Vietnam is one of the largest sources of foreign workers in Japan, through both the technical intern training system and, increasingly, Specified Skilled Worker.
Competition is the context
Large numbers of Vietnamese candidates are pursuing the same route, which affects two things.
Test seats. Popular dates in the main cities go quickly. Book earlier than feels comfortable — a date you can prepare towards beats readiness with no seat.
Placements. With many candidates holding the same minimum qualification, the minimum stops being a differentiator. Candidates who go beyond 200 points, and who continue towards JLPT N4 and N3, are visibly more employable. In a competitive market that is worth more than it would be elsewhere.
If you have done technical intern training
This applies to a large number of Vietnamese candidates and it is routinely missed.
If you completed technical intern training in a field, you may be exempt from both the skills evaluation test and the language test when moving to Specified Skilled Worker in the same field.
Check before you book anything. People sit and pay for exams they did not need. See SSW versus technical intern training.
Note also that technical intern training is being replaced by a new Employment for Skill Development system, designed to feed into SSW. That transition is ongoing — confirm the current position rather than relying on how it worked for someone who went three years ago.
Finding your centre
Use Prometric’s Vietnam pages for Specified Skilled Worker tests. The centre list appears inside the booking flow, not before it; you have to begin a reservation to see the venues. You can back out before paying.
Centres are concentrated in the major cities. Budget for travel if you are outside them.
The agency question
Vietnam has a very large intermediary sector around the Japan route, and the debt arrangements attached to some of it have attracted sustained criticism.
The test that matters: if repaying the fee would take you years, that is not a cost of entry. It is the mechanism that makes a worker unable to leave a bad placement. See agency red flags and what it actually costs.
Our Vietnamese-language material
The site is published in Vietnamese at /vi/, and every practice-test explanation is available in Vietnamese.
Centres, fees, dates and payment methods are set locally and change. Your own country’s Prometric pages and the Japan Foundation are the sources that bind. Use them for anything you are about to pay for.
What does not change
Wherever you sit it, the exam is identical: four sections, about fifty questions, sixty minutes, scored 10 to 250, and 200 is the pass. The sections are not separately timed, and there is no per-section minimum — only the total counts.
That means every guide on this site applies to you regardless of where you are. Start with what 200 points actually means.
Before you pay for anything
Find out where you stand. Our free practice test covers all four sections, reports by section, takes about fifteen minutes, and works on an inexpensive phone. It costs nothing, which is more than can be said for discovering the answer at the test centre.
Two full-length, timed tests in the same week, both at 200 or above. Then book.