International school jobs in Japan sit behind an application channel rather than an inbox. The American School in Japan tells applicants for every teaching and leadership post that they must hold 'an active, confidential profile with either Schrole Connect or Search Associates', and that 'direct applications will not be considered'. A CV emailed to that school is not a slow application. It isn't an application.
Most pages ranking for this phrase are job boards describing salary bands and curricula. What's missing is the channel, the fact that the school's legal category decides your residence status, and an honest answer about the numbers everyone quotes. Requirements and immigration categories as published on 17 August 2026.
What the phrase covers in Japan
There's no protected definition, which is why the school counts you'll see quoted — 'more than 100', '399' — turn up with no source attached. The body most established schools belong to is the Japan Council of International Schools; outside its membership the term stretches to bilingual kindergartens using the words in their marketing. It's an urban market: Tokyo and Yokohama hold most of it, with Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe and Fukuoka behind them.
- Curriculum: IB, British, American or Canadian, sometimes two of them in one building
- Language of instruction: English, with Japanese taught as a subject
- Hiring test: a teaching licence and experience measured in years, not a 120-hour certificate
- Calendar: vacancies declared in the autumn for the following August
- Faith-based schools are a separate corner — the networks running them put their Asian campuses mostly in Korea and Japan
That last row is what separates these jobs from the rest of the English-teaching market in Japan. Not the building — the hiring runs on a school year, through a channel, against a credential.
The channel, and why a direct application isn't read
Search Associates and Schrole Connect are candidate databases that schools search. You register, build a profile with your references attached, and schools contact you from it. The registration is the application — and at a school that has named those platforms, there is nowhere else to send one.
ASIJ's wording is the blunt version, and it's worth quoting because most schools imply this rather than state it: applicants 'must have an active, confidential profile with either Schrole Connect or Search Associates. Direct applications will not be considered.' The same school says it recruits new faculty 'between October and November each year, although positions may be advertised outside this timeframe'. Registration isn't free either — Search Associates lists US$100 for a new candidate's first year, and checks the degree, the certification and the two years at that point rather than at interview. Our guide to what the agency fair circuit costs and who gets invited covers the eligibility line and the fees in full.
There's a second route, and it rewards already being in Japan. Schools keep their own local pools for supply cover, part-time posts and in-year vacancies that appear after the season closes. Nagoya International School invites candidates to join its associate and local positions pool by form and CV direct to the school, and says substitute and childcare staff must be 'already living near NIS'. Proximity is what that pool solves for, so it favours someone with a spousal or permanent-residence status who can start on a Tuesday. NIS also states it 'will never ask or require teacher candidates to send money for application fees, interview fees, visas, plane tickets or other costs' — a sentence a school only writes because the practice exists somewhere.
The licence gate
The credential is a teaching licence issued by a government, and it isn't the credential most of this market runs on. ASIJ asks for a minimum BA or BS with an MA preferred, an active teaching licence 'from a state, province, or governmental authority', and at least two years of full-time experience in a comparable assignment. The platforms apply their own version of the same test at registration.
- A bachelor's degree in any subject: required by 81% of listings on this board
- An accredited 120-hour TEFL or equivalent: 64%
- Prior classroom experience of any length: 29%
- A CELTA specifically: 8%
Read those four numbers against the paragraph above them. A 120-hour TEFL is the main qualification on two-thirds of the roles here, it is not a teaching licence, and no quantity of it becomes one. The 29% with classroom experience is the pool these schools recruit from, and the licensed fraction inside it is smaller again.
The visa is chosen by the school, not by you
Japan has two work statuses a teacher can land on, and which one you get is set by the legal category of the institution employing you. The Instructor status covers educational work at elementary, middle, compulsory education, high, secondary, special support and vocational schools, and miscellaneous schools meeting equivalent standards. That last category is where a good number of Japan's international schools sit — registered under the School Education Act without being ordinary Japanese schools. Periods of stay run 5 years, 3 years, 1 year or 3 months.
The neighbouring status, Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, lists 'private sector language instructors' among its permitted activities and explicitly excludes the educational work the Instructor category covers. It's the eikaiwa status: same country, same classroom hours, different residence status and a different renewal conversation.
You don't choose between them. The school applies for the Certificate of Eligibility under the category its own registration supports, so the question to put to a Japanese school is not 'which visa will I be on' but 'what is the school registered as'. The answer tells you which status is available before anyone drafts a contract.
What the salary figures are worth
Very little on their own, and less in Tokyo than anywhere else in this region. Housing appears as a stamp on 63% of listings on this board and a flight allowance on 41%, and the gap between two offers is usually smaller than the gap between their packages. Where rent is the largest line in the budget, a school that houses you and one that pays you more are not comparable offers.
The limit on that rule is geography, and Tokyo is where it bites. Provided housing an hour from work is a different proposition to housing near it — ASIJ notes its teachers typically live near the Chofu campus, which it places 'one hour west of central Tokyo'. Ask for the commute and the photographs before treating a housing line as money; our guide to what an international school housing package is actually worth covers how the models differ.
As for the yen figures circulating for these roles: no Japanese international school we could find publishes a salary scale, and the ranges quoted on job boards carry no stated source, so we won't repeat them as though they were audited. The median advertised salary across this board converts to about $1,910 USD a month and international school packages sit above it — a floor for the comparison, and nothing more.
The calendar, and the document that runs late
The season is why people miss this market by a year. Schools ask staff to declare their intentions in the autumn, recruit through the winter, and start the successful candidates the following August. ASIJ's October-to-November window is typical, and the agency fairs sit in the same stretch. A search that begins in May is looking at next season.
That runway makes Japan gentler on paperwork than markets hiring for a start six weeks out, and it's still the paperwork that slips. A teacher signed a hagwon contract in early March for an April start with everything ready except the criminal record check, which had to go to a legalisation office and come back apostilled. The estimate was ten working days; it took twenty-three, because the office closed for a public holiday week nobody had factored in. The start date moved twice and the teacher paid for one flight change.
The apostille runs 12–21 days, median 16. On a January offer for an August start that's comfortable — the mistake is treating comfortable as automatic and starting the check after the contract rather than alongside the applications. Several consulates won't accept one older than six months, so the window is real but it isn't a year wide.
When this isn't worth your time
- You don't hold a government-issued teaching licence, or you're short of the two years — the platforms check both at registration
- You want to teach English rather than teach a subject in English — that's the eikaiwa and ALT market, which doesn't recruit this way
- You're applying from abroad for an in-year vacancy — the local pools exist for people already in the city
- You're only starting to look in spring, when the season runs autumn to February
- You need the job to start in under three months — this market hires eight months ahead by design
A limit worth knowing about
Two limits, and the first is ours. 71% of listings here are rewritten from a partner board rather than read one at a time. We check listings, not schools. The 29% posted directly by a school are read by a person, and 4.2% of those are rejected before they go live.
The second is scope, and on this page it's the honest headline. This board is mostly training centres, language schools and public school programmes — the roles listed here run to 1,240 live on an average day across 10 countries. Japanese international school vacancies go through the two platforms and the schools' own pages, and that is where to look.
Frequently asked
Can I apply directly to an international school in Japan? At the larger ones, no. ASIJ requires an active profile with Schrole Connect or Search Associates and states that direct applications will not be considered. Smaller schools and local or supply pools do take applications by email, so it depends on the school and on which pool you're aiming at.
Do I need a teaching licence? For a mainstream teaching post, yes — a degree, a current government-issued teaching certification, and around two years of full-time classroom experience. A 120-hour TEFL is the main qualification on 64% of listings on this board and it does not clear this gate.
Do I need to speak Japanese? Not for the classroom at an English-medium school. It matters for the lease and the residence card appointment rather than for the job.
Which visa will I be on? Whichever one the school's registration supports. Instructor covers educational work at schools under the School Education Act, including miscellaneous schools meeting equivalent standards; Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services covers private-sector language teaching. You don't pick, so ask what the school is registered as.
When is the hiring season? Autumn declarations, winter recruiting, an August start. ASIJ recruits new faculty between October and November, and the agency fair circuit runs from November through February for the same intake.
How much do international schools in Japan pay? More than this board's median advertised salary of about $1,910 USD a month, and beyond that we won't quote a number — no school publishes a scale and the ranges circulating online have no source behind them. Ask the school for the figure and the housing arrangement in the same email.
So: read the school's employment page before you write anything, because it names the channel, and an application sent outside that channel isn't read slowly, it isn't read. If you clear the licence gate, register in the autumn rather than the spring — and if you don't clear it yet, the two years is the thing to go and get, and it counts wherever you teach it.