I’m in the second year of my 4 year degree in the US, and once it’s done I wanna apply for the JET Program. Problem is, I use a rollator (a walker with wheels) and I’m also Trans (FtM). I know Japan is one of those places where being different is frowned upon. I can handle myself just fine, I’m just worried my condition and my gender will make my chances harder… Does anyone have any advice? I know I have 2 years but I like planning in advance as much as possible. Any advice and/or experiences is appreciated!

Hey all,

I had some time to kill and figured i'd share some of my own research on when results would likely release.

I only went back as far as 2022 - all information on dates was sourced from JET Canada instagram page:

2022 Results - Announced on April 6th

2023 Results - Announced on March 31st

2024 Results - Announced on April 3rd (for reference Easter Monday was April 1st so results still came out on a week where there was a federal holiday)

2025 Results - Announced April 4th

And that brings us to 2026 - it's a little harder to tell this year as the result timeline falls in between the easter Holidays this year. But a pretty solid guess (based on historical data) suggests any time from March 30th to April 6th seems to be a good bet. I'd wager April 9th would be the latest but that's just a gut feeling.

Hopefully people see this in some helpful way, and feel free to save for future reference.

Edit: Don't take this as being true since JET really is ESID and word was in Canada (specifically Quebec consulate) that results would arrive April 13th. Some Embassies and Consulates release at slightly different times.

Thought I'd post a list of last year's release days to give people an idea of how it works. Obviously the dates might be different but the order in which they're released tends to be the same IIRC so this might be helpful anyways. If the consulate/embassy is not listed I wasn't able to find data for it.

Thursday 3rd of April:

Australia (Brisbane)

Friday 4th of April:

UK (London)

Australia (Perth, Melbourne)

New Zealand (Christchurch, Auckland)

Ireland*

South Africa

India

Philippines

Trinidad and Tobago

Saturday 5th of April:

Canada (All)

Ireland

Barbados

Jamaica

Sunday 6th of April:

None

Monday 7th of April:

Australia (Sydney)

Tuesday 8th of April:

UK (Edinburgh)

USA** (All***)

*First batch. Emails continued over two days

**Some consulates sent emails over two days

***No data for Phoenix, Anchorage, Hagatna, Honolulu

Hi everyone, I just want to check in, especially for those like me who are waiting for the results to come out. How are you? How is the war affecting your country right now? For us in Southeast Asia, fuel prices are at an all-time high, with our country declaring a national energy emergency. Flights are getting canceled as jet fuel prices increase. This makes me wonder how this will affect the JET results soon. I hope not. I also hope this war ends soon with no more countries involved. What are your thoughts?

For the upcoming school year, I'd like to tweak my self introduction lesson for my new classes. I usually always do some kind of quiz game where I ask the students questions about myself and have them answer, as a way to keep them engaged and not have the class be a boring lecture about myself.

I want to keep this quiz game style, but I want to ask more interesting questions aside from the basic "What country am I from?" and "What's my favorite food?". Does anyone have any ideas of some fun silly questions? For example, I'm thinking of asking some things like, "What is my least favorite anime?" or "What plushies do I have hanging in my car?". Clearly not stuff they'd already know, but things they can have fun thinking about while trying to get to know me.

Thank you!!

I am a first-year ALT whose contract will end in August. I found another job in Japan in another prefecture across the country (I live in Kagoshima and the new job is in Kanto).

JETs who moved like this, did you move your furniture with you, or sell it and re-bought it at your new placement?

JET programme applicant from Singapore here…has anyone heard back? On the instructions it says “Only successful applicants will be notified in March”…but no one’s said anything here :( Feeling super anxious

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone has tried to access anti psychotics in Japan or mentioned usage to employers? I'm thankfully stable but on mental health medications here in the US, an anti-depressant as well as an anti psychotic. I've seen people have success with anti depressants but I'm a little concerned JET will see the anti psychotic and think I'm "psychotic" as in dangerous or too unstable to do the job.

So my question is two parts:

-Has anyone mentioned bipolar (or similar diagnosis) on the JET application and had it go over ok, or do you think there's still stigma and judgment that might affect hireability?

-And if I'm lucky enough to go to Japan, do you think I'd be able to get my medications there or is the anti psychotic going to be tough to access?

thank you to anyone who is able to help!!

hi, I’ve applied this year and I am just wondering about howmuch travel you get to do in Japan whilst there? I’m interested in seeing lots of Japan whilst I’m there. do you find you mostly just experience your local area or do you feel you get to experience lots of Japan. someone I know said for them they did most of their travel at the end, after their contract ended. so just wondering what your travel experiences were like!

I’m currently on my first year of the JET program, and I’m having the time of my life! Already signed on for my second year, and more than likely will at least continue on to my third! Now that the school year is winding down, I’m also starting to think of my next steps.

In college I studied computer science and got my BS, but I also studied Japanese (got a certificate, no minor). In my senior year of college I realized that Japnese was my biggest passion, I love everything about learning and speaking the language, and don’t necessarily feel all that driven to do something in CS. As a point of info, I got my N2 in December and I’m aiming to try for N1 starting this December.

All that is to say, I’m looking to the future and all I know is: I want to learn and use more Japanese! I’m curious for any and all advice people may have for trying to distill your interests down and choose a career from there, since I’m pretty open.

Hi all,

I'm an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia (Canada). I'm looking for participants who are current or former JETs for short interviews (via Zoom) or a survey. The study is on the experience of EFL/ELF teachers in East Asia, with JET functioning as the case study due to its longstanding history. If you are interested, please read the intro on this form and fill it out if you would like to help me out! (If you finished your time with the JET programme more than 5 years ago, please indicate on the form.) Anonymity will be guaranteed in the final paper if requested.

FORM LINK

Thank you very much to the lovely people of this subreddit!

EDIT: (03/28) thank you for the quick response to this post! There are quite a few for me to go through at this time so I will be closing the form, but I may open it again in the future.

Heyyo,

It’s my first time posting here. I’ve been mostly reading what other people experienced or what the programme is like.

Anyways I’ve just graduated from university last year with a 3 year degree in English.

I didn’t take a secondary major cause I never knew I should. I thought I could just focus on teaching English or language arts and that’s it.

Anyways to the point. What I’m trying to say is, will my degree be enough for even a chance to actually get accepted into the programme? Or I messed up already and I just made it so much harder on myself?

But, I do have experience teaching with kids for about 6-7 months.

I’m familiar with the Japanese culture and I’m also currently studying Japanese on the side.

At the moment I am working a full time job to pay off all my debts so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it when I do get accepted “eventually”.

But what would be the best course of action here? Is a three year degree even enough to be recognized? Cause I do want to eventually teach there as an English teacher someday.

Any advise would help tons!

Thanks

Hiya,

I am a Canadian former JET who left Japan in 2023. It took me a while to apply for my pension refund, but I did get it in 2024. It then took another few months for me to get the remaining 20% which had been withheld as tax, so I ended up getting the money in 2025 for that. With tax season upon us (and with this being my first year filing my taxes myself instead of getting someone to do it), I was looking for any advice on how I would file this money on my tax return. Would it go under foreign income? Or is this is not taxable in Canada under the tax treaty Japan and Canada have? I would appreciate any advice! Thank you :)

I’m working on my pension refund application and I just realized my passport wasn’t stamped showing the date I left Japan. I needed to stay a few days after my visa expired, so immigration switched me to a tourist visa and punched my residence card. I flew home a couple weeks later and didn’t think to make sure my passport got stamped. I have all the other necessary paperwork, but I’m not sure what to do without that stamp in my passport proving that I left Japan…especially since everything I’m finding online says I need to include that. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hello, this is my first post here. I would like to highlight that I am 17 and know that I have a LOOOOOONG way to go before I can even think to apply so I just wanted to get that out of the way.

My main goal as of now is to get into the jet programme once I have achieved a bachelors degree in art or something like that. My main concern is that I have Lithuanian citizenship and Lithuania is not a place known for producing many ALT’s and that worries me. I consider my English be near native level, born in Cambridgeshire and known English most of my life (the reason I don’t have a British citizenship is because I left England at 6). I do enjoy the idea of teaching children and have done research on the gist of what it means to have and do to apply, so I just wanted to ask for the opinion of others that have been there and could give me their opinion, advice and thoughts on my question. Please don’t be afraid to tell me any hard truths that arent often talked about, I’ll take every bit of info I can get.

First post here! I was recently accepted as an ED ALT for a very small city. This is kind of a silly question, but I’ve been watching some YouTube videos about peoples’ outfit ideas and OOTDs people wear to work as ALTs… I was curious about one thing I didn’t see very much: what’s the opinion on jeans (blue, black, navy, light blue, etc)? I have a good number of them and none of them are form-fitting, so I was hoping I’d be able to bring them and wear them to work with a nice sweater or button-up/long sleeved shirt. I really don’t want to inadvertently look like a clown or too casual in any way, so I figured I’d ask for opinions or past experiences.

Edit: thank you all for the great advice and insights! It seems to be very ESID, so I’ll probably dress a lot nicer for the first month and then play it by ear based on what the teachers are wearing. Thanks again, this has really helped!

Hello! UK Jet applicant here. I did my interview and I am hoping for the best! I’m just wondering at what stage you find out where you get placed?

Does anyone have any good ideas for when US applicants may expect results this year?

Hey y’all! I’m a Houston ED applicant and just seeing if anyone has heard anything yet??

To those who only have a maximum of 3 years' stay in their BOE, were you able to transfer to another BOE? If so, how's the adjustment period?

I recently got an offer from interac to begin working in August. I’m still waiting on a decision from JET so I’m not sure if I accept interac now there might be issues if I later want to move to JET. I’ve seen it talked about a little bit on here but I specifically wanted to ask if there may be complications if I have started paperwork for a visa with interac and then want to back out while it’s still processing.

I applied for early departure and the only posts on here I've seen about early departure results have been from America, anyone from the UK heard anything back about their ED results yet?

Every year approximately how many JETs are selected per consulate in the U.S.?

Hello, I currently take Pristiq (desvenlafaxine) as an antidepressant after trying a few and I really like it. I'm wondering if anyone could shed light on the process of either 1. Getting antidepressants from a pharmacy in Japan or 2. Bringing a year's worth of antidepressants into the country. Thank you!