Almost six years ago, I got my first ever driver’s license here in Japan. I didn’t drive in my home country because it was more convenient to use the public transportation and the fact that my workplace is just a walking distance from my house, I found no need for me to drive.

Fast forward to year 2019, I got a notice from the Drivers License Center that I needed to renew my license (that was around August).

I would like to share my experience of renewing my drivers’ license for the first time in Japan. As a foreigner, it is not unusual to make mistakes or misunderstand an instruction written in full Japanese. It happened to me the first time I had to renew my license. I did not read/could not read the instructions clearly. I went to the driver’s license center too early for the renewal schedule . You can ONLY renew your license ONE MONTH BEFORE AND ONE MONTH AFTER your birthday. It was very disappointing the fact that I traveled so far to go to the bigger city to renew. I had to take the train, subway and bus but to no avail.

One month after that I went again to the driver’s license center to renew my license making sure with the schedule.

I would like to share the steps I went through during the renewal.

Step 1. Acquire Forms.

I went to the receiving desk and showed my driver’s license to get the Health Questionnaire and Renewal Form.

Step 2. Answer Health Questionnaire

To tell you honestly, I couldn’t read everything in the questionnaire because, of course, everything was in Japanese. I just used my common sense. I am healthy. I didn’t get sick so I filled all いいえ box. That means ‘no’. I don’t have any diseases or illnesses or hospitalized for some reasons.

Step 3. Fill-up Renewal Form

Filling up the renewal form was easy except for the address part where I had to write our new address which has three difficult kanji characters. Well, I used my Imiwa app which shows how to write a kanji so it was not really that hard.

If there is a change of name and address, you have to present an ID or any document that shows the change. I used my Residence Card and my My Number Card.

Step 4. Payment

I paid ¥ 3,850. It was not a long wait. I finished in less than five minutes. At first, there were four people ahead of me but the collection was fast. There were three ladies collecting fee and another lady made sure that everyone was accommodated. No fuss.

Step 5. Eye Test

The line was long here. There were three lines and I chose the middle. All you have to do here was to look in the round glass thing and tell the personnel assigned where the letter C is facing. It’s either hidari (left), migi (right), ue (up) or shita (down). After that I was directed to go to the second floor window 6.

Step 6. Encoding.

This was fast. Two people were ahead of me but I also finished in less than five minutes.

Step 7. Photograph.

I lined up (I was third in line) and when it was my turn, the personnel gave me a number in a brown plastic and directed me to the photo booth where there was another man stationed there. He took my photo and I finished in less than one minute.

Step 8. Renewal Lecture.

I had to go to the fourth floor from the second floor and many personnel were waiting by the corridor guiding the people. One old man guided me towards my seat.

The lecture was about an hour and it was on a projector from a PowerPoint presentation. One of the staffs came to me and told me that there is an English and Chinese subtitle so I don’t need to worry. Part of the lecture was a review about driving accidents and the importance of driving safely. The last part would make you really pay attention in driving or rather get scared because they will show real footages of vehicular accidents caught on dashboard cameras.

Step 9. Releasing of Renewed License.

After the lecture, names will be called one by one and they will give you your newly renewed driver’s license and that’s the end of it. You can now leave the premises and drive home carefully again.

I was given another blue license that would last for two years.

This year, 2021, I renewed my license again to a gold license, a license given to drivers without violation in five years. The procedure was pretty much the same and the only difference is I did not need to go to the testing center. There was a renewal center in my city dedicated for gold license. I only had to reserve online in advance because of the limited seats available due to COVID-19 limitations.

And that’s all for how I renewed my driver’s license here in Japan. I hope you can get something helpful from it.

Thank you for reading.