Is It Really Professional Work? Official ISA Cases on Simple Tasks, Paperwork and Workload (ESI Visa)

1. What “professional work” means for the ESI status

The ESI status covers work that needs knowledge or skills in the natural sciences or the humanities, or a way of thinking based on a foreign culture. According to the ISA’s published guidelines, the work must require professional ability at a certain level, backed by academic study. For the basic requirements of this visa, see our Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa guide.

The guidelines give two simple warning signs. The following are generally not covered:

• Work advertised with phrases such as “No experience needed, you’ll get used to it quickly”.
• Work that is usually done by Japanese employees who do not have the education or experience the ESI status requires.

The ISA also looks at your activities as a whole. If qualifying work is only a small part of the job and the rest is work that needs no special knowledge or that can be learned by repetition, the job does not qualify. In practice, the line has become stricter in recent years, because other statuses such as Specified Skilled Worker now cover many hands-on jobs.

This article looks at the content and volume of the work itself. For cases where the job title did not match the daily work, see also interpreting jobs in Part 1 and hotel jobs in Part 3.

2. Case 1: Simple tasks that need no professional knowledge (refused)

What happened

• A graduate of a Japanese university’s faculty of education was hired as a site worker by a company making and selling boxed lunches (bento), to pack lunches into boxes at its factory. Refused: the work does not need knowledge in the humanities.
• A vocational school graduate applied to work at a company that repairs, customizes and trades motorcycles, at JPY 190,000 a month. The actual work was repairing frames and replacing punctured tires. Refused.
• A vocational school graduate applied to check and repair electronic products at a company exporting used electronics, at JPY 180,000 a month. The actual work was saving data on computers, making backups and replacing hardware parts. Refused.
• A graduate of a nutrition school, who had studied food chemistry, hygiene, clinical nutrition and cooking practice, applied to make Western-style cakes at a confectionery factory, using that knowledge. Refused: the ISA found that the work can be done after repeated training.

What to learn from it

• Having a degree or a diploma does not turn a simple job into professional work. The ISA looks at the job, not only at the applicant.
• The nutrition school case shows that even related studies do not help if the job itself is one that can be learned by repetition.
• The same knowledge can lead to a different result in a different job. In another published case, a vocational school graduate who had studied nutrition management was approved for research and development work at a food company. What counts is whether the job uses the knowledge, not the hands-on skill.
• Cooking is treated in the same way, however skilled the chef. A chef of foreign cuisine or a pastry chef generally falls under the Skilled Labor status, which usually requires 10 years of experience. Cooking Japanese cuisine is covered by other routes, such as a Designated Activities program run by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
• Some of this work may be covered by other statuses, such as Specified Skilled Worker, which have their own requirements.

3. Case 2: Factory work — compared with the people doing the same job

Refused: the same work as technical intern trainees

An applicant was to process, assemble, inspect and pack parts at the factory of a company that processes electrical parts. Technical intern trainees worked at the same factory, and most of the applicant’s work was the same as theirs. The ISA did not accept that the work needed advanced knowledge, and the application was refused.

Approved: the same work as engineering graduates

A vocational school graduate who had studied drafting, CAD, industrial mathematics, strength of materials, electronic circuits and product design applied to work at a company making metalworking machines. After first-year training, the work was adjusting machine accuracy, programming processing equipment, choosing cutting tools and assembling machines. Some of these duties, such as assembling machines, could look like hands-on factory work, so the question was whether the work after the training needed professional knowledge. To judge this, the ISA asked about the Japanese employees doing the same work. It found that they were graduates of science and engineering faculties, that the company advertised the job with university-level requirements, and that they were paid the same as the applicant. This was approved.

What to learn from it

• Factory jobs are not automatically excluded, even if they include some hands-on tasks such as assembly. The question is whether the work, after any initial training, needs professional knowledge.
• The ISA may compare your job with the people around you: the education, career and pay of colleagues doing the same work, and the requirements in the company’s job ads.
• If technical intern trainees or Specified Skilled Workers work at the same site, the employer should explain clearly how your work differs from theirs.

4. Case 3: What the documents say vs. what is really there (refused)

“Store staff” on the dispatch contract

An applicant employed by a staffing agency applied to do translation and interpreting at a client company. However, the worker dispatch contract described the job as “store staff”. When the ISA checked with the client company, it turned out to be a retail store, which explained that the applicant would be selling to customers. Refused.

An accounting office that was a restaurant

A graduate of a Japanese university’s faculty of economics applied to do accounting work at an accounting office. At the office’s address, however, there was a restaurant, not an accounting office. The applicant was asked to explain, but gave no clear explanation. The ISA did not accept that the office actually existed, and the application was refused.

What to learn from it

• If you are dispatched by a staffing agency, the ISA examines the work at the client company, not the agency’s own business. Check that the dispatch contract describes your real duties.
• All documents must tell the same story. The ISA can compare the contract, the job description and the workplace, and may contact the client company.
• The employer must really be doing business at the address in the documents. The ISA may check this, and if there is no real business there, an explanation alone will not change the result.

5. Case 4: Not enough professional work at a small company (refused)

What happened

A vocational school graduate who had studied information systems engineering applied to work at a restaurant company, at JPY 250,000 a month. The planned work was computer-based accounting (sales, purchases and expenses), labor management and customer management (taking reservations). The ISA found that:

• with only 12 employees, the company did not have enough accounting and labor management work for this to be the applicant’s main activity; and
• “customer management” really meant taking reservations by phone and writing them in a book, which needs no professional knowledge.

The application was refused.

What to learn from it

• Professional work must be your main activity, and there must be enough of it to fill your working time. At a small company, the employer should explain the volume of work concretely.
• In practice, office work needs to be more than routine input. For accounting, for example, work that uses bookkeeping knowledge, such as journal entries, is more likely to be accepted than entering slips into software.

6. A quick check for applicants and employers

Based on these cases, the following points help show that a job is professional work:

1. Describe the duties specifically, and explain what knowledge or skills they need and why.
2. If technical intern trainees or Specified Skilled Workers work at the same site, explain how the work is different.
3. Show that other staff handle the hands-on work, so that it does not become your main activity.
4. Check that your pay and conditions fit professional work, and that Japanese employees doing the same work have similar education and pay.
5. Check that there is enough of this work, and that the contract, the job description and the workplace all match.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for general information only and is not legal advice on any individual case. The information is based on sources available as of October 31, 2026. Laws, guidelines and their application may change without notice. The cases described are summaries of examples published by the Immigration Services Agency and do not guarantee the outcome of any other application. TKG Immigration Consulting Office accepts no liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of this information. In case of any difference between our English descriptions and the original Japanese texts, the Japanese texts prevail.