Japanese Driver’s License

It is common to submit a résumé when you apply for a position in a company. In the résumé, instead of writing about your personality, if you write“普通自動車第一種運転免” (Regular Level 1 Driver’s License (the official name of the the license type)), the chance for you to get the job will be increased.

Additionally, in Japan your driver’s license can be used as a type of ID card. Therefore, you can bring it with you and nothing else and show it when you are asked for identification.

To obtain a driver’s license in Japan, you must study operation (driving skills) and academics (rules of the road) at a driving school, and after graduating you must pass a written exam at driver’s licensing center. You are exempt from taking the operation (driving skills) test if you complete a driving school course.

There are 2 methods to choose when you study in a driving school, regardless of your nationality.

The first one is called “tsugaku menkyo,” meaning commuting from home to a nearby driving school to learn to drive. It also takes about three months to complete the course even if you attend one or two days a week.

Secondly, we also recommend the “Gasshuku Menkyo” option, which is a type of boarding school.

With this option, you can stay in a prepared hotel or Japanese-style hostel, at the same time you will go to the driving school by bus in the morning and return in the evening when the lessons are over, also by bus. Doing so, you can complete lessons in quite a short time; there is a chance you can graduate in 14 days (minimum) for AT cars, and 16 days (minimum) for MT cars.

In recent years, the number of foreign students choosing “Gasshuku Menkyo” is increasing.

It is true that the cheap price is attractive, but the reason for the increasing number of people choosing this method is also because that students can easily get answers for any question regarding the course’s exam until they graduate.

Improvement in driving skills doesn’t change whether you are a Japanese or non-Japanese person. The most difficult challenge for you is the written test in Japanese.

This is a 50-sentence test, where you have to decide if a sentence is correct or incorrect by marking 〇 or ×. You will pass if you can get at least 45 right. However, this test is difficult even for Japanese people, so you cannot pass without studying hard.

However, “Gasshuku Menkyo” is a short-term concentrated study method, and the pass rate for examinees is high, compared to “tsugaku menkyo.”

In addition, students receive a gift of original study materials providing explanations created based on experience that clarify difficult terminology using easy-to-understand illustrations in Japanese, English, and Vietnamese.

This textbook will be sent to your address before the Gasshuku Menkyo course starts. Studying in advance should make you feel that the lessons are simpler when they actually begin.

Please take the test at a driver’s licensing center within one year after completing the driving school course.

Test results will be announced immediately on the same day. If you pass, your driver’s license will be issued that day. If you fail, please take the test again and do your best to pass.