How to Write a Job Ad That Chefs in Japan Will Answer

Chefs in Japan answer ads written in Japanese, in the order of a Japanese 求人票: annual pay (年収) with the monthly figure and the bonus stated separately, days off written as 完全週休2日制 only if there are two every week, the insurance you really provide instead of 社会保険完備, and a visa line saying who pays for what and how long it takes. A filled sample ad is below.

1. Why a translated English ad gets no replies

A cook in Japan has plenty of choice at home. In July 2026 there were 2.18 openings for every applicant in food preparation jobs, against 1.05 across all occupations (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare). Your ad is competing with local offers written in a format the reader knows by heart.

• Hourly pay reads as part time work. Full time jobs in Japan are advertised with monthly pay and an annual figure.
• "Two days off a week" is ambiguous. Japanese has two terms for it, and readers notice which you use.
• A missing item reads as bad news. Japanese ads always carry certain items. If one is absent, readers assume the answer is unfavourable.
• Machine translation shows. Stiff Japanese suggests the employer will be hard to deal with once the chef arrives.

2. Do Japan's disclosure rules apply to you?

Article 5-3 of Japan's Employment Security Act requires anyone recruiting workers to state the duties, pay, working hours and other conditions. Since 1 April 2024 the list also includes the range within which duties and place of work may change, and the criteria for renewing a fixed term contract.

Whether the Act binds a restaurant abroad that advertises directly from outside Japan is something we could not confirm; the Act does not address it. In practice the question rarely matters:

• Through a Japanese recruitment agency: the Act requires the employer placing the vacancy to give the agency these conditions (Article 5-3(2)). The agency will ask for them.
• On a Japanese job site: the site must take steps to keep listings accurate and up to date (Article 5-4), so expect it to ask for the standard items and a posting date.
• Directly (your website, social media): include the items anyway. Readers expect them.

The items are: duties and their range of change; contract term and renewal criteria; probation; place of work and its range of change; working hours and breaks; days off; overtime; pay (with any fixed overtime shown separately); insurance; measures against passive smoking; and the employer's name. The ministry also asks that ads show when they were posted. If space is short, you may say details will be given at interview, but all conditions must be stated by the first contact with the candidate.

3. Salary: annual figure, bonus and yen

A Japanese cook thinks in monthly pay plus bonus. The ministry's 2025 wage survey puts regular monthly pay for food preparation workers at ¥286,600 (June 2025) and annual bonus at ¥351,600 (2024), about ¥3.79 million a year. That is the frame your reader has in mind.

• Lead with 年収 (annual pay) and add 月給 (monthly pay). If you pay no bonus, say so: 賞与なし（年俸を12分割で支給）.
• Separate guaranteed pay from tips and service charge. Say they are not guaranteed, and keep them out of the annual figure.
• Pay in your currency, show yen as a dated reference. Write the rate and date, and mark it 参考 (reference only).
• Say who carries the exchange risk. One line does it: 給与は現地通貨で支払います。円換算は参考値で、為替の変動により円での受取額は増減します.

How to set the figure itself is covered in sushi chef salary by country. Any number in your ad should come from your own pay decision, not from this page.

4. Days off: 完全週休2日制 or not

完全週休2日制 means two days off every single week. 週休2日制 alone means some weeks have two days off; the ministry's working conditions survey counts arrangements such as two days off three times a month, every other week, or once a month as "substantially fewer days off than 完全週休2日制". In the 2025 survey, 65.5% of companies used 完全週休2日制.

• If every week has two days off, write 完全週休2日制 (シフト制).
• If not, write the monthly count: 休日 月6日（シフト制）.
• Always add 年間休日 (annual days off, excluding paid leave). The same survey found an average of 112.4 per company in 2024.

Accommodation and food services had the longest scheduled week of any industry (40 hours 2 minutes) and the lowest paid leave uptake (50.7%). If your hours and leave beat that, say so plainly. Exact wordings for shift work, peak seasons and home leave are in the Japanese conventions guide.

5. 社会保険: write what you provide

社会保険完備 in a Japanese ad means the employer enrols staff in Japan's health insurance, pension, employment insurance and workers' accident insurance. A restaurant abroad does not offer those, so do not copy the phrase. Under 加入保険, list your local health cover, retirement contributions and workers' compensation.

Chefs will read this line closely. Japan had social security agreements in force with 24 countries as of 2 June 2026, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Germany; Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the UAE are not among them. A chef hired locally in an agreement country joins that country's system, and Japanese nationals living abroad may keep paying into the national pension voluntarily. See onboarding a chef from Japan.

6. Visa wording

"ビザサポートあり" on its own can mean anything from paying every fee to sending a letter. Use one of these, and add the expected time from offer to start:

• 就労ビザ（［種類］）を当社が申請します。申請費用・弁護士費用は当社負担です。
• ワーキングホリデービザをお持ちの方を歓迎します（就労ビザへの切り替えは要相談）。
• 現地での就労資格をお持ちの方のみ（ビザのスポンサーはできません）。

Do not offer sponsorship on a route that is closed. The UK, for example, has in practice stopped new sponsorship of overseas chefs since 22 July 2025. Routes by country are in visa sponsorship for Japanese chefs.

7. Filled sample ad

A complete ad for a cook at a Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles sponsoring an E-2 visa. Every value except pay is filled in to show the level of detail; the details are illustrative, not a real vacancy. Pay and yen lines are deliberately left as placeholders, because a figure copied from a sample is not a market rate. The order runs: title, restaurant, duties, requirements, contract, place, hours, overtime, days off, pay, bonus and tips, insurance, visa and relocation, smoking, how to apply, employer.

Before you use it, change every detail to match your restaurant, and check the visa line against your own eligibility: E-2 requires the business to be at least 50% owned by Japanese nationals, and the employee to be Japanese and in a supervisory role or with essential skills.

8. What to do this week

• Decide the annual figure, the monthly figure and the bonus rule, and write the exchange line.
• Count real days off a week and a year; choose 完全週休2日制 only if it is true every week.
• List your actual insurance and benefits.
• Confirm your visa route is open and write one of the three visa lines.
• Have a native Japanese speaker, not a translation tool, read the finished ad, and add the posting date.

General information, not legal or immigration advice. Advertising rules differ between Japan and the country of work, and visa eligibility depends on your company's facts. Take advice on anything you are unsure of before publishing.