For all the hoops, frustrations, mountains of paperwork, testing, and overall nerve-wracking experience of getting your initial drivers’ license in Japan, getting your license renewed is a breeze by comparison. There is still the time element, some paperwork, and a driver safety course but the process itself is pretty straight forward and simple.
We received our renewal notifications in the mail a couple months prior to our birthday. Sometime after the effective start date listed on the notification letter, 1 month prior to your birthday, you will need to go to one of the designated police stations to start the renewal process. Fortunately, you only need to bring with you the renewal notification, your expiring JPN license, and some money. A DL sized photo is optional since you should be able to get your photo taken there at the station. We elected to get our photo done there instead of bringing one in. Once there we needed to fill out some paperwork and answer a few questions, take the eye exam, and get the new photos taken. It took just a few minutes. Easy peasy. If you don’t speak Japanese well you will want to bring someone to interpret. Lucky for me, I am married to my interpreter. woot woot! 😊
After initiating the process you will have a couple months to attend a 2 hour traffic safety course, something I wish they would do in the States since it is a good refresher. For a first-time license renewal, you have to attend a special 2 hour course but if this isn’t your first JPN license renewal the regular safety course is only 1 hour. Living out in the country we don’t have a ton of 1st time drivers renewing their license so we only had one safety course per month offered during the renewal period. It is a bit inconvenient but not too bad since we were able to do everything closer to home without having to travel all the way to Sapporo. Hooray! They did punch a hole in our original JPN license though. Booo!
I had reviewed some things online prior to attending the driver safety course because I didn’t want to get caught flat-footed just in case there was a graded exam but I worried for nothing. The course itself is pretty standard fair if you have ever taken a driver safety course in the States for a ticket and just like the ones in the States it’s a bit of a yawner. The course was 2 hours of watching safety videos and listening to a monotone and dry instructor. There is no interpreter so you need to bring someone with you if you don’t understand enough of the language. My interpreter almost got me into trouble as she decided to spice up the interpreting, ad-libbing with sarcastic and often comedic flair. It was the only thing that kept either of us from falling asleep I think and made the safety course tolerable. It was a good thing no one else in the room understood English or American Sarcasm. There was a self-examination of our driving habits at one point where we reviewed our answers in class but this was not turned in.
About a month after attending the safety course, we needed to go back to the police station to pick up our new license. This time the stripe on the license was blue, instead of green. Simple but required time out of our day to pick it up since they don’t do mail delivery (kinda like renewing our work visa last year).
Even though we still needed to make multiple trips it wasn’t too bad overall. Day and night difference to getting our initial drivers’ license here. So if you are lucky enough to pass the skills test when applying for your initial Japanese drivers’ license, everything after that is a breeze.
On a side note, I did notice the videos shown in the safety course are a bit different than what we would have seen in a similar course back in the States. It was strange watching a safety video about a guy having an accident and the focus was as much or more about how his employer was affected and inconvenienced by the accident and the disappointment to his family. Oh sure, a kid was hit and the kids’ family was put in a terrible situation because of it, but hey, your employer shouldn’t have to deal with the fallout of your error in judgement while driving a company car on company time. Shame on you for not thinking of these things before getting behind the wheel. Different culture, different mentality I guess.
On another side note, I know I put the following link in our blog post for getting your initial Japanese license but wanted to list it again for reference. This is a great website for ex-pats if you want a refresher on road signs, basic rules of the road, and testing in Japan, enjoy! https://japandriverslicense.com/
Kuma no Kazoku 