Food Service Specified Skilled Worker: New Intake Is Suspended, but Job Changes Inside the Field Are Still Being Examined

If you are already working in Japan on Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) No.1 in the food service field, here is the short answer first. The suspension you have heard about is a suspension of new intake, and it does not close the door on you. According to the Immigration Services Agency, applications to change your status of residence from food service SSW No.1 to food service SSW No.1 — in other words, changing jobs inside the food service field — are all being examined, with no receipt-date cut-off applied to them, and applications to extend your period of stay are being granted in the normal way. Moving up from SSW No.1 to SSW No.2 in food service is also outside the cap measure.

What has been limited is the intake of people who are not yet in the field: Certificates of Eligibility for workers coming from abroad, and changes into food service from other statuses of residence such as student or dependent. Those routes have not simply been switched off. Each one has a receipt-date cut-off, and the cut-off is different from route to route. The food service SSW No.1 skills evaluation test has also stopped taking bookings, in Japan and overseas, and no restart date has been announced.

So you can change employers. But a job change is not automatic, and it is not free of rules. You need permission before you start, your new employer has to meet conditions that many small restaurants do not meet yet, and there are duties with real deadlines that are yours personally, not your company's. This article explains each one.

What is limited, and what is still moving

The reason for the measure is simple. The food service field has an intake cap of 50,000 people for SSW No.1. At the end of February 2026 the number of people in Japan in this field was about 46,000 (provisional figure), and the government expected the cap to be passed around May 2026. So on 13 April 2026 Japan started a temporary suspension of the issuance of Certificates of Eligibility for this field, under Article 7-2, paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Immigration Control Act.

The important point for you is that the measure was aimed at people entering the field, not at people already inside it. The Immigration Services Agency publishes the processing position as separate routes, and the table below follows those routes exactly.

Read that fifth line carefully, because it is easy to over-read. "All applications are examined" describes which applications are taken up for examination. It does not say that every application is granted. Your case still has to satisfy the requirements on your side and on the employer's side, and permission is still permission.

The cut-off receipt dates can change, and no schedule for when they change has been published, so do not trust a date you read in any article, including this one. Check the official page every time you need a date: Immigration Services Agency — processing status for the food service field. That page is the only place where the current cut-offs are correct.

Will intake reopen? The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has said that whether a restart measure will be taken at all is undecided, and that if it happens it would be announced in advance. Nobody can tell you a date. Be careful with anyone who says they know one.

Changing jobs requires permission, not just a resignation letter

Under Article 20, paragraph 1 of the Immigration Control Act, for the SSW status a change of the public or private organisation in Japan designated by the Minister of Justice, or a change of the industrial field, counts as a change of status of residence. That is the legal reason a job change needs an application. Your status is tied to one named employer written on your designation sheet (shiteisho, the designation sheet attached to your passport). Change the employer, and the status has to be changed too.

You may not start working at the new company while the application is pending. The Immigration Services Agency states this plainly: work at the intended new workplace is not permitted during the change of status application. Starting early is illegal work, and it can damage both your application and the new company.

1. Find a new employer that is able to accept SSW workers in food service (the conditions are set out further down this page). Confirm this before you resign, if you can.
2. When your current contract ends, file your own notification about the contracting organisation with the Immigration Services Agency within 14 days of the day it ended. That deadline runs from the event itself, not from your application, so do not save it until later.
3. Sign the new employment contract for SSW (tokutei ginou koyou keiyaku), and file the second notification within 14 days of signing it.
4. Apply for permission to change your status of residence. Applications are not accepted by post. In principle the foreign national submits the application in person at the regional immigration bureau, or the online system is used. Where a registered application agent is involved — a certified administrative scrivener registered with the Immigration Services Agency for the submission of applications — that agent submits the application on the applicant's behalf.
5. Wait. The standard processing period for a change of status is one to two months. For an extension of period of stay it is two weeks to one month.
6. When permission is granted, pay 6,000 yen by revenue stamp (5,500 yen if you applied online) and receive your new residence card and a new designation sheet naming the new employer.
7. Start work at the new company only from the day permission is granted.

Tree Global Partners Co., Ltd. is a licensed private employment placement business in Japan, and our service is completely free for job seekers — you never pay us anything at any stage. Our group company, Tree Administrative Scrivener Corporation, prepares your immigration application and submits it as a registered application agent. Contact us here.

The deadlines that really exist (and the one that does not)

Many people are told "you must apply within 14 days of quitting". That is a mix-up of two different things. There is no published rule that says the change of status application itself must be filed within a fixed number of days after you leave a job. What does exist is three separate limits, and you have to respect all three.

1. The 14-day notification — this one is your personal legal duty

As a mid to long-term resident holding SSW, you must notify the Immigration Services Agency when your contract with your employer ends, when you sign a new contract, and when the organisation changes its name or address or ceases to exist. The deadline is within 14 days from the day the event happened. This is your duty, not your company's. Failing to notify can be punished by a fine of up to 200,000 yen, and a false notification by imprisonment of up to one year or a fine of up to 200,000 yen. Leaving a job and signing a new one are two separate events, so that is normally two notifications.

2. The three-month rule — your status can be revoked

Under Article 22-4, paragraph 1, item 6 of the Immigration Control Act, a person staying under a status in Appended Table I may have that status revoked if they stay for three months or more without carrying out the activity of that status, unless there is a justifiable reason. The Immigration Services Agency's own Q&A says that if you are genuinely job-hunting you do not have to leave Japan immediately, but that if you stay for three months or more without looking for a job, the status can be revoked.

3. Your period of stay, and the special period

If you file the change or the extension application on or before the expiry date on your residence card, you may keep staying on your existing status until the decision is made, or until two months after the old expiry date, whichever comes first. This is the special period under Article 20, paragraph 6 and Article 21, paragraph 4. If you miss the expiry date, you lose this protection completely. Given that a change of status takes one to two months to process, filing early is not merely advisable — it is the entire plan.

What your new employer must have — the part applicants most often skip

Most job changes that fail in this field fail because of the receiving company, not because of the worker. The requirements sit on the employer's side as well as yours, and the employer's side is the part almost nobody checks before resigning. Go through these points first.

Membership of the Food Industry SSW Council

Being a member of the council for the acceptance of SSW foreign nationals in the food service field (the Food Industry Specified Skilled Worker Council) is a legal requirement for the employer under Article 2, item 4 of the ministerial notice, together with a duty to cooperate with the council's activities. The company must join before the immigration application is filed, and the membership certificate is needed at the time of your change of status application.

• Screening for council membership takes about two to three months, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. That is a general guide, and there is no guarantee that any individual case will be faster.
• Membership fees and joining fees are free for the time being.
• If the company has already accepted an SSW worker in food service before, it does not need to apply again for the second worker.
• A company that is already a member for the food and beverage manufacturing field must still make a new application for the food service field. Membership in one field does not carry over to the other, because the screening is done again for the other field.
• A company that applied to join on or after 28 March 2026 can still become the new employer of a person already staying in Japan on food service SSW No.1 — but the certificate has to be there when you apply, so the company should apply as early as possible.

Direct employment — dispatch is prohibited

In the food service field, one of the landing criteria is that the SSW employment contract must not be a contract for worker dispatch (haken). The company cannot dispatch you elsewhere, and cannot accept you as a dispatched worker. Breaking this rule blocks the company from accepting SSW workers for five years. As of 1 December 2025, only agriculture and fishery allow the dispatch form of employment — food service does not.

The type of business

You must be employed at a place of business that carries out one of these: food service where customers eat on the premises; takeaway food service; delivery food service; or food service where cooked food is provided at a place the customer requests (catering). A restaurant division inside a hotel, and the meal-preparation division inside a medical or welfare facility, are also possible workplaces.

Two duties the employer owes you

When the SSW employment contract is concluded, the employer must give you a career development plan (kyaria appu keikaku) in writing and explain it to you. And when you have worked under the contract, the employer must, if you ask for it, issue or provide a document proving your practical experience under that contract. Both are conditions of the employer's eligibility, so an employer that will not do them cannot accept SSW workers at all. That second document matters a great deal later, because it is the evidence you need for the SSW No.2 route.

Tree Global Partners Co., Ltd. is a licensed private employment placement business in Japan, and our service is completely free for job seekers — you never pay us anything at any stage. Our group company, Tree Administrative Scrivener Corporation, prepares your immigration application and submits it as a registered application agent. Contact us here.

Work you must never be given — two separate rules, not one

People often summarise this as "only hostess work is banned". That is wrong, and it is a dangerous simplification. The notice sets out two different prohibitions in two different items: one about the place where you work, and one about the act you perform. You have to satisfy both, and they do not overlap neatly.

Before either rule makes sense, one word has to be defined. Settai is a legal term defined in Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Entertainment Business Act (Fuzoku Eigyo Ho) as entertaining customers in a way that creates an atmosphere of pleasure. It is not the same thing as ordinary customer service. Serving, taking orders, carrying food, greeting guests and looking after them politely are ordinary customer service, and that work is exactly what SSW No.1 in food service is meant to include. Settai is a narrower and different thing, and that is what is prohibited.

Rule A: a prohibition about the place

Item 1 says you must not be made to work at a place of business that runs an entertainment business under Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Entertainment Business Act, or a sex-related special business under Article 2, paragraph 5 of the same Act. This applies to the premises, whatever your actual task is. Washing dishes in the kitchen of such a place is still working at such a place.

Article 2, paragraph 1 covers five categories: (1) businesses that provide facilities and perform settai for customers so that they may enjoy amusement or eat and drink — so the first category is itself defined through settai; (2) eating and drinking establishments with lighting of 10 lux or less; (3) eating and drinking establishments where it is hard to see across the room and the customer seating is 5 square metres or less; (4) mahjong parlours and pachinko parlours; and (5) shops with certain amusement machines.

There is one exception. A place of business inside a facility run by a person licensed for hotel or inn business under Article 3, paragraph 1 of the Inns and Hotels Act, which itself holds a licence under Article 3, paragraph 1 of the Entertainment Business Act for the category in Article 2, paragraph 1, item 1, is excluded from the prohibition in item 1. If you work at such a place, item 3 separately requires your employer to take the measures necessary to make sure you are not made to perform settai.

Rule B: a prohibition about the act

Item 2 is different, and it has no place limit at all. Wherever you are, including an ordinary restaurant with no entertainment licence, you must not be made to perform settai. This applies to your related duties as well, not only your main duties. The detailed criteria for what counts as settai are set out in the National Police Agency's interpretation notice, which the operational guidelines tell examiners to follow.

In plain terms: the place can be prohibited even when the work is ordinary kitchen work, and the act can be prohibited even in an ordinary restaurant. Sitting with customers to pour drinks and keep them company is the kind of thing that is at issue, whatever the shop calls the job on the recruitment page.

We cannot tell you whether one particular shop counts as an entertainment business. That depends on the licence that shop actually holds, and it is decided by the police and the public safety commission, not by us and not by the shop's own description of itself. What can be checked objectively is different: whether the company is a council member, whether the employment is direct rather than dispatch, and what type of business the place of business carries out. If an offer worries you, ask what licence the premises hold before you sign anything.

And no side jobs

The Immigration Services Agency's Q&A is direct on this: working part-time at a company other than the organisation designated on your SSW status is not possible. One designated employer, one job.

The gap between leaving and starting

Losing or leaving a job does not mean you must fly home. The Immigration Services Agency says that an SSW worker who becomes unemployed can stay at least within the period of stay if they are job-hunting, and that if a contract ends, re-employment or a job change with a new SSW employment contract lets you continue staying within your period of stay. Note the condition in that sentence: it assumes you are actually looking for work and that your period of stay is still valid.

• File the 14-day notification for the contract that ended. Do not wait until you have found the next job.
• Keep evidence that you are actively looking for work. The three-month revocation rule has an exception for a justifiable reason, and job-hunting activity is what the Q&A points to — but the Immigration Services Agency has not published criteria for what counts as a justifiable reason, so keep records rather than assume your situation qualifies.
• Do not work anywhere in the meantime. Your SSW status only allows work at the designated employer.
• Watch the expiry date on your residence card, and file before it, whatever else is still unresolved.
• Remember that the unemployed period still counts towards your five-year total. Time when you are not working still uses up your five years.

There is one route we deliberately will not describe in detail. Where a person's period of stay would expire before their case can be processed, the authorities say they may guide the applicant towards a designated activities status for preparing to move to SSW No.1, which can be extended once. However, the requirements for it, the length of stay it gives, and whether it permits work have not been published for this situation. Do not plan around it on the basis of rumours. Ask the regional immigration bureau handling your case, or ask us and we will ask on the basis of your actual documents.

Tree Global Partners Co., Ltd. is a licensed private employment placement business in Japan, and our service is completely free for job seekers — you never pay us anything at any stage. Our group company, Tree Administrative Scrivener Corporation, prepares your immigration application and submits it as a registered application agent. Contact us here.

Your five years, and what you can do with them

SSW No.1 has a total limit of five years. "Total" means the sum of all periods you have stayed in Japan on SSW No.1, in any industrial field, including past periods. The following are inside the count: time while unemployed, time outside Japan under a re-entry permit (including a special re-entry permit granted without a separate application), the special period while a change or extension application is pending, and time on the designated activities status that permits work while preparing to move to SSW No.1.

What can be taken out of the count

Under the August 2026 operational guidelines, leave for pregnancy and childbirth and childcare leave, and leave due to illness or injury (including work accidents), are not counted towards the five years — but only where the leave is proven by supporting evidence. For illness or injury the limit is in principle one year (three years where a work accident caused it), and the leave must be a continuous period of more than one month. To get this treatment you must file the immigration application with the supporting evidence before the five years run out, roughly three months before, and the notification about difficulty in continuing acceptance must have been filed by the employer without delay when the cause of the leave arose.

Six years in one specific case

Since 30 September 2025, an SSW No.1 worker who failed the SSW No.2 evaluation test but scored at least 80 per cent of the pass mark in all of the required tests, and who meets the other requirements, can be treated as having a good reason to stay beyond five years, giving a total of six years. In the food service field, the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test at N3 level or above is one of the tests counted here.

Moving up to SSW No.2 in food service

SSW No.2 is not covered by this intake measure, and those applications are examined in the normal way. It requires the food service SSW No.2 skills evaluation test, JLPT N3 or above, and two years of practical experience supervising several part-time staff or SSW workers while doing work that includes customer service, as a person assisting with store management (assistant manager, sub-manager and similar), at a restaurant in Japan licensed under the Food Sanitation Act. The guidelines also treat this experience as something that has to be reasonably recent: they basically assume five years from the end of that experience, and limit it to not more than ten years.

• From 1 May 2026, you must already have completed the required experience by the day before the test. The old rule allowing two years to be expected within six months of the test date no longer applies.
• Experience across several companies can be added together, but it must be evidenced by the employer's certificate of practical experience.
• These do not count: time as a technical intern, part-time work under a permit to engage in an activity outside your status while a student, time on cultural activities, temporary visitor, trainee or dependent status, supervisory experience in another field, experience at restaurants outside Japan, and periods when you were on the payroll but not actually doing the work.
• Applications for the No.2 test are made through the employing company's account. Individuals cannot apply on their own.

The test itself has two subjects, written and practical, in 70 minutes, multiple-choice questions with three options, in Japanese with no reading aids on the kanji, by CBT. The pass mark is 163 out of 250 (65 per cent). The fee is 14,000 yen including tax, and after a failed attempt you must wait 45 days, counted from the day after the test date, before taking it again. As to period of stay, SSW No.1 is granted a period designated individually for each person within a maximum of three years, and SSW No.2 is granted three years, two years, one year or six months.

Moving to the food and beverage manufacturing field

This is a different industrial field, so it is a change of field and needs a fresh change of status application. Passing the food service test does not satisfy its skills requirement: you need the food and beverage manufacturing SSW No.1 skills evaluation test, plus the Japan Foundation Test for Basic Japanese or JLPT N4 or above. Those tests are still running normally. The work is the manufacture and processing of food and drink other than alcoholic beverages, plus the securing of safety and hygiene. The same council membership requirement and the same ban on dispatch apply, and because it is a separate field the company must make a new council application even if it is already a member for food service.

One caution before you treat this as your fallback plan. We have not been able to confirm any published figures on how applications into this field are currently being decided, so treat it as a route that still requires permission on its own merits, not as a guaranteed alternative to food service.

One more thing worth knowing: if you satisfy the skills and Japanese requirements of more than one field, and the employer meets the conditions for each of them, the Minister of Justice can designate several fields at once, with a main field and a secondary field written on your designation sheet.

Where to check the current position yourself

Two habits will keep you out of trouble. First, never rely on a cut-off date printed in an article, a social media post or a message from a friend — those dates can change, and the only version you can rely on is the one on the Immigration Services Agency page on the day you look. Second, when a company tells you something about your visa, ask which official document it comes from.

• Processing status for the food service field, including the current receipt-date cut-offs for every route in the table above: the Immigration Services Agency page at https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/10_00259.html
• The measure itself and the position on restarting intake: the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries food service SSW pages
• Council membership procedure and screening time: the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Food Industry SSW Council page
• The No.2 evaluation test, dates and fee: the test operator's food service SSW No.2 page
• Your own case: the regional immigration bureau handling your application, or the Foreign Residents Support Center

If reading Japanese government pages is hard, that is a normal problem and not a reason to guess. Tell us where you are working now, when your residence card expires, and what offer you are looking at, and the position can be checked against the official pages rather than against rumour.

Tree Global Partners Co., Ltd. is a licensed private employment placement business in Japan, and our service is completely free for job seekers — you never pay us anything at any stage. Our group company, Tree Administrative Scrivener Corporation, prepares your immigration application and submits it as a registered application agent. Contact us here.

Frequently Asked Questions

I work in a restaurant on food service SSW No.1. Can I still change to another restaurant, and can I start work while I wait?

This route is open. The Immigration Services Agency lists change of status applications from food service SSW No.1 to food service SSW No.1 — that is, a job change inside the field — as covering all applications, with no receipt-date cut-off. That is not a promise that your particular application will be approved, because a change of status still needs permission and both you and the new employer must meet the requirements. It means your application is examined on its merits rather than refused because of the intake measure. You may not, however, start working at the new restaurant while the application is pending: the Immigration Services Agency states that work at the intended new workplace is not permitted during the change of status application. The standard processing period is one to two months, so agree your start date with the new employer only after permission is granted.

Do I really need an application just to change restaurant, and how late can I leave it after I quit?

You need permission to change your status of residence. For SSW, Article 20, paragraph 1 of the Immigration Control Act treats a change of the public or private organisation in Japan designated by the Minister of Justice, or a change of the industrial field, as a change of status of residence. A notification is not a substitute: the notification about the contracting organisation is a separate duty you also have to perform. Only a change of the duties you perform inside the same field, while staying at the same employer, can be handled by a notification about the change of the employment contract. As for timing, there is no published rule setting a fixed number of days after leaving a job to file the change application. The three deadlines that do exist are: the notification to the Immigration Services Agency within 14 days of the contract ending and again within 14 days of signing a new contract; the risk of revocation if you spend three months or more without carrying out the SSW activity without a justifiable reason; and the expiry date of your period of stay, since filing on or before that date lets you stay until the decision or two months after expiry, whichever is earlier.

The restaurant that wants to hire me has never employed a foreign worker before. Is that a problem?

It can be a serious timing problem. The employer must be a member of the Food Industry Specified Skilled Worker Council for the food service field before the immigration application is filed, and the membership certificate is needed at the time of your change application. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries says screening takes about two to three months, and there is no guarantee that any individual case will be faster. There is no fee at present. A company that applied to join on or after 28 March 2026 can still become your employer, but it should apply as early as possible, because your application waits for that certificate. Being a member for the food and beverage manufacturing field does not help: a new application is needed for food service.

My friend says an izakaya offered better pay, but there are hostesses working there. Can I take it?

Treat that as two separate problems, because two separate rules apply. First, you must not be made to work at a place of business that runs an entertainment business under Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Entertainment Business Act, or a sex-related special business under Article 2, paragraph 5. The premises themselves are prohibited, even for kitchen work. Second, wherever you work, you must never be made to perform settai, which Article 2, paragraph 3 defines as entertaining customers in a way that creates an atmosphere of pleasure, and this covers your related duties too. Ordinary customer service is not settai and is part of your normal work. Whether that particular shop falls into the prohibited categories depends on the licence it actually holds, which is a matter for the police and the public safety commission, not for us. Ask what licence the premises hold before you decide.

I have not found a new job yet and I am worried about my five-year total. Does unemployment use it up?

Yes. The five-year total covers all time spent in Japan on SSW No.1 in any field, and it includes periods while you are unemployed, periods abroad under a re-entry permit, the special period while an application is pending, and time on the designated activities status that permits work while preparing to move to SSW No.1. Only specific kinds of leave can be excluded — maternity and childbirth leave, childcare leave, and leave for illness or injury within the stated limits — and only where you produce supporting evidence, file the application before the five years end (roughly three months before), and the notification about difficulty in continuing acceptance was made without delay when the cause arose.

The food service No.1 test has stopped. Does that affect me if I already passed it?

The suspension concerns bookings for the food service SSW No.1 evaluation test, which was stopped in Japan and abroad from 27 March 2026 on the instruction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. It affects people who have not yet obtained food service SSW No.1. If you already hold that status, the Immigration Services Agency's published processing status lists job changes inside the food service field as covering all applications for examination. What documents your individual case needs is a matter for the immigration bureau handling it, so follow their instructions. The food service SSW No.2 test and the food and beverage manufacturing No.1 and No.2 tests are still being held as planned.

Summary

The measure that stopped new intake in the food service field was aimed at people entering the field, not at people already inside it. Job changes from food service SSW No.1 to food service SSW No.1 are all examined, with no receipt-date cut-off applied to them, extensions of period of stay are granted in the normal way, and moving up to SSW No.2 is outside the measure. What has been limited is Certificates of Eligibility, changes into the field from other statuses of residence, changes from technical intern training in meal production work at medical and welfare facilities, and changes from designated activities for preparing to move to SSW No.1 — each with its own receipt-date cut-off — together with bookings for the No.1 skills test.

A job change still needs permission. Because the SSW status is tied to the employer named on your designation sheet, changing employer is legally a change of status of residence, which takes one to two months to process, and you cannot work at the new place while it is pending. Plan the gap, and never start early.

Three deadlines are real: notify the Immigration Services Agency within 14 days of your contract ending and again within 14 days of the new contract, because that duty is yours personally and carries a fine; do not spend three months or more without carrying out the SSW activity without a justifiable reason; and file before your period of stay expires, which buys you until the decision or two months after expiry, whichever comes first. There is no published rule requiring the application itself within a set number of days after you quit.

The employer side deserves as much checking as your own side. The company must be a member of the Food Industry Specified Skilled Worker Council for this field before the application, and joining takes about two to three months. It must employ you directly, because dispatch is not allowed in food service. And two separate prohibitions apply to the work: you must not be made to work at premises running an entertainment business or a sex-related special business, and, wherever you are, you must not be made to perform settai. Ordinary customer service is not settai, and both rules apply at the same time.

Check the current cut-off dates yourself at https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/10_00259.html rather than trusting any date in an article, because they can change and only the official page is current. If you would like help finding an employer that actually meets the conditions, Tree Global Partners Co., Ltd. introduces jobs to job seekers completely free of charge, and Tree Administrative Scrivener Corporation, our group company, prepares your immigration application and submits it as a registered application agent.

This article reflects laws, notices and published operational information as at the time of writing, and the rules for the food service field are being revised frequently. Receipt-date cut-offs in particular can change, and they differ from route to route. Before you act, confirm the current position on the Immigration Services Agency website (https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/10_00259.html) or with the regional immigration bureau handling your case. Nothing here guarantees the outcome of any individual application.