Do I need a high school or college degree to naturalize?
Thus, most of its visas — such as Instructor, Engineer, Specialist in Humanities, etc. — have an implicit college/university four-year (not a short-term) degree requirement. Actually, most of the working visas also don't explicitly require a degree. In lieu of a degree, they normally want evidence of industry experience. This industry experience requirement can often be as high as ten years, and they often won't count any work done, even as a full-time employee, performed as a minor.
The result of this policy is that if you don't have a degree from a non-associate non-trade school institution of higher learning, getting permission to legally work in Japan is difficult.
Naturalization, however, has no explicit college (or even high school) graduation requirement. Like advanced Japanese language ability, though, having it counts during evaluation heavily towards the naturalization requirement of being able to financially support yourself until the end of your days in Japan without needing welfare. If you have no degree, your Japanese is not fluent, and you are not being supported as a dependent by your spouse or family, you may have a difficult time meeting the self-sufficiency requirement for naturalization. In other words, if you lack a degree, you're going to have to show that you don't need one. Even if you lose your job and have to find another one.
They will want to see the originals of college and/or high school degrees that you have, and they will also want you to provide two copies of each, as well as a translation of them. My case officer said they he'd accept notarized and sealed non-copies of college transcripts that clearly indicated graduation as well, though they preferred just the certificates as they were easier to decipher.
Comparing this to permanent residency requirements for non-married foreigners, this does make naturalization easier with respect to formal education. Even if you have been in Japan for five years, getting permanent residency without being married to a Japanese national or another foreigner with permanent residency is extremely difficult in that your contribution to Japan has to be significant, implying that higher education is assumed.
