble with the skilled labor visa is twofold. First, an employer would need to convince immigration that the domestic labor pool is deficient and that they must import foreign talent. I imagine fitness and martial arts instructors are not in short supply here.
Secondly, if the employer is able to convince immigration of the need, they’d then have to convince immigration that you are a world class talent in that field. Is the certification you hold particularly rare or difficult to receive? Have you won multiple international tournaments? Have you written any books or been featured in any trade magazines?
Someone else has mentioned the business manager visa, and that would certainly be the one you’d use to open your own school. But the difficulties there would be in convincing immigration that your business will succeed. If you’ve no history of opening or operating your own school it’s another uphill battle.
As others suggested, you could potentially be eligible for a Business Manager (Startup) visa. It’s also worth noting that the categories of business allowed under such visas are limited depending on the prefecture/city – usually they are limited to IT, health and welfare, and agriculture, with some regional variations. Potentially your facility could fall under the health category, but this is far from certain and you’ll definitely need some good honest advice from immigration lawyers.
Though personally, I would actually take a step back and think about whether this is really something you want to do. Have you spent some time in Japan before? If you have some time and money to spare, I would actually suggest going for a month or two, settling down in a weekly apartment or Airbnb to see whether this really is worth it. Experiencing Japan as a tourist is very different to actually living there, there’s all sorts of everyday stuff you’ll have to deal with in a foreign language, which will be especially tough seeing as you’re not yet fluent. Going there on this kind of visa would be a huge investment of time and money, so before making the leap, I’d try to make sure whether this is the right step to take.
In any case, wish you all the best if you do decide to try and go for it.
To start your own gym/PT entity you’d need a business manager visa.
But let’s say you manage to get a job with a Japanese gym/PT company and operate as an employee, What category of skilled labor do you believe PT falls under?
The categories are:
①Construction, ②Shipbuilding and Ship Machinery, ③Automobile Repair and Maintenance, ④Aviation, ⑤Accommodation, ⑥Care Workers, ⑦Building Cleaning Management, ⑧Agriculture, ⑨Fishery and Aquaculture, ⑩Manufacture of Food and Beverages, ⑪Food Service, ⑫Machine Parts and Tooling, ⑬Industrial Machinery, and ⑭Electric, Electronics and Information.
https://imsvisa.support/en/work-visa/skill/
I guess it’s possible you/your potential employer could try sell it as “care worker” category by PT for rehabilitation. But even then *should* that even work you’d be limited to Specific Skilled visa (i) which is pretty restrictive as specific skilled visa (ii) is only for:
① Construction and ② Shipbuilding and Ship Machinery.
Also visa a side (like let’s just say you have the correct visa) I am quite certain PTs need a personal trainer license to operate in Japan. I.e I don’t think your home country PT license can carry over to Japan. That would likely require a good command of Japanese language.