This is the most consequential distinction in the Specified Skilled Worker programme, and a great many candidates only learn about it after arriving.
Verify before you act on this. The Specified Skilled Worker system is revised frequently. The Immigration Services Agency of Japan and the ministry responsible for your field are the sources that bind. This page is orientation, not authority.
The two statuses
| SSW (i) 特定技能1号 | SSW (ii) 特定技能2号 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum stay | Five years in total | No cap, renewable indefinitely |
| Family | Cannot accompany you | Spouse and minor children may |
| Language test | Required (JFT-Basic 200+ or JLPT N4+) | Not required for the transition |
| Skills test | Entry-level | Higher level, plus experience |
| Permanent residency | Time does not count towards it | Counts |
Almost everybody starts on SSW (i). It is the status the JFT-Basic and skills test route delivers.
Why the five-year cap matters more than it sounds
Five years is long enough to build a life and short enough that you will lose it.
On SSW (i) your family stays behind. You work, you send money home, and when the five years are up you leave — unless you have moved to Type 2 in the meantime. Time spent on Type 1 does not count towards permanent residency, so a full five years leaves you where you started in immigration terms.
Type 2 is therefore not a bonus. It is the point. If your intention is to build something in Japan rather than to work there for a fixed period, the whole plan should be aimed at it from before you arrive.
How you move to Type 2
Not by waiting. By qualifying:
- Work in your field and accumulate the required practical experience — which typically includes experience at a supervisory or skilled level, depending on the field.
- Pass the higher-level skills evaluation test for your field.
- Apply to change your status of residence.
Note what is not on that list: a further language test. Type 2 does not require one.
That is an administrative fact, not practical advice. The higher skills test is in Japanese, and supervising others in a Japanese workplace requires far more than A2. In reality the workers who reach Type 2 are the ones who kept studying after they arrived, even though nothing formally obliged them to.
Which fields have Type 2
Originally only construction and shipbuilding. It has since been extended across most of the programme, which transformed SSW from a temporary labour scheme into a route with a destination.
Nursing care is the exception. There is no Type 2 in care. Care workers instead move to the separate 介護 (Caregiver) status by passing the national Certified Care Worker qualification — which has no maximum stay and permits family, achieving the same outcome by a different road. See the nursing care route.
Confirm the current position for your own field before relying on it.
What this should change about your plan
Choose a field that has Type 2 — or care, which has its own equivalent. A field without a long-term route is a five-year job.
Keep studying Japanese after you pass JFT-Basic. This is the single most important thing on this page. The workers who reach Type 2 are not the ones who scraped 200 and stopped; they are the ones who went on to N3 and beyond while working. See studying while working full time.
Understand the clock from day one. Five years is not long to accumulate experience, pass a harder test and change status. People who start thinking about Type 2 in year four are usually too late.
More on what comes after in SSW to permanent residency, and on bringing family in bringing your family to Japan.