There are two results, they arrive at different times, and only one of them is the document anyone else will want.
The score on screen
Your provisional score appears the moment you finish the test, in the room, before you leave the centre.
This is genuinely useful — you know immediately whether you have cleared 200 — and it is also abrupt. Candidates used to waiting weeks for a paper exam result sometimes find getting a number while still seated more of a shock than they expected. Know it is coming.
Treat this number as reliable for your own planning and not as a document. You cannot send it to anybody.
The official result
The official notification appears on the Prometric website within about five business days of the test.
This is the one that matters. It carries your score out of 250 and, since August 2026, your CEFR band — A1, A2.1 or A2.2. It is what an employer, an agency or an immigration application will be working from.
Download it and keep it somewhere durable as soon as it appears. Your own storage, not only the Prometric account. You will be asked for it months later, at a point when logging back in to retrieve it is an avoidable annoyance.
Reading what it says
| Score | Level | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 200–250 | A2.2 (A2) | Pass. Accepted as proof of Japanese ability for the SSW visa. |
| 175–199 | A2.1 | Near miss, not a partial pass. |
| 145–174 | A1 | Foundations present, exam level not yet. |
| Below 145 | Not assessed | No band shown. |
The important thing to be clear about: A1 and A2.1 are not partial passes. They do not qualify you for anything and they do not carry forward. They are descriptions of a score below 200. What they are good for — deciding how far you actually are — is set out in what the CEFR bands mean.
What it does not tell you
There is no section breakdown. You get a total and a band. You are not told whether listening or reading cost you the points.
That is a real limitation, and it is the reason your own timed mock results matter: they are the only section-level evidence you will ever have about your own performance. If you have just missed and do not know why, sit a full-length timed test and look at the breakdown — the free practice test gives you one in about fifteen minutes.
If the result does not appear
Five business days is the stated window, and business days do not include local holidays. If it is genuinely overdue, Prometric is who you contact, not the Japan Foundation — Prometric delivers the test and holds the record.
Have your registration details and test date ready when you do.
After a pass
Your JFT-Basic result satisfies the language requirement for Specified Skilled Worker (i). It is one of four things you need, and the remaining three take longer than most people expect. What actually happens next sets out the rest of the route.
Note also that the result has a validity window for visa purposes, which is shorter than people assume — see how long a JFT-Basic result is valid before you plan a long gap between passing and applying.