How to Do a PhD in Japan: Admission, Funding and Visas

A PhD in Japan is a student place, not a job

In Germany, Norway or the Netherlands a doctoral candidate is usually an employee with a contract and a salary. Japan works differently: you enrol in a graduate school (daigakuin) as a student, pay tuition, and fund yourself through a scholarship, a fellowship, or part-time work. Some laboratories hire doctoral students as research assistants or project staff, but that is an add-on, not the standard model.

That single difference changes how you plan. In Europe you look for a vacancy and apply for a job. In Japan you find a supervisor, pass the graduate school's entrance examination, and then find the money.

A standard doctoral course lasts three years after a master's degree. Integrated five-year programmes combine the master's and the doctorate, and medicine, dentistry and veterinary science run on a four-year doctoral course. The degree is awarded after a thesis review and a final defence. Many graduate schools expect at least one refereed publication before submission, but each graduate school sets its own rule, so read its handbook rather than a blog.

Find a supervisor before you apply

Most Japanese graduate schools expect you to contact a prospective supervisor before you apply, and some will not accept an application without that informal agreement. Write to two or three professors whose recent papers you have actually read. A useful first email is short: who you are, your degree and thesis topic, one paragraph on what you want to work on and why that laboratory, your funding situation, and a request for a short online meeting.

A supervisor's agreement is not admission. You still sit the graduate school's entrance examination, which usually combines a written subject exam, an English or Japanese language test, and an interview on your research plan. A growing number of English-taught international programmes admit on documents plus an interview, with no written exam. Check the admissions page of the specific graduate school, not the university's main page: at a large university, two programmes in the same field can have completely different rules.

Tip: Ask the supervisor's office two questions in writing: does the entrance exam have a written component, and which funding routes have students in this laboratory actually won in the last three years? The answer tells you more than any ranking.

Applications are usually accepted twice a year, roughly August to September for April entry and December to January for April or October entry. MEXT embassy applications open around April and May for the following year.

Funding: four routes, very different amounts

MEXT, the Japanese government scholarship, is the best-known route. For 2026 the monthly stipend is ¥143,000 for research (non-degree) students, ¥144,000 for master's students and ¥145,000 for doctoral students, with tuition and entrance fees covered and a small regional supplement in some cities. The embassy route is applied for in your own country and is extremely competitive. The university route depends on a professor nominating you, so it is worth asking about directly.

The JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists is the main fellowship for students already in Japan. DC1 covers the first year of a doctoral course for three years, DC2 the second and third years for two. It pays ¥200,000–230,000 a month and adds a research grant of up to ¥1.5 million a year for travel, equipment and conferences. It is competitive, and the application is written with your supervisor.

Beyond those two, funding is fragmented: university RA and TA contracts, internal doctoral fellowship schemes, annual tuition exemption applications, and dozens of small private foundations that each require a university nomination. Your graduate school office knows which foundations students in your laboratory have won before, so ask in your first month.

There is no universal Japanese PhD salary. If you are not on MEXT or JSPS, assume that you will pay tuition and cover living costs from part-time work, savings or a scholarship from your own country.

What it costs

At a national university the standard figures are ¥535,800 a year in tuition and a one-off ¥282,000 admission fee, plus an entrance examination fee that varies by graduate school, often ¥10,000–30,000. Private universities charge more, and science and engineering programmes often add laboratory or equipment fees.

Tuition exemption for international students exists at most national universities, but it is means-tested, renewed every year, and not guaranteed on admission. Budget for the full amount and treat a waiver as a gain.

Living costs vary more than tuition. In Tokyo, most students need roughly ¥150,000–200,000 a month for rent, food, health insurance and transport; smaller cities run 20–30% lower. Dormitories are cheap and scarce, and the cheapest rooms are usually a 40 to 60 minute commute from campus.

Language: English for the degree, Japanese for everything else

Many leading graduate schools run full English-taught doctoral programmes, and in the sciences a laboratory's working language is often English. Admission may not require Japanese at all.

Daily life is different. Registration forms, housing contracts, hospital visits, safety briefings and laboratory administration are usually in Japanese, and a supervisor who works in English may still expect you to handle your own paperwork. If you plan to work in Japan after the PhD, employers commonly expect around JLPT N2, and recruiting follows a fixed calendar that starts more than a year before graduation. Start Japanese in your first semester, not your last.

Visa and what happens after graduation

You need a Certificate of Eligibility (COE) from your university, then a student visa at the Japanese embassy or consulate. With permission from immigration, student visa holders may work part-time up to 28 hours a week. Without that permission, any paid work is a violation of your status of residence.

After graduation you can change to "Designated Activities" to continue job hunting, usually for six months and renewable once, if your university recommends it. Once you have a job offer you change to a work status of residence. Japan's points-based Highly Skilled Professional route can shorten the path to permanent residence to one or three years, against ten years of continuous residence on the general route.

A realistic timeline

• 18 months before entry: choose three laboratories, read five recent papers from each, and check where their graduates went.
• 15 months: first email to each supervisor, with a one-page CV and one page on your research interests.
• 12 months: MEXT embassy application, if that is your route, and the English test if the programme requires one.
• 9 months: entrance exam preparation, transcripts, letters and research plan.
• 6 months: examination and interview, then the COE application after acceptance.
• 3 months: visa, housing, insurance and flights.

Common mistakes

• Sending the same generic email to twenty professors and mentioning none of their work.
• Assuming that admission comes with funding. At most graduate schools it does not.
• Preparing for the wrong exam, because the rules were read from a university-wide page instead of the programme page.
• Applying to one laboratory only, when the entrance exam is set per graduate school and a second attempt costs a year.
• Leaving Japanese until after the PhD, then discovering that the job market expects it.