Thailand is one of the countries where JFT-Basic is administered, and the decision facing Thai candidates is genuinely different from the one facing candidates in the largest sending countries.
The calculation is different here
In the biggest sending countries, the Specified Skilled Worker route is a substantial improvement on local wages, and demand for seats is correspondingly enormous.
Thailand’s domestic labour market means the arithmetic is less one-sided. Candidates here are more often weighing Japan against reasonable local alternatives rather than treating it as the obvious step.
That is worth naming, because it changes what you should be optimising for. If you are choosing Japan, the case is usually about the specific work, the skills and the long-term route rather than about the wage alone — which makes the questions in SSW (i) versus (ii) more important for you than for most.
Specifically: does your field offer SSW (ii)? Type 1 is capped at five years with no family accompaniment. If you are going for a career rather than a fixed stint, that is the question that matters.
Finding your centre
Use Prometric’s Thailand pages for Specified Skilled Worker tests, not the global Prometric homepage.
The venue list appears during the booking flow rather than before it — you have to start a reservation to see the centres, and you can back out before paying.
Centres are concentrated around Bangkok. Budget travel accordingly.
Seats and timing
Demand is lower than in the largest markets, so the competition for dates is less fierce. Check the actual schedule rather than assuming monthly availability where you are, and work backwards from a real date.
The field question comes first
Whatever your motivation, the skills evaluation test for your chosen field usually sets your timeline more than your Japanese does. Find out when and where it runs before planning anything else.
And check that the field is open: food service has been suspended to new applications since April 2026. See the SSW fields and the skills test explained.
Centres, fees, dates and payment methods are set locally and change. Your own country’s Prometric pages and the Japan Foundation are the sources that bind. Use them for anything you are about to pay for.
What does not change
Wherever you sit it, the exam is identical: four sections, about fifty questions, sixty minutes, scored 10 to 250, and 200 is the pass. The sections are not separately timed, and there is no per-section minimum — only the total counts.
That means every guide on this site applies to you regardless of where you are. Start with what 200 points actually means.
Before you pay for anything
Find out where you stand. Our free practice test covers all four sections, reports by section, takes about fifteen minutes, and works on an inexpensive phone. It costs nothing, which is more than can be said for discovering the answer at the test centre.
Two full-length, timed tests in the same week, both at 200 or above. Then book.