🇯🇵 Criminal Records for the Japan Working Holiday Visa

Volare Editorial | September 3, 2026

To ensure security and public order, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA) requires all participants of the Working Holiday program to demonstrate impeccable personal conduct. However, the way to prove a clean criminal record varies drastically depending on your passport's nationality.

When preparing your consular file, it is vital to identify whether your embassy requires an official certificate issued by the national police, an independent sworn declaration, or simply ticking boxes on the standard form. Below, we break down the exact rules for each group.

Summary Board Mandatory Official Certificate

For applicants in this first block, presenting an official document issued by their country's authorities is a strict requirement for visa approval.

Nationality (Passport)	Police Certificate Rule	Key Consular Observation
🇦🇷 🇨🇱 Argentina and Chile	Standard Official Certificate	Must be issued by the corresponding national registry (RNR in Argentina or Civil Registry in Chile).
🇺🇾 Uruguay	Standard Official Certificate	The consular guideline explicitly clarifies that the document does not need to be apostilled.
🇱🇹 🇱🇺 Lithuania and Luxembourg	Original Extract with Strict Validity	For Lithuania, it must not be older than 6 months. For Luxembourg, the maximum allowed is 3 months.

Summary Board Independent Sworn Declaration

These jurisdictions do not oblige you to process an external police certificate with your country's government, but they do require the signing of a legal document provided by the Japanese embassy itself.

Nationality (Passport)	Document to Present	Regulation and Format
🇪🇸 Spain	"Annex D"	It is mandatory to print, fill out, and sign this specific annex where you formally declare having no criminal record.
🇲🇹 Malta	"Declaration by Applicant"	Official embassy document that functions as a declaration under oath.

Summary Board No Additional Certificate

This is the largest group in the program. For these nationalities, the Japanese government assumes good conduct by accrediting it through the principle of good faith in the initial application, without requiring extra paperwork.

Country Block (Passports)	Required Proof Method	Process Detail
🌍 North America and Oceania: Canada, Australia, New Zealand.	Visa Form Boxes	No police certificate or annex required. Everything is declared on the second page of the visa application form.
🇪🇺 Europe: Germany, Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, UK, Sweden, and others.	Visa Form Boxes	They only need to check the corresponding security boxes (Yes/No) regarding criminal records on the standard form.
🌏 Asia: South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan.	Visa Form Boxes	The security evaluation is conducted internally based on the form's answers.

Final considerations and penalties

Regardless of the accreditation method that applies to your passport, the golden rule in Japan is honesty. Lying on the criminal record declaration (whether by checking "No" on the form when the answer is affirmative, or falsifying an annex) leads to the permanent denial of any type of visa for Japan in the future.

If you have a minor offense (such as an old traffic violation), we recommend making a prior inquiry at the consulate to evaluate if this incident is truly an impediment to participating in the program.

Complete Volare Guide

Knowing exactly which document to process will save you time and prevent you from spending unnecessary money on apostilles or certificates that your embassy does not ask for. To learn about the bank requirements, rules on flight tickets, and the full document list, we invite you to check our Official Japan Working Holiday Visa Guide.