The 1 October 2025 tightening, item by item

What is now wrong in a guide written before October 2025

Source Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese) · Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Amended Road Traffic Act Enforcement Regulations, in force 1 October 2025” (in Japanese) · Kanagawa Prefectural Police — “For foreign nationals taking a driving test or converting a foreign license” (in Japanese)

Address verification: the change that can stop you applying

This is the one to check first, because it is a gate rather than a difficulty. The Kanagawa Prefectural Police state that from 1 October 2025, address verification for foreign nationals was tightened and that people not covered by the Basic Resident Registration Act can no longer obtain or renew a license, apart from a narrow group such as diplomats and consular staff. It applies to driving tests, renewals and address changes alike.

Kanagawa gives worked examples of each side. Covered: mid-to-long-term residents, special permanent residents, and people granted temporary refuge for three months or more. Not covered: short-term visitors such as tourists, people on provisional release, and consular staff. The National Police Agency states the same rule nationally — an applicant outside the Act cannot apply except in the exceptional cases the law provides for.

Source Kanagawa Prefectural Police — “For foreign nationals taking a driving test or converting a foreign license” (in Japanese) · National Police Agency — “For holders of a driving license issued abroad” (in Japanese)

And the paperwork proving it changed too

If you are covered by the Act, your application must include a copy of your 住民票 — resident record — showing all of the items recorded for foreign residents, known as the 特定事項. Kanagawa lists them: nationality, residence status, the expiry date of your period of stay, the date that period ends, your residence card or special permanent resident certificate number, and your category under Article 30-45 of the Act. Holding a valid Japanese license does not exempt you unless it is a My Number license.

• A resident record whose period of stay has already expired will not be accepted.
• A residence card cannot be substituted by a photocopy, or by a receipt from an agent holding it on your behalf.
• Tokyo requires the resident record to have been issued within the past six months.
• Osaka requires the original, not a copy, and requires that it does not show your My Number.

Source Kanagawa Prefectural Police — “For foreign nationals taking a driving test or converting a foreign license” (in Japanese) · Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Amended Road Traffic Act Enforcement Regulations, in force 1 October 2025” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)

The written test: same syllabus, a much less forgiving format

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police list four changes to the knowledge confirmation: illustration questions abolished, the count raised from 10 to 50, the pass mark moved from 7 of 10 to 45 of 50, and the test held once a day in the afternoon.

The count and the pass mark move together in a way that is easy to misread. You are now allowed five wrong answers instead of three — but as a proportion the bar rose from 70 per cent to 90 per cent. Kanagawa publishes the same change as a before-and-after pair, and adds the detail that matters most for revision: the old questions were illustration-based and the current ones are text.

Source Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Amended Road Traffic Act Enforcement Regulations, in force 1 October 2025” (in Japanese) · Kanagawa Prefectural Police — “For foreign nationals taking a driving test or converting a foreign license” (in Japanese)

The format, the exempt countries and the available languages have their own page:

The Japanese driving license test for foreign-license holders

The practical test: do not trust a national list of added tasks

This is where guides that generalise go wrong, because the prefectures do not publish the same thing.

What all three agree on is that tasks were added to the driving course and the marking got stricter. Osaka asks applicants to check the traffic rules and practice driving beforehand so as to pass first time, and points to open-course sessions at the Kadoma test centre and to designated driving schools in the prefecture as places to do that.

Source Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Amended Road Traffic Act Enforcement Regulations, in force 1 October 2025” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese) · Kanagawa Prefectural Police — “For foreign nationals taking a driving test or converting a foreign license” (in Japanese)

A booking made before October does not preserve the old test

Kanagawa states it plainly: anyone taking the test on or after 1 October 2025 must take it under the new method, whether or not they had already booked. An appointment secured under the old rules carries no grandfathering.

The order of the process changed as well. Osaka publishes that from October 2025 the knowledge confirmation is booked at the point your documents clear review, and you attend at the time you are given. In Saitama the document review itself became appointment-only, and so did the knowledge confirmation. Document preparation now sits upstream of test preparation: incomplete papers mean no document review, and no document review means no test slot.

Source Kanagawa Prefectural Police — “For foreign nationals taking a driving test or converting a foreign license” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese) · Saitama Prefectural Police — “The application procedure for foreign license conversion has changed” (in Japanese)

Getting an appointment when there are no slots

Three claims about this change that the police pages checked here do not support

A great deal has been written about this amendment, and some of it is not traceable to any police source. These are the claims this page looked for a primary source for and did not find. They are listed rather than repeated:

That proof of the three-month stay became stricter

That you must have stayed in the issuing country for a cumulative three months or more is stated by the National Police Agency and by every prefectural force checked. That the standard of proof for it changed on 1 October 2025 is not stated by any of them. The requirement is certain; the change to it is not established.

The reason for the amendment

None of the National Police Agency, Tokyo, Osaka, Saitama or Kanagawa pages gives a reason for the change. Any account of why it happened rests on something other than the police record.

That the pass rate fell

No pass rate for the knowledge or practical confirmation is published on any of those pages, before or after the change, so no comparison can be made from the public record.

For the requirements that are established — the three-month stay, and the 29 countries whose license holders are exempt from both confirmations — the sources are:

Source National Police Agency — “For holders of a driving license issued abroad” (in Japanese) · Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Converting a driving license obtained abroad into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)