Three legal categories

“International school” is not a legal term in Japan. What matters legally is how a school is classified under the School Education Act (gakko kyoiku ho / 学校教育法). MEXT describes international schools as falling into one of three groups.

Approval as a miscellaneous school or accreditation by an international body does not turn a school into an Article 1 school. These are separate things, and a school can be excellent in any of the three categories. What changes is the paperwork around your child, not the quality of the teaching.

Schools do not always volunteer their category, because most of their families never need to ask. Ask directly: “Is this school an Article 1 school, a miscellaneous school approved by the prefecture, or neither?” A school approved as a miscellaneous school will know which prefecture approved it and when. If admissions cannot answer, ask for the head of school or the business office.

The compulsory education question

Under the School Education Act, guardians of Japanese-national children must have them attend an elementary school and then a junior high school (Articles 16 and 17). MEXT states plainly that if a guardian enrolls a Japanese-national child in an international school that is not an Article 1 school, this does not count as fulfilling that duty. MEXT gives the same answer for children who have Japanese nationality as well as another nationality.

MEXT’s guidance also points out practical effects. Finishing the elementary section of a non-Article-1 international school is not treated as completing Japanese elementary school, and the same issue arises if a child wants to move into a Japanese junior high school partway through. MEXT links this to Article 45 of the Act, which says junior high school education builds on what elementary school taught. If you think your child might return to the Japanese system, talk to your municipal board of education (kyoiku iinkai / 教育委員会) before switching, so you know how a return would be handled.

The one exemption route: postponement or exemption

Article 18 of the Act allows the attendance duty to be postponed or waived (shugaku gimu no yuyo matawa menjo / 就学義務の猶予又は免除) where a child has an illness, incomplete development or “other unavoidable reasons”. MEXT’s page on this lists the kinds of situations it has in mind. Two of them matter to international families:

• Returnee children. A set period while a child who has come back to Japan builds Japanese-language ability, where suitable arrangements for that are in place.
• Dual nationals. Where it can objectively be recognized, from family circumstances, that the child is strongly likely to choose the foreign nationality in future, and where another opportunity to receive education is secured.

MEXT is equally plain that simply putting a child in an international school is not itself a ground: enrolling a child in a school that is not an Article 1 school does not discharge the duty under Article 17. The decision on postponement or exemption is made by the municipal board of education on an individual application, so nothing here is automatic.

Foreign-national children

For foreign-national children the situation is different. MEXT’s position is that the attendance duty under Article 17 applies to guardians of Japanese nationals, so it does not apply to guardians of foreign-national children. Families may choose Japanese public schools, ethnic schools or international schools. MEXT also states that foreign-national children are accepted at public compulsory-education schools free of tuition, in the same way as Japanese children, and asks boards of education to send enrollment guidance based on the resident registry. See homeschooling in Japan for more on how nationality affects school attendance, and how Japanese schools work if the public option is still on your list.

What happens in practice for a Japanese-national child

Families often want to know what follows from “the duty is not fulfilled”. In practice most of the consequences are administrative, and they show up later rather than at once.

• The child stays on the municipal register. Children of school age are recorded by the municipality, and that record does not disappear because the child attends an international school. How each municipality then records the absence differs.
• Completion is not recognized. The elementary or junior high section of a non-Article-1 school does not count as having completed Japanese elementary or junior high school. This is the point that matters for high school entry.
• Coming back needs a conversation, not a form. Where a child is placed on return, and in which year group, is decided case by case with the board of education and the receiving school.

MEXT’s page does not set out what a municipality must do about an unfulfilled duty, and practice varies. That is why the conversation with the board of education is worth having before you move, not after. Keep whatever you are told, and the name of the person who told you.

Accreditation, IB and Cambridge: what each label means

Schools advertise a mixture of labels, and they are not interchangeable. Some describe the whole school, some describe one program, and some describe nothing more than a membership fee. The table below sorts them.

This matters because Japan’s university entrance rules attach to specific labels, not to the words “international school”. A school with no accreditation and no IB authorization can still be a good school, but its leavers will need a different route into a Japanese university.

Routes to a Japanese high school or university

Families often discover this too late. The junior high section of a foreign school in Japan is not a junior high school, so graduating from it does not by itself give eligibility to sit Japanese high school entrance exams. MEXT states this directly. There are established ways through, but they need planning a year ahead.

The high school tuition support fund

For high-school-age students, some foreign schools approved as miscellaneous schools are designated for Japan’s High School Tuition Support Fund (koto gakko to shugaku shienkin / 高等学校等就学支援金). MEXT designates them in two groups: schools confirmed through an embassy as offering a course equivalent to a Japanese high school, and schools accredited by recognized international evaluation bodies. MEXT publishes the list on its site; the version we checked was dated 29 March 2024 and includes both ethnic schools and international schools. Ask the school whether it is designated, and ask the prefecture how to apply. Most one-off fees are not covered even where a school is designated.

How much do international schools cost?

Fees vary widely by school, age and city, and most schools charge one-off fees as well as annual tuition. The table shows examples taken from each school’s own published fee page for the 2026 to 2027 school year. They are examples only, not averages, and they are not a recommendation of these three schools over any other.

Across these three schools, annual tuition for school-age children ranged from about 1.9 million to 3.4 million yen in 2026 to 2027, before one-off fees, buses, uniforms and trips. Always check the current fee page, and ask separately about learning support and English-language support, which may carry extra charges.

What tuition does not include

Tuition is the headline number, but it is not the bill. When you compare two schools, compare the whole first year, then the second year, which is usually much lower because the one-off fees have gone.

Admissions: timing, steps and waiting lists

Admission rules differ by school, so ask each one. Many international schools in Japan run a northern-hemisphere year starting in August or September, while Article 1 schools run the Japanese year from April, so the calendars do not line up. Popular year groups fill early, sometimes more than a year ahead.

The usual sequence is: enquiry, application form and fee, reports from the previous school, an assessment or interview, sometimes a trial day, then an offer with a deadline to accept. Common points to check:

• English ability. Some schools expect children, especially older ones, to already work in English; others have EAL (English as an additional language) support, sometimes for a fee.
• Parents’ English. Some schools ask that at least one parent can communicate in English, because school communication and meetings are in English.
• Waiting lists. Popular grades can be full. Apply early and ask how the waiting list works, whether siblings take priority, and whether a deposit holds a place.
• Documents. Previous school reports, and sometimes teacher references or assessments.
• Mid-year entry. Some schools take students at any point; others only at term boundaries. Tuition is often prorated but one-off fees usually are not. If you are weighing a move partway through a year, our article on changing international schools mid-year covers what it does to a child socially as well as academically.

A thin school record is not a disqualification. If your child has been out of school, say so in the application rather than leaving a gap, and add a letter from a counselor or doctor if you have one. Some schools will offer a reduced timetable to start, but you will not know unless you ask.

If your child’s English is not strong yet

An international school teaches in English, and the quality of English support varies more between schools than almost anything else. Ask about it early, and ask in specifics.

• Is there a named EAL or ESL program, and who runs it? A qualified specialist is different from “the class teacher gives extra help”.
• How many hours a week, and is it in class or withdrawn from class? Being withdrawn during the same subject every week has a cost.
• How is the level assessed at entry, and how often is it reviewed? Schools that track this can say how long support usually lasts for a child at your child’s level, in terms or years.
• Is there an extra fee, how is it decided, and when does it stop? One of the schools in our fee table publishes an EAL support fee of 500,000 yen a year, on top of tuition, so this is not a small question.
• Is there a cap on how many EAL students a class can take? Some schools limit places by year group, which affects your chances of an offer.
• What support is there for the parents? Reports, meetings and the school app will be in English.

A child moving from a Japanese school into an English-medium classroom is learning the subject and the language at once, while also being new. Our article on a child who does not speak the language at a new school describes what the first months tend to look like. If your child is quiet in one language and not the other, see selective mutism in a bilingual child.

If your child needs learning support

International schools in Japan are private and independent, and there is no national entitlement behind them equivalent to special needs education in public schools. Provision differs enormously: some have a full learning support department with specialist teachers and individual plans, some have one part-time coordinator, and some have nothing and say so. A school is allowed to decide it cannot meet a child’s needs, and some do. That is painful to hear, and better heard during admissions than in the second term.

Questions that separate schools quickly:

• Who leads learning support, what is their qualification, and how many children do they work with?
• Does the school write individual learning plans, and how often do parents see them?
• Will the school work with an outside assessment, including one written in Japanese or from another country?
• What exam adjustments are possible, and who applies for them with IB or Cambridge?
• Is learning support included in tuition, charged per hour, or charged annually?
• What would make the school say it could not continue to support a child, and what notice would we get?

If your child has not been assessed and you are unsure whether to seek one, our guide to neurodivergent children in Japanese schools explains the Japanese routes, and getting an ADHD or autism assessment abroad covers doing it as an international family. If the difficulty is that your child is unchallenged rather than struggling, see when a gifted child is bored at an international school.

Moving from a Japanese school to an international school

The move is mostly practical. Doing it in this order avoids a gap where nobody is responsible for your child.

1. Get the offer first. A written offer with a start date, and the total first-year cost.
2. Talk to the board of education. For a Japanese-national child, ask the questions in the note above. Ask specifically whether your child remains on the local school’s register, and what the school will record.
3. Tell the current school. Ask the homeroom teacher for a certificate of enrollment (zaigaku shomeisho / 在学証明書) and the most recent report (tsuchihyo / 通知表). Ask whether school reports can be issued in English or with a translation; many schools cannot, and you may need a translator.
4. Ask about textbooks and insurance. Japanese public schools issue free textbooks and carry accident insurance; both stop when your child leaves.
5. Plan for Japanese from day one. Do not wait until Japanese has faded to start maintaining it. Decide now what will keep it going each week.
6. Keep the paper. Reports, certificates, assessment results and any letters from the board of education. A return to the Japanese system, years later, is much easier with a folder than with memories.

If the reason for moving is bullying, read bullying in Japanese schools and what parents can do first. Moving school ends a specific situation, but it does not by itself repair a child’s confidence, and international schools are not free of bullying either: see bullying at an international school.

Moving back to the Japanese system

Families move in the other direction too, because of cost, a job change, or because the fit was not what they hoped. This is possible at every stage, but the steps differ by age.

Japanese language on the way back

Public schools can provide Japanese-language instruction as a special curriculum for children who need it, and many cities run Japanese-language classes for children through the board of education or an international association. Ask about this at the same time as placement, not afterwards. MEXT’s FY2023 survey of public schools counted 69,123 children who needed Japanese-language instruction, so this is an ordinary request, not an unusual one. For what returning children often experience, see when a returnee child is struggling at a Japanese school and third culture kids and school anxiety.

For high-school-age students who do not want a conventional Japanese high school, correspondence high schools are a recognized route to a Japanese high school diploma with a much lighter attendance pattern.

Choosing a school: what to look at

Prospectuses look alike. These are the things that predict how a school feels from the inside, and they are all answerable if you ask.

• Who is actually in the classroom. Ask for the nationality mix of the student body and how many students hold Japanese nationality. A school that is 80 percent one nationality feels different from an evenly mixed one, and neither is wrong, but you should know which you are choosing.
• Staff and leadership turnover. Ask how many teachers left at the end of last year, how many have been there more than five years, and how many heads of school there have been in ten years. Some turnover is normal in international education; a whole department or a new head every other year is not.
• Curriculum continuity. Ask what happens at program boundaries, for example from MYP to DP. A child who joins mid-program may have gaps nobody has planned for.
• How to read university destination lists. Ask how many students were in the graduating class, not just which universities appear, what proportion went to universities in Japan, and what help the school gives with Japanese applications, which run on a different calendar.
• Bullying and safeguarding. Ask for the policy in writing, who investigates, how parents are told, and what happened the last time something serious occurred.
• Parent community. Ask to be introduced to a current parent, ideally one who joined mid-year, and ask what surprised them.
• Finances and governance. Ask who owns or governs the school and whether accounts are published. Small schools do close, and a closure mid-year is very hard on children.

If your child is struggling right now

Parents often look at international schools after bullying, school refusal (futoko / 不登校), or a mismatch between their child’s way of learning and a Japanese classroom. A new environment can help, and sometimes it is the thing that works. But it does not remove the underlying difficulty on its own, and a child who is exhausted will arrive exhausted. Questions worth asking on a visit:

Before moving, it can also help to talk with public or neutral support first, such as the school counselor, your city’s education support center, or the places listed on where to get help. These are usually free, and they do not require you to have decided anything. If your child is neurodivergent, see neurodivergent children in Japanese schools. If you are still working out how absence is counted and what it costs to stay where you are, see attendance rules and costs and school refusal in Japan.

If the fees are out of reach

For most families in Japan, several million yen a year for each child is not possible, and there is no shame in saying so. Most international schools are also in or near large cities, so families elsewhere may have none within daily travel. These are the routes other families use. None is a like-for-like replacement.

Remember that for Japanese-national children, an online international school is also not an Article 1 school, so the same compulsory schooling points apply. Many families keep the child enrolled at the local school at the same time. If you would like a structured way to narrow the options, try our learning place finder.

Nijiiro’s Japanese-language section on international schools covers individual schools and regions: international school articlesJA. You can use your browser’s translation feature to read them.

Words and phrases you will need

You will need most of these at the board of education rather than at the school, since international school admissions run in English. Say the Japanese slowly, and it is fine to point at the written form. Our phrases for talking to school page has more, and the glossary explains the terms.

Frequently asked questions

Sources