Japan's Food Culture Talent Programme and Your Overseas Restaurant

The Programme for Developing Human Resources to Spread Japanese Food Culture Overseas (日本の食文化海外普及人材育成事業) is a Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) scheme that lets international students who graduate from a Japanese cooking or confectionery school stay on after graduation and keep learning while working at restaurants and similar businesses in Japan. They can stay for up to 5 years. The aim is for them to go home and become the people who spread Japanese food culture in their own countries.

In other words, the programme is also a mechanism for sending non-Japanese cooks who have trained seriously in Japan out into the world. From the point of view of someone running a Japanese restaurant abroad, it is a scheme that produces future hiring candidates. This article walks through the programme following its implementation guidelines and considers how an overseas restaurant can make use of it.

1. Overview of the programme

• Responsible ministry: MAFF, Minister's Secretariat, New Business and Food Industry Department, Food Service Industry and Food Culture Division
• Legal basis: Implementation Guidelines for the Programme for Developing Human Resources to Spread Japanese Food Culture Overseas (日本の食文化海外普及人材育成事業実施要領), adopted 14 February 2014, most recently revised 3 April 2023
• Residence status: Designated Activities (特定活動; activities designated under Appended Table I(5) of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act)
• Maximum period of stay: 5 years (3 years for people in the confectionery field who have not obtained a confectioner's licence, 製菓衛生師免許)
• Scope of work: cooking and related work at premises licensed under the Food Sanitation Act for "restaurant business" or "confectionery manufacturing"

Expected host businesses include ordinary restaurants (including Japanese restaurants), confectionery and bakery shops, and hotels and ryokan (traditional inns). Note that the programme is not limited to Japanese cuisine.

2. Who is eligible and who hosts them

Three parties are involved.

The host organisation takes the foreign cook on as a worker under an employment contract. They are hired as employees, not as trainees.

3. What the training plan must cover

The school and the host organisation jointly draw up a training plan for each foreign national and, as a rule, apply to MAFF for approval at least one month before the person's current period of stay expires. Items the plan must include are:

• The plan and facilities for acquiring knowledge and skills, and assessment of progress
• The period of employment
• Securing housing during the stay
• Enough leave to make a temporary trip home
• Appointment of a cooking instructor and a daily-life adviser
• A financial base guaranteeing pay and enrolment in labour and social insurance
• Interviews, handling of consultations and complaints, and audits
• Measures to be taken if the activity cannot continue
• A written pledge not to have the person engage in "entertaining customers" as defined under the Act on Control and Improvement of Amusement Business (風営法)

The conditions for approval also include the following.

• The person must not be assigned to work that needs no skill, or work that can be learned simply by repeating the same task
• No more than 3 people per premises
• Pay must be at least equal to what a Japanese national doing the same work would receive
• No deposits may be collected, and no contract may set penalties for breach of the employment contract

In operation, the school assesses progress at least once a year and reports to MAFF, and audits the host organisation at least once every six months and reports to the regional immigration services bureau. During the first year, the school also interviews the person at least once every six months, separately from the audits. If the person cannot pay their travel home, the school covers it, and if the school unavoidably cannot, the host organisation does.

Securing housing, leave for a trip home, and appointing an instructor and a daily-life adviser: these are almost exactly what you would want to put in place for retention when bringing a Japanese chef from overseas. It is useful to read the programme as the government's own written list of what it takes to host a cook working across borders (we cover the overseas side in designing housing, travel costs and relocation allowances).

4. How it differs from Specified Skilled Worker (food service)

Another residence status that lets foreign nationals work in restaurants in Japan is Specified Skilled Worker (特定技能) in the food service field. MAFF sets out the differences as follows (April 2023 material).

The key difference is purpose. Specified Skilled Worker exists to fill labour shortages in Japan; this programme exists to develop people who will spread Japanese food culture abroad. That is exactly why it connects with Japanese restaurants overseas.

5. Change to the application method from October 2026

On 8 July 2026, MAFF announced that it plans to stop accepting applications for this programme through its shared online application service, eMAFF, in February 2027. To allow for review times, from October 2026 all applications and reports must be made using Word-format application forms sent to a designated email address. There are further instructions, such as converting attachments to PDF, keeping each document as a separate file and bundling them into a ZIP. Companies in Japan considering hosting should check MAFF's page for the latest guidance.

6. Three ways an overseas restaurant can use it

Host organisations must be in Japan, so a restaurant abroad cannot take people on directly under this programme. With that in mind, there are three ways an overseas restaurant might make use of it.

Use 1: A company with restaurants in Japan trains people and brings them to its restaurant in their home country

A restaurant company with locations both in Japan and abroad can act as a host organisation at its Japanese restaurant, train a foreign cook there, and after the period of stay ends, have them work at its own restaurant in their home country.

For example, a Vietnamese graduate of a cooking school could train for several years at the company's restaurant in Japan, then return home and join its Ho Chi Minh City restaurant as a head chef candidate. If the person is working in their own country, the work visa issue does not arise at all. Compared with sending a Japanese chef abroad, this greatly reduces visa costs and lead times and the problem of paying international-level salaries. It also fits the programme's stated aim of spreading Japanese food culture after returning home.

However, during the period of stay the person's activities are based on a training plan in Japan, and whether it is acceptable to make a job after returning home a condition of hosting them needs checking against both the purpose of the programme and labour law. The appropriate approach is to respect the person's freedom to choose their job and simply offer the option of "a place you can work when you go home".

Use 2: Hire people who have completed the programme and returned home

Even a restaurant abroad with no base in Japan can hire cooks who have completed this programme and gone back to their home country. Someone who graduated from a Japanese cooking school, holds a cook's licence and has worked in restaurants in Japan is a valuable candidate for a local hire.

Under the implementation guidelines, a school must report to MAFF when a foreign cook takes up work related to spreading Japanese food culture overseas after returning home. Schools are also required to hold a job placement licence or to have filed a notification. It is worth talking to the careers staff at cooking schools with many international graduates about graduates who plan to return home.

Use 3: Assess backgrounds correctly when hiring locally

When you hire kitchen staff locally and a CV says "graduated from a Japanese cooking school" or "worked X years at a restaurant in Japan", the applicant may have been in Japan under this programme or under Specified Skilled Worker. Asking which scheme they were on, what work they did and for how many years tells you a lot about what their experience actually involved. Someone who went through this programme should have trained across the full sequence from prep to finished dish, in line with their training plan.

Under MAFF's cooking skill certification scheme, graduates of a cook training facility in Japan do not need the Bronze certification that is otherwise a prerequisite for Silver, and work experience at a Japanese restaurant in Japan counts towards the years required for Silver and Gold. People who complete this programme are well placed to aim for the higher levels of certification.

7. Points to watch

• We found no published figures on participant numbers. MAFF's pages do not show statistics on how many people have been hosted by or completed this programme (checked 22 September 2026). Assume that the size of the pool is unknown.
• It is not limited to Japanese cuisine. The programme covers cooking, confectionery and baking in general. Whether a given person has Japanese cuisine experience needs checking individually.
• Going home is the person's choice. Some stay in Japan under a different residence status after their period of stay, and some move to a third country.
• Nationality and country of work. No visa is needed only when the person works in their country of nationality (or a country where they already have the right to work). If you want them to work at a restaurant in another country, a regular work visa is required. For the situation by country, see our overview of visas for Japanese cuisine staff across Asia and work visas by country.

This article is general information, not immigration or employment advice. The details of the programme were checked against MAFF's published materials as of 22 September 2026. Before actually hosting or hiring anyone, confirm the latest information with MAFF, the implementing institution and a qualified professional.