Cities With the Most Japanese Residents Abroad (2025)

MOFA counts 1,298,170 Japanese nationals abroad as of 1 October 2025. City level is what matters for hiring: Los Angeles (63,972), Bangkok (51,297), New York (38,251), Singapore (33,397) and Shanghai (31,733) have the largest communities. A big number alone does not mean an easy local hire. In cities where most residents are permanent (Los Angeles, Vancouver, Sydney), run a local recruiting round before importing a chef. In cities where most are on employer-tied status (Bangkok, Singapore, most of Asia), check each candidate's own work rights first.

1. Which cities to try local hiring in first

Before bringing a chef from Japan, it is worth one round of local recruiting in cities with a settled Japanese community. The number of residents matters less than what share of them are permanent residents (generally free to work without your sponsorship) versus long-term residents (often tied to a company posting, a student visa, or a spouse's status). The table below uses country-level permanent-resident shares from MOFA's statistics as a proxy, since the data is not published at city level.

For the exact long-term-versus-permanent figures behind each country label, see Japanese nationals abroad by country.

2. Top 30 cities

From MOFA's Annual Report of Statistics on Japanese Nationals Overseas, as of 1 October 2025 (published 25 December 2025).

Of the top 30 cities, eight are in the United States and five in Australia. Japanese residents concentrate heavily in large English-speaking cities, which is exactly where the permanent-resident share is also highest.

3. Cities 31 to 50, and the biggest movers

Among the top 50, the fastest year-on-year growth was Dubai (+13.2%), Metro Manila (+9.6%), Dallas (+9.0%), Houston (+7.8%) and Frankfurt (+6.2%). The biggest falls were Suzhou (−12.7%), Shanghai (−8.5%), Beijing (−7.7%), São Paulo (−6.8%), Paris (−6.7%) and Chicago (−6.2%). The fall in major Chinese cities lines up with MAFF's finding that Japanese restaurants in China fell by about 15,000 between 2023 and 2025.

4. Residents per restaurant, by country

Putting MAFF's 2025 restaurant count next to MOFA's resident count shows how thin the local pool is relative to the number of kitchens already operating.

Not every resident could become a chef, so this is a ceiling, not a hiring forecast. But it shows why South Korea and China, with few residents per restaurant, are the harder markets for local Japanese hiring and the ones where training local cooks matters more; Canada, the US, Thailand, Brazil and France have more room.

5. Working holiday and growing cities

In working holiday countries (Australia, Canada, the UK), young Japanese cooks may already be in the city, but their stay is time-limited, so plan for them as fixed-term staff rather than a long-term hire. See hiring Japanese cuisine staff on working holidays. In fast-growing cities such as Dubai, Manila, Dallas and Houston, demand for Japanese food is likely growing alongside the population, but the absolute base is still small, so plan a mix of local and Japan-sourced hires; see staffing an overseas opening.

6. Caveats on reading the data

• These are estimates based on residence notifications (在留届) filed with diplomatic missions (Taiwan figures come via the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association). People who never filed are not counted.
• City boundaries follow MOFA's own definitions. "Los Angeles metropolitan area", "Greater London" and similar labels are drawn differently city to city, so cross-city comparisons have limits.
• Japanese nationality only. People of Japanese descent and naturalised former Japanese nationals are not included.
• On the source data. MOFA also publishes an Excel version of the same survey with more city and country detail; figures here are transcribed from the published tables.

This article is general information, not hiring or immigration advice. Figures are transcribed or calculated from material published by MOFA and MAFF. Always check each applicant's work rights individually.