How this data is collected

Every school record here is built primarily from public data published by Japan's national and prefectural government registries, with association rosters and directories used as a supplementary cross-check. Where a school has a website on file, its record is also checked against that website. Nothing is submitted directly by schools, and no school pays to be listed, ranked, or featured.

Where the data comes from

The registries, associations, and directories this site is built from — with the exact attribution and retrieval date for each — are listed on the Sources page.

How often data is refreshed

Different sources move at different speeds, so each has its own target re-check schedule: we aim to re-check the accreditation portal weekly, the primary visa-sponsoring registries monthly, and supporting statistics and prefectural gazette notices quarterly to annually. For individual school websites these are two separate things: a lightweight check that the site still answers, which reads none of its content, and a re-read of the site's courses, fees, and intake dates, which we aim to do quarterly. These are targets, not guarantees: refreshes run in batches and can fall behind them. The date each source was actually last retrieved is on the Sources page, and that date, not this schedule, is what the data's freshness rests on.

How schools are matched across sources

The same school can appear differently in different registries — spelling variants, an old address next to a new one. Where available, we anchor a school's identity on its 13-digit National Tax Agency corporate number, a stable government identifier, and otherwise match on normalized name and address before merging records from different sources.

How closures are tracked

Schools are never deleted when they disappear from a source. Instead they are flagged with a status (unconfirmed or closed) and the date that status changed, so past registry snapshots stay part of the record instead of being silently erased.

Map privacy

Every school page shows the address as plain text plus a “Show map” button — no map, and no request to Google, loads until you click it. Clicking shows a Google Map for that address: embedded in the page, or, if JavaScript is turned off, opened on Google Maps in a new tab. Either way Google is contacted only because you asked for it; this site loads nothing from Google or any other third party on its own. The separate "View on Google Maps" link also opens Google when you follow it. If you'd rather not contact Google at all, use the plain address text and leave both the button and that link unclicked.

Removing your personal data

Some registries list a school's operator under an individual's name. If you are such an individual and want your name removed, open that school's page, use its “Report a correction” link and choose “Remove my personal data”. We act on such a request within 7 days: the name is removed from the page and from search on the next data update.

Reporting an error

Registries lag, and turning raw filings into a directory can introduce mistakes. If you spot one, use the “Report a correction” link on the affected school's page, or start from the full list: Browse all schools