Japan surpassed its foreign enrolment target of 400,000 in 2025

Japan’s Immigration Services Agency has announced that the number of international students in the country as of June 2025 rose to 435,200, up +8.2% over 2024. The jump was driven by a record increase in first-time students (180,000).

This means that Japan has already surpassed its target of 400,000 international enrolments by 2033.

Faced with a rapidly ageing population, Japan is intent on attracting foreign students and workers – and encouraging them to stay to work in crucial sectors and occupations. Of the overall number of foreign workers in Japan right now, a third (866,000) are categorised as “highly-skilled.”  Over the past decade, the number of highly-skilled foreign workers has increased more than fivefold.

Integration issues

While the need to offset population decline is real, the new government, headed by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, is also aware of rising public concern about the rapid influx of migrants. Public unease is centred on immigrants who either cannot (e.g., because of language barriers) or do not attempt to conform to Japanese societal norms. In response, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara made a January 2026 announcement about increased language supports for incoming students and workers – as well as a doubling of the time needed to gain permanent residency.

In June of 2025, there were 4 million foreign residents in Japan – the highest number ever.

The language debate

Japanese is considered to be one of the most difficult languages for native English-speakers to learn, which creates a number of challenges for Japanese companies and universities.

A rising proportion of universities are offering English-only degrees – and some believe this is unfair to Japanese students whose previous schooling is almost totally in Japanese. But many universities say they need English-language programmes to (1) attract top students who do not speak Japanese and (2) pursue research projects with other countries and institutions.

As the Japan Times notes:

“Universities across the world are competing for the best students, but the reality is that most of the world’s students and researchers don’t speak Japanese …. For many Japanese universities, English-medium instruction, or EMI for short, has become a competitiveness tool.”

The Times continues: “Research that Japan’s top schools want to be part of is conducted in English. If engineering, energy or climate research is being published and updated fastest in English, then waiting for materials to be translated and teaching in Japanese introduces a lag that Japan’s universities can no longer afford when considering international rankings.”

Three universities will increase their foreign student intake

On 17 February, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) announced that it would allow three large national universities – Tohoku University, Hiroshima University, and University of Tsukuba – to enrol more international students in certain programmes for the 2026 intake.

This is an exemption from the overall rule that universities enrolling more international students than mandated by the Ministry lose their permission to develop new faculties. That rule is meant to prevent universities from overwhelming campuses with international students, some of whom are not proficient in Japanese. The greater total student populations of Tohoku University, Hiroshima University, and University of Tsukuba allow them to absorb more foreign students than others in the country.

The move to higher international tuition fees

The Ministry of Education is encouraging universities to raise their tuition fees for international students in order to better support them with language and other services. Until 2024, national universities had not been allowed to charge international students more than 1.2 times the fees of domestic students – but this cap is no longer in place.

Universities deciding to increase fees include:

• Tohoku University, where international tuition will rise to 900,000 yen (about US$5,900) per year for undergraduate and master’s programmes in 2027
• The University of Tsukuba, where the increase will be to 608,800 yen annually (about US$3,930)
• Hiroshima University, which has said it will raise fees for incoming undergraduate students in the near future.

Still, these are very low annual tuition fees compared with those in most top study abroad destinations.