Gaimen kirikae: converting a foreign driving license in Japan

First check: you may be exempt from both tests

Before reading anything else about the tests, check the issuing country. If your license comes from one of the following, both the knowledge confirmation and the practical confirmation are waived, and the whole procedure reduces to documents:

• Iceland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Austria, the Netherlands, Canada, South Korea, Greece, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Hungary, Finland, France, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Monaco, Luxembourg, Taiwan
• The United States — Ohio, Oregon, Colorado, Virginia, Hawaii, Maryland and Washington only

An Indiana license is exempt from the practical confirmation only. Every other license requires both. Note the shape of the US entry: the exemption is granted state by state, not country-wide, so a license issued by any state not named above gets no exemption at all.

Source Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Converting a driving license obtained abroad into a Japanese license” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)

What "partial exemption" actually means

The National Police Agency describes the mechanism as follows: on application, your knowledge of what is needed to drive, or your driving skill, is confirmed; if you are found to have no impediment to driving, part of the license examination — the written test and the practical test — is waived.

So you do not sit the standard tests. You sit a knowledge confirmation (知識確認) and a practical confirmation (技能確認) instead. These are not the standard tests under another name: their length, their pass mark and their course tasks are set separately, and all three changed on 1 October 2025.

Source National Police Agency — “For holders of a driving license issued abroad” (in Japanese)

What changed on 1 October 2025

Who is eligible

Three requirements apply nationally:

1. You hold a valid driving license issued by a foreign authority.
2. After obtaining it, you stayed in that country for a cumulative three months or more. You must be able to prove it — a passport with entry and exit stamps, or equivalent evidence of the period of stay.
3. You are covered by the Basic Resident Registration Act. A foreign national outside the Act cannot apply, except in the exceptional cases the law provides for.

Applications cannot be made by an agent on your behalf; you must apply in person. And you apply in the prefecture where you live — Osaka states that your registered address must be in Osaka, Tokyo that it must be in Tokyo. There is no choosing a less crowded prefecture.

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

Age and eyesight, as Tokyo publishes them

• Aged 17 years 6 months or over — 16 for an ordinary motorcycle license, 20 for medium, 21 for large. An ordinary or semi-medium license is nevertheless only issued once you are 18.
• Ordinary and motorcycle licenses: vision of 0.7 or better with both eyes and 0.3 or better in each. If one eye is below 0.3 or does not see, the other must have a field of view of 150 degrees or more left and right, with vision of 0.7 or better.
• Semi-medium, medium and large licenses: 0.8 or better with both eyes, 0.5 or better in each, plus a depth-perception test — three attempts on a three-rod apparatus with a mean error of 2 cm or less.
• If you previously held a Japanese license and it was revoked (other than a novice revocation), you must have attended the course for revoked drivers within the year before applying, and the disqualification period must have passed.

Source Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Converting a driving license obtained abroad into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)

The documents

The National Police Agency lists these. Extra documents depend on the issuing country, so the definitive list is the country-by-country table published by the prefecture you will apply in — Tokyo publishes one in Japanese, English and Chinese.

1. The application form, plus a questionnaire about medical conditions and symptoms
2. One application photograph, taken within the previous six months, hatless, front-facing, plain background, showing you from the chest up, 3.0 × 2.4 cm, with your name and the date of the photograph written on the back
3. A copy of your resident record showing your registered domicile — for foreign nationals, the 特定事項 items
4. One document proving your identity: My Number card, passport or similar
5. The foreign license itself. An international driving permit is not accepted in its place.
6. A Japanese translation of that license, produced by a body specified in the Cabinet Order, showing the vehicle types you may drive, the expiry date and any conditions on the license
7. Evidence that you stayed in the issuing country for a cumulative three months or more after obtaining the license — a passport with entry and exit stamps, or equivalent
8. The fee

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)

You cannot translate your own license

The translation must come from a specified body, and the National Police Agency is explicit that sworn or certified translators abroad are not among them. The bodies are:

• The authority that issued the license, or that country’s embassy or consulate in Japan
• For a Taiwanese license, the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association; for a German license, the German automobile federation
• Bodies designated by the National Public Safety Commission — JAF (the Japan Automobile Federation), Ziplus Co. Ltd, and the Association for Supporting Visiting Drivers

Source National Police Agency — “For holders of a driving license issued abroad” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)

Originals, and the copies you also need

Tokyo requires every document as an original and will not accept photocopies. Osaka, separately, requires photocopies in addition to the originals: both sides of the foreign license, and every non-blank page of your passport. So the answer is not "originals or copies" but "originals, plus whichever copies your prefecture asks for". Check the list for the centre you will attend.

Source Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Converting a driving license obtained abroad into a Japanese license” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)

The order of the process — and why the order is the hard part

Since October 2025 the sequence itself is the constraint. Each stage gates the next, so a missing document does not delay you by a day but by a booking cycle.

1. Get the translation. JAF takes applications online from inside Japan and gives a guide time of 2–3 working days for Swiss, German, French, Belgian, Monégasque and Taiwanese licenses, and 5–10 working days for everywhere else.
2. Assemble every document. Saitama requires you to have them all before booking, and asks anyone who does not to cancel and rebook.
3. Book. The mechanism differs by prefecture — Tokyo takes web bookings, Osaka takes bookings by telephone only.
4. Attend the document review and the aptitude test.
5. Sit the knowledge confirmation. In Osaka this is booked at the moment your documents clear review, for a date and time you are given.
6. Sit the practical confirmation. Tokyo states that it cannot be taken on the day you are received, because it is by appointment. In Saitama, only those who pass the knowledge confirmation are told how to book it.
7. Collect the license.

Source JAF (Japan Automobile Federation) — “Driving license translation service” (in Japanese) · Saitama Prefectural Police — “The application procedure for foreign license conversion has changed” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese) · Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Converting a driving license obtained abroad into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)

How booking works, and what to do when there are no slots

Cost

Fees are published prefecturally. These are Tokyo’s:

On top of that comes the translation. JAF revised its prices on 1 July 2026: a translation applied for in order to convert to a Japanese license is ¥6,600 including 10 per cent consumption tax. Saitama collects its fees by cashless payment.

Source Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Converting a driving license obtained abroad into a Japanese license” (in Japanese) · JAF (Japan Automobile Federation) — “Driving license translation service” (in Japanese) · Saitama Prefectural Police — “The application procedure for foreign license conversion has changed” (in Japanese)

How long it really takes

Few forces publish end-to-end timings, but two publish the waits that dominate them:

• Translation: 2–3 or 5–10 working days depending on the issuing country (JAF’s own guide figures).
• Saitama states that the wait for a knowledge-confirmation appointment is around three to four months.
• Osaka states that because applications have increased substantially, the date you are given for the practical confirmation can be a long way out.

Source JAF (Japan Automobile Federation) — “Driving license translation service” (in Japanese) · Saitama Prefectural Police — “The application procedure for foreign license conversion has changed” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)

The four expiry dates that can end your application

If you fail

The practical confirmation is by appointment, and Tokyo states that it cannot be taken on the day you are received — so a failure costs you another booking cycle, not another afternoon. Osaka puts it in terms of who gets a license: licenses are issued to people who can drive according to Japanese traffic rules, and applicants are asked to check the rules and practice beforehand so as to pass first time.

For practice, Osaka points to open-course sessions at the Kadoma test centre and to designated driving schools in the prefecture. It also makes a point worth taking seriously: passing the practical confirmation requires knowing the law you need in order to drive on Japanese roads. It is not a test of car control alone, and reading the Road Traffic Act beforehand is part of preparing for it.

Source Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Converting a driving license obtained abroad into a Japanese license” (in Japanese) · Osaka Prefectural Police — “Converting a foreign license into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)

The license you get

What the Tokyo Metropolitan Police publish about the resulting license:

• A newly obtained license is valid from the date of issue until one month after your third birthday thereafter.
• The band showing the validity period is green. At renewal it can change to blue or gold depending on how long you have held a license continuously and whether you have traffic violations, and the validity period can become five years.
• Your registered domicile — “nationality” for foreign nationals — is not printed on the card. What is recorded on the IC chip can be read with an IC license reader.
• The date of birth is shown in the Japanese era calendar.
• If you count as a novice driver you must display novice plates on the front and rear of the car for one year from the date of issue.
• If your driving history abroad, as recognised from the documents you submitted, is less than three years, the number of days is printed on the back of the license.
• Carrying a passenger on a motorcycle requires one year of license history; doing so on an expressway requires three.

Source Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — “Converting a driving license obtained abroad into a Japanese license” (in Japanese)