Colombia Student Visa for Japanese Citizens
How Japanese citizens get the Colombia student visa: visa-free entry, MOFA apostilles, the acceptance letter and a program in coffee country.
From Tokyo, Colombia is about as far as you can fly, so the Japanese students who come here are among the most committed in the room. If Spanish is your project and Colombia your chosen classroom, here is how the student visa works with a Japanese passport.
Why contact hours matter more from Japanese
Spanish and Japanese share almost nothing: no cognates and a different sentence logic. The one gift is pronunciation, since Spanish uses sounds you already produce cleanly. Five vowels that sound like yours and a rhythm that rewards clear syllables mean that speaking confidence arrives earlier than expected. What the distance between the languages demands is contact hours, which is the case for immersion: structured classes by day and a city where nobody switches to English. The grammar is the slow part, so our program gives it order: a placement test, an evaluation at the end of each CEFR level from A1 to C1, and a certificate for each one passed, in groups of five students at most.
| Question | For Japanese citizens |
|---|---|
| Visa to enter as a tourist? | No: entry permit on arrival, normally 90 days, extendable to 180 per calendar year |
| Apostilles | Yes where required, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), before departure |
| The key document | The acceptance letter, issued by our licensed school as a PDF with a verification QR code |
| The program behind it | CEFR A1 to C1: 40 h/month, 1 to 15 months, in Pereira, Medellín or online |
| What it costs | From $ 1.760.000 per month, plus government fees set by the authorities |
Documents from Japan
The application is filed online with the Colombian authorities. Around the acceptance letter you add a valid passport, recent bank statements in your name, photos to specification, proof of health cover and apostilled documents where required, all obtained before departure, because the distance makes remote fixes slower than from anywhere else. A Japanese document also needs an official translation into Spanish, and translators who work from Japanese are fewer than those who work from English, so book that step first.
The acceptance letter comes from the school
We are a licensed ETDH institution (Resolution 6784 of 2022); our Spanish program is registered by Resolution 005093 of 2024 with the Secretaría de Educación Municipal de Pereira and listed in SIET, the Ministry of Education registry. Reserve a Visa Program with a 15% deposit and we issue your carta de aceptación directly; the deposit counts toward your program rather than adding to it. From there we guide you through the process, so the rest of the file matches the letter. Your first package gets −10% off on selected plans, applied automatically.
Coffee culture, coffee country
Flights run through North American hubs, long but single-stop; once here, Pereira sits in the Eje Cafetero, the coffee region Japan knows through its cafés, a short drive from the farms. Medellín adds two sedes, Laureles and Belén, in a city that keeps spring temperatures all year. Japan runs about 14 hours ahead of Colombia, so online classes from home mean Japanese mornings for our evening sessions. A free trial class of 30 to 45 minutes lets you meet a teacher before any flight is booked.
Immigration rules change and cases differ, and this page is not legal advice: check current rules with official Colombian sources, or hand the application to our optional lawyer service (400 USD).
Japanese citizens ask us
Do Japanese citizens need a visa to enter Colombia?
Not for a short stay: you receive an entry permit on arrival, normally 90 days, extendable to 180 within the calendar year. A longer stay built around study needs the type V student visa.
Where do Japanese documents get apostilles?
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at its consular offices in Tokyo or Osaka, before departure; applications by mail are also accepted. Public documents such as a koseki extract go through the same office, so one visit can cover most of the file. Plan the Spanish translations at the same time.
Is Spanish hard for Japanese speakers?
Grammar and vocabulary are new territory, but pronunciation comes early. Contact hours decide the rest, which is what daily classes in a Spanish-speaking city give you. Most Japanese students find the second level moves faster than the first.
Can I start online from Japan?
Yes, as a head start: many students do one level online before the flight, then continue on campus with the same teachers and arrive already past the basics.
From choosing a program to a decision.
A plan for every goal and every schedule
Group classes from $ 420.000 $ 378.000 a week, flexible private packages valid for 6 months and live online at the same price.
Your Spanish starts today (and your first class is free)
Your first package gets −10% off on selected plans, applied automatically. See you in Medellín, Pereira or online.