To carry paying passengers in a taxi or hire car you need the ordinary Class 2 licence (普通第二種免許). Foreign residents can get it. Here are the conditions, costs, exams and visa rules, in order.
What the Class 2 licence is
It is the licence required to carry passengers for payment: taxis, hire cars, buses. You take it on top of the ordinary Class 1 licence that lets you drive your own car.
Hire and taxi operators are short of drivers who can serve clients in a foreign language. Someone with both the Class 2 licence and languages is in a strong position, for jobs and for hourly pay.
Eligibility
- Age: 21 or over. Since May 2022, people aged 19 or over who have held an ordinary licence for at least one year can also sit the exam after a special preparatory course (受験資格特例教習).
- Driving history: an ordinary licence (or semi-medium, medium or large) for at least three years in total; one year if you took the special course.
- Eyesight: 0.8 with both eyes and 0.5 with each eye, plus a depth-perception test.
- A Japanese licence. A foreign licence must first be converted to a Japanese ordinary licence (外免切替).
Two ways to get it, and what they cost
There are two routes.
- Driving school: classroom and practical lessons, then a graduation test; at the licence centre you only sit the written test and the aptitude check. Roughly ¥200,000 to ¥300,000 and two to four weeks.
- Direct test at the licence centre (一発試験): only a few tens of thousands of yen in fees and the mandatory course, but the practical test has a low pass rate and most people retake it several times.
- Some taxi companies pay for the licence if you join them. Hire car companies may also discuss it at hiring.
The written exam is in Japanese
In most prefectures the Class 2 written exam is offered in Japanese only (the Class 1 written exam is available in English, Chinese and other languages in some prefectures). It has 95 questions and you need 90 points to pass.
If your written Japanese is uncertain, the classroom lessons at a driving school are the fastest way to learn the vocabulary. Check with the licence centre of your prefecture whether a foreign-language exam is available.
Residence status
You need a status that allows you to work. Permanent residents, spouses of Japanese nationals, spouses of permanent residents and long-term residents can work in any job.
Statuses such as Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services do not, in principle, allow driving work.
Since 2024 the Specified Skilled Worker status covers road transport. Taxi and bus drivers need the Class 2 licence and Japanese at about JLPT N3, and must be employed directly by the operator.
What you can do with it
Taxi, hire car, shuttle bus and executive driver work. To drive a taxi in Tokyo you used to need the Tokyo Taxi Center geography exam; it was abolished in February 2024. Registration and the legal training remain.
A Class 2 driver who speaks foreign languages is the person operators call for overseas VIPs. HIRE driver japan trains the drivers of hire and taxi operators in VIP service and takes pre-registrations from drivers.
Rules change. Check the latest information with your prefecture's licence centre and, for residence status, the Immigration Services Agency.