Schools & education in Japan

Public schools are free and legally open to every foreign child, the daycare shortage has eased dramatically nationwide, and a national university is startlingly cheap compared to almost anywhere else.

Public school: free, and legally open to your kids

Compulsory education (gimu kyouiku) technically guarantees elementary and junior high schooling to Japanese nationals, but in practice every municipality is required to accept foreign children into public school tuition-free, with textbooks provided at no cost. Register through your ward or city’s board of education (kyouiku iinkai) using your juminhyo. Areas with larger established foreign communities — Shinjuku, Toyota City, parts of Osaka — run dedicated nihongo shidou (Japanese-language support) classes with specialist staff; more rural municipalities may offer little beyond mainstream immersion, so check resourcing before you commit to a neighbourhood.

International schools: expensive, and getting more so

Tokyo’s international schools run roughly ¥2.3–3.0 million/year for kindergarten, ¥2.8–3.5 million for elementary, ¥3.2–3.8 million for middle school, and ¥3.4–4.2 million for high school/IB programmes. Layer on a one-time entrance/capital fee of ¥700,000–1,500,000 and a non-refundable application fee of ¥25,000–40,000, and the real annual outlay typically lands 20–30% above the headline tuition once facilities charges, transport, lunches and trips are added.

University: cheap if it’s national

National universities charge international students the exact same tuition as Japanese nationals — no surcharge — at a flat ¥535,800/year plus a one-time entrance fee of ¥282,000. Private universities cost considerably more: ¥800,000–1,000,000/year for humanities, ¥1,000,000–1,500,000 for science and engineering, and ¥2,000,000–6,000,000 for medicine. The MEXT scholarship — Japan’s flagship government award for international students — covers tuition in full, waives the entrance fee at national universities, and pays a monthly stipend of ¥143,000–148,000 depending on study level; it’s genuinely worth building an application timeline around a year or more in advance.

Daycare: the crisis that quietly ended

The infamous "hoikuen wait list children" problem — fierce competition for scarce daycare slots, especially in central Tokyo wards, once forced families into elaborate application strategies (hokatsu) just to secure a spot. The national waitlist peaked at 26,081 children in 2017; it has now fallen for eight straight years to a record-low 2,254 children nationwide as of April 2025, driven mainly by Japan’s falling birth rate expanding available capacity relative to demand. That’s genuinely good news for relocating families, though pockets of high demand still exist in specific central-Tokyo wards — apply as early as your pregnancy allows if you’re targeting a popular area.