Japan knowledge base
Hiring Filipino care workers in Japan: the kaigo route.
We recruit for kaigo — nursing care facilities and group homes — on the Specified Skilled Worker route. This is a reference guide to how that route works, what a care worker must hold before a visa can issue, and the Philippine-side chain that sits behind every deployment. We are accepting and fulfilling Japanese job orders now.
Regulatory figures current as of August 2026. Targets, sector definitions and requirements change — confirm the current position with the Immigration Services Agency before acting.
Accepting and fulfilling Japanese job orders
We recruit for nursing care and are taking on Japanese care facility operators and accepting organisations as principals now. The corridor is running rather than planned — we are deploying to it, not only taking orders against it. Send us the roles and the headcount and we will come back on what the Philippine side needs from you.
We are in the process of becoming a registered Sending Organisation. That registration is underway rather than finished, and we will tell you exactly where it stands when you ask.
Why the demand is durable
An ageing population is not a hiring cycle.
Japan’s working-age population has been shrinking for over two decades while the population needing care grows. That is what makes nursing care demand structural rather than cyclical: it does not soften when the economy does. Government estimates put the wider requirement at 6.9 million foreign workers by 2040.
Nursing care sits inside the Specified Skilled Worker programme, whose target is 820,000 across FY2024–FY2028 — more than double the original ceiling — against roughly 370,000 holders in early 2026, with several years of the window still to run. Ministry of Justice figures put SSW Type 1 residents at about 287,900 as of the end of January 2025.
The Philippines is the third-largest source country for SSW at about 10%, behind Vietnam and Indonesia — and Filipino caregivers are underrepresented relative to the opportunity. That headroom is what this corridor rests on.
The routes
Three ways into care work, and only one worth building on.
| Route | Position |
|---|---|
| Specified Skilled Worker (特定技能) | Skilled work visa covering nursing care, no degree required — the route we recruit on |
| Technical Intern Training (TITP) | Legacy programme, being abolished and replaced from April 2027 |
| Professional employment | Engineer / Specialist in Humanities — requires a bachelor's degree |
Any care plan built on the technical intern programme carries a 2027 expiry date. For kaigo, the Specified Skilled Worker route is the durable one, and it is the only route we recruit on.
Two tiers
Kaigo does not progress the way other sectors do.
Your workers enter on SSW-1. The second tier, SSW-2, covers nearly every sector except nursing care — care has its own dedicated residence status instead, so the progression conversation with a caregiver is a different one from the rest of the programme.
| Aspect | Where a caregiver stands |
|---|---|
| Entry level | SSW-1 — the tier every kaigo worker enters on |
| Maximum stay | 5 years cumulative on SSW-1 |
| Family | Not permitted on SSW-1 |
| Support organisation | SSW-1 must be supported by a registered support organisation (登録支援機関) |
| Progression | Not via SSW-2, which excludes nursing care — care has its own dedicated status |
Why this matters for retention
Worker requirements
What a candidate must hold before a visa can issue.
| Requirement | Standard |
|---|---|
| Age | 18 or over |
| Skills evaluation | Must pass the Nursing Care Skills Evaluation Test |
| Language | JFT-Basic, JLPT N4, or NAT-TEST Level 4 equivalent |
| Job offer | Confirmed employment contract with a Japanese employer before visa application |
| Good standing | No criminal record and no Japanese immigration violations |
| Nursing care | Three tests, not two — see the section below |
The language certificate is a prerequisite rather than a preference: without it, no visa issues. For kaigo there are two language hurdles rather than one, which is why operators planning a care cohort should treat language standing as the first filter on any shortlist, not the last.
Nursing care
Kaigo is the only sector requiring three tests.
Every other sector requires a general Japanese certificate and a skills evaluation. Nursing care adds a third exam — a sector-specific Japanese test — administered by Prometric and issued by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
| Test | Purpose |
|---|---|
| JFT-Basic (A2) or JLPT N4 | General Japanese, the same as every other sector |
| Nursing Care Japanese Language Evaluation Test | Caregiving vocabulary — additional to the general certificate |
| Nursing Care Skills Evaluation Test | Practical caregiving competence |
What the pass rates say
Ministry results for a recent sitting in the Philippines are worth planning around: the skills test passed at 78.2%, the sector Japanese test at 43.6%.
Filipino caregivers are not short of caregiving competence — the skills side is comfortable. Language is the bottleneck, and it is the number to plan a cohort against. Anyone sizing an intake on the skills pass rate alone will be badly out.
- Pass mark is 60%; results stay valid 10 years.
- Tests run in the Philippines at the Manila test centre and at Ateneo University.
- Completers of Technical Intern Training (ii) in nursing care are exempt from both nursing care tests.
- Completers in other fields get partial exemption only — they still sit both nursing care tests.
The risk to plan around
Nursing care has an intake cap, and caps close.
Nursing care carries its own five-year intake cap, as every Specified Skilled Worker field does. When a cap fills, Certificate of Eligibility issuance for that field stops — and it stops for candidates already tested, contracted and waiting.
That is not hypothetical, and the precedent is recent: new Type 1 Certificates of Eligibility in Food Service were suspended from 13 April 2026, with that field’s 50,000-worker cap expected to be reached weeks later. Nothing about the mechanism is particular to food service.
Check the Immigration Services Agency for the current nursing care cap position before committing to a cohort. Headroom is a planning input, not a formality.
Timings
The two stages with published figures.
Certificate of Eligibility
Filed inside Japan by the employer or a licensed immigration lawyer — the worker cannot apply from abroad. The Immigration Services Agency gives 1 to 3 months. In practice an established sponsor sees 4 to 6 weeks and a first-time sponsor 2 to 3 months, which is the figure to plan against for a first cohort.
- Valid 3 months from issue. If it lapses unused, the application starts again from scratch.
- Can be issued electronically since March 2023, accepted at both the embassy and the port of entry.
- Application fee ¥4,000.
The visa
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs gives 5 working days from the day after receipt where nothing is in question. Where something is, the application goes to Tokyo for further examination and can take over a month. Fee approximately about ¥15,000.
Filipino applicants file directly at the Embassy in Manila, or at Cebu or Davao — not through a visa centre. A Cebu filing point matters for candidates who are already there.
A Certificate of Eligibility is not a guaranteed visa. They are decided by different ministries, and approvals at one stage followed by refusal at the other do happen. Plan the arrival date around the visa, not the COE.
Taken together the visa stage runs 2 to 4 months, after tests are passed and a contract is signed. We do not publish a total corridor timeline, because the Philippine-side certification described above sits ahead of it.
The 2027 reform
The technical intern programme is being replaced.
Legislation passed in June 2024 abolishes the Technical Intern Training Programme and replaces it with Employment for Skill Development (育成就労) from April 2027. Workers enter as trainees, complete a structured three-year programme, then transition to SSW-1.
- 01Structural change
Workers gain the right to change employers
Within the same sector, after a restricted initial period of one to two years. This is a fundamental departure from the programme it replaces, where workers were effectively tied to one employer.
- 02Capped
Intake is capped
Approximately about 426,000 for the first two years of the new system.
- 032027 to 2030
Both systems coexist during transition
A transition period runs roughly 2027 to 2030, during which the outgoing and incoming systems operate alongside each other.
The reform narrows the trainee system rather than the Specified Skilled Worker route, so it does not disturb the route we recruit your caregivers on. Care operators increasingly prioritise SSW regardless, because those workers arrive with better language standing and need less supervision on the floor.
The chain
Every deployment passes through both governments.
- 01Japan side
Support organisation engaged
The Japanese employer engages a registered support organisation (登録支援機関) for SSW-1 workers, rather than dealing directly with an overseas agent.
- 02In progress
Philippine Sending Organisation
The Philippine side of the SSW route runs through a registered Sending Organisation. Ours is in progress — we are working through that registration now, and we would rather say so than let you assume it is already held.
- 03Candidate
Skills and language testing
The candidate passes the Nursing Care Skills Evaluation Test and both Japanese language tests before any application proceeds.
- 04MWO Tokyo
Contract and MWO Tokyo accreditation
The employment contract is signed to Specified Skills standards, then the employer or accepting organisation is accredited and the contract verified by the Migrant Workers Office in Tokyo. Several documents must be notarised in Japan rather than the Philippines — a practical dependency on the employer.
- 05DMW
DMW registers the principal and approves the job order
The Philippine side registers the employer as principal and approves the specific job order before recruitment against it can begin.
- 06Immigration
Certificate of Eligibility, then visa
The Japanese employer files for a Certificate of Eligibility inside Japan — the worker cannot apply from abroad. The worker then exchanges it for a visa at the Embassy of Japan in Manila, Cebu or Davao.
- 07Exit
Philippine exit chain
Medical, NBI clearance, pre-departure orientation, OWWA membership and the Overseas Employment Certificate, without which the worker cannot lawfully depart for work.
- 08Japan
Arrival
Residence cards are issued at the airport at seven designated ports of entry. Arriving anywhere else, the worker registers their address at the municipal office within 14 days and the card follows. Orientation is arranged by the employer or support organisation.
Place a job order
Tell us the roles and we will scope the cohort.
Send us the roles and the headcount you need. We will come back with what the kaigo skills and language requirements mean for your shortlist, and what the Philippine side needs from your accepting organisation.
Shortlisted candidates are interviewed by video around your timezone, with our Cebu team on the call — before anything is signed.
Fees
Japanese law prohibits employers and recruitment agencies from charging excessive fees to Specified Skilled Worker applicants, and Japan’s bilateral memoranda with seventeen countries — the Philippines among them — carry provisions against exploitative recruitment costs.
That aligns with our own position: all recruitment costs are employer-borne, and we never charge a worker a recruitment, placement or processing fee at any stage.
Regulatory details on this page reflect our understanding as of August 2026. Requirements, sector definitions, targets and fees change: confirm the current position against the Immigration Services Agency, the Department of Migrant Workers and the Migrant Workers Office Tokyo before acting. Nothing here is legal or immigration advice.