Skip to content

Some links on this site earn us a commission.How this affects our rankings

Landing in JapanDriving and getting around Japan as a foreign resident

The 50-Question Knowledge Check — and How to Take It in English

The written check for converting a foreign license is 50 questions and you need 45 right. You can sit it in English, or in 19 other languages. Here is the format, what it covers, and how to prepare.

If your country is not on the exemption list, converting your foreign license means sitting a written check at the license centre. Since 1 October 2025 it is 50 questions, and you need 45 correct to pass.

Start with the part most guides leave out.

You can take it in English

The knowledge check for license conversion is offered in 20 languages:

English · Spanish · Persian · Korean · Chinese · Portuguese · Russian · Thai · Tagalog · Vietnamese · Indonesian · Khmer · Nepali · Myanmar · Mongolian · Ukrainian · Sinhala · Urdu · Arabic · Hindi

You do not need Japanese to convert your license, and you do not need to bring an interpreter for the written part.

In Tokyo, the conversion knowledge check is available in all 20 languages on any weekday at the Fuchu and Samezu test centres. That matters, because for the standard Japanese license exam only five languages run daily and the other fifteen are limited to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Conversion applicants are not subject to that restriction.

Confirm your prefecture. Language availability is decided locally. The 20-language list above is what the Tokyo Metropolitan Police publish. If you live elsewhere, ask your own license centre which languages they run and on which days before you book.

First, check whether you have to sit it at all

Holders of licenses from 29 countries and regions are exempt from both the knowledge check and the driving check. If yours is one of them, none of this page applies to you — you go through document screening and an eye test only.

The exemption depends on the country or region that issued your license, not on your nationality. In the case of the United States, only seven states qualify — and an Indiana license is a special case that exempts you from the driving check but still leaves you sitting this one.

See the full exempt countries list →

The format
Questions 50
To pass 45 correct (90%)
Question type Text only
Illustration questions Removed on 1 October 2025
Sittings Once per day, afternoon (Tokyo)

Ninety percent is a high bar. It leaves you five wrong answers across fifty questions, and the questions are true/false statements about Japanese traffic law where a single qualifying word changes the answer. Read each one twice.

If you fail, you rebook and come back another day. There is no same-day retake.

What it covers

Japanese road rules as set out in the Road Traffic Act: the meaning of road signs, which vehicle has priority in a given situation, and the driver’s legal duties.

The police do not publish a syllabus or sample questions for the conversion check. Anyone telling you exactly what will be on it is guessing. What is known is the subject matter, which is the same body of law the standard written exam draws on.

How to prepare

Read Japan’s road rules in your own language. The Japan Traffic Safety Association publishes the official Rules of the Road, and JAF translates it into English, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish.

Two honest caveats before you order it:

  • JAF states plainly that this book is not exam material for the license centre. It is the best available explanation of Japanese road rules in English; it is not a question bank.
  • JAF announced that sales of the foreign-language editions — both print and e-book — would be suspended from 25 December 2025. Check whether it is available before you plan around it. The listed prices were ¥880 for the e-book and ¥1,430 for the printed edition.

Focus on where Japan differs from where you learned to drive. Most people who fail do not fail on the exotic questions. They fail because they answered from habit — from the rules of the country that issued their license — rather than from Japanese law.

Booking

Appointments are required. In Tokyo you book online or by phone; walk-in applicants are not accepted. Because the check runs once a day and only in the afternoon, a failed attempt costs you a whole further trip, so it is worth over-preparing rather than treating the first sitting as a trial run.

Sources

Rules are national; scheduling, languages and fees are administered by each prefecture. Where this page describes booking or availability, it describes Tokyo.