A guide for families moving to Japan. Two cities so far, and they could hardly be less alike: Tokyo, where seven schools span five curriculum traditions, and Kumamoto, where one school covers the whole route. This page carries what applies wherever you land, including the one rule of Japanese law every family asks about.
In Taiwan and Singapore, the first question a family faces is whether it is even eligible for a given school, because both countries restrict who may attend. Japan does not. Japanese nationals are not barred from international schools here, and there is no passport rule to navigate. What decides the choice instead is where a family is posted and what a school teaches, which is why our guides sort by district and curriculum rather than by eligibility.
The two cities we cover show how wide the range is. A family in Tokyo chooses among seven schools running American and Advanced Placement, the IB, the English National Curriculum, a bilingual Japanese program, and the Taiwan curriculum in Mandarin, at fees from about ¥0.5 million to ¥3.8 million a year. A family in Kumamoto has one school covering the full route in English, at about ¥1.2 million, with the Japanese public system as a real alternative rather than a consolation. Both situations are normal in Japan, and a guide that pretended otherwise would not be much use.
This is the one piece of Japanese law that shapes an international-school decision, and it is widely half-explained. Both halves matter, and a family that hears only the first comes away more worried than the facts warrant.
The first half. Japan places a compulsory-education obligation on the parents of Japanese-national children, covering the nine years of elementary and lower-secondary schooling, and it is discharged by attending what Japanese law calls an Article 1 school. Almost all international schools are classified differently, as miscellaneous schools, so attending one does not discharge that obligation. Schools handle this in different ways: some state the position plainly on their own pages and tell Japanese parents to consider it before applying, and at least one arranges for its pupils to keep their enrollment at the local public school while it reports attendance and results back there. It is not a bar on enrolling, and it does not apply at all to children who are not Japanese nationals.
The second half, which is the part usually left out. University entrance is not affected. A student who completes a twelve-year course at an internationally accredited school keeps eligibility to sit the entrance examinations of Japanese universities, and Japan's education ministry separately designates certain schools as equivalent to a foreign high school for this purpose. So the obligation concerns the compulsory years, not a child's future. For a dual-national or returnee family the practical step is the same in every city: confirm your own position with your local ward office or municipal board of education, since the answer depends on nationality and circumstances rather than on the school. Each of our school guides states where that school stands.
Each city guide covers the schools in depth, with published fees in yen and an honest account of who each school suits. Two cities so far, with more as our coverage grows.
The full range: an American school with Advanced Placement, IB schools including single-sex ones, a British school that moved to the IB at sixth form, a bilingual school built around Japanese, and the Taiwan-curriculum school teaching in Mandarin. Sorted by district, because in a city this size the commute decides as much as the curriculum.
Explore Tokyo →A small city with a sudden Taiwanese population, arriving for the semiconductor fab. One international school covers the full route in English and teaches Mandarin as a first language, which is why it suits these families. For many the real choice is that school or a Japanese public school, and the guide covers both.
Explore Kumamoto →This catches families out, because the pattern follows the type of school rather than the city.
Most international schools in Japan run a year from late August to June, in the pattern a family arriving from the United States, Britain, or another international school will recognize. Their admissions cycles are built around it, so applications open in the autumn or winter before, and a family aiming at a September start should be applying nearly a year ahead. Schools following the Japanese system run a different year entirely, beginning in April, and that includes both the Taiwan-curriculum school in Tokyo, which aligned itself to the Japanese calendar in 1953, and the international school in Kumamoto, where a child must reach the grade's age by April.
The practical consequence is that the same posting date suits different schools differently. An assignment starting in the summer lands neatly at an August-start school and awkwardly mid-year at an April-start one. And admissions run on their own clocks regardless: some schools take applications through the year subject to space, others run a single annual cycle that closes, and a few will not accept an application for the final year of school at all. Every guide states its school's cycle, but if a posting date is fixed and a school matters, ask admissions before assuming the two align.
Families move to Japan for different reasons, and lately for a new one. Alongside the long-standing corporate postings to Tokyo, a wave of Taiwanese engineering families has arrived in Kyushu for semiconductor work, usually on fixed assignments with children expected to return to Taiwanese or international education afterwards. That changes what matters in a school choice. Keeping a child's Chinese at the level of peers at home stops being a preference and becomes the thing that makes the return work, which is why our guides say plainly which schools teach Mandarin and at what level.
We are a Taipei academy teaching families remotely across roughly eight countries, and our Japan experience to date has been in Kansai rather than in either city here, which we would rather state than imply otherwise. We have no affiliation with any school in these guides and no referral arrangement with any of them. What we help with is consistent across both cities: the academic English these schools assess at entry, the Chinese a child needs to hold while living and studying in another language, and the preparation for whatever follows, whether that is a return to Taiwan or a move onward.
Our Student Coordinator speaks with relocating families regularly, often before a posting is confirmed, and can help you work out which schools fit, what each asks at entry, and how to keep a child's languages moving through the move. We work with families remotely from Taipei. We start by listening.
We cover cities where families we work with are moving, and Japan is one of several countries in our Explore Schools guide. Tokyo and Kumamoto are the two cities covered so far, chosen because they are where Taiwanese families are arriving, and we add cities as our coverage grows. School figures throughout are drawn from each school's own published materials, in Japanese yen and not converted. Where a school publishes no figure, our guides say so rather than estimating. Statements about Japanese law on this page describe the general position and are not advice on any family's circumstances, which depend on nationality and residence and should be confirmed with a local ward office or municipal board of education. We take no referral or affiliate arrangement with any school in these guides.
Published September 2026 by Harland Academic Leadership. Each city guide and school guide carries its own update date. Two things on these pages are moving: three of the schools we cover have Diploma programmes that are new, with first results due in 2027, and one school's Middle Years Programme is a candidate awaiting authorization. We refresh this page when a city is added or when a country-level fact changes.