How Japanese citizens get the Colombia student visa: visa-free entry, MOFA apostilles, the acceptance letter and full immersion in the world of coffee.
From Tokyo, Colombia is about as far as the planet allows — which is exactly why the Japanese students who make it here are the most committed people in the room. If Spanish is your project and Colombia your chosen immersion, here is how the student visa works for Japanese citizens.
Japanese citizens enter Colombia without a visa for short stays: an entry permit on arrival, normally 90 days, extendable to 180 days within the calendar year. Routes run through North American hubs — long, but single-stop. Verify the current entry rules with official Colombian sources before booking.
Spanish and Japanese share almost nothing — no cognates to lean on, a different sentence logic, a new rhythm entirely. The compensating gift: Spanish pronunciation is built from sounds Japanese speakers already produce cleanly, so speaking confidence comes earlier than expected. What the distance between the languages truly demands is contact hours, and that is the case for full immersion: a structured program, spoken Colombian Spanish all day, and a city where nobody switches to English. Our Visa Program provides the structure — 40 hours of classes per month, about 10 hours a week, CEFR A1 to C1, from 1 to 15 months.
| 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 — issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), before departure |
| The key document | The acceptance letter, issued directly by our licensed school |
| The program behind it |
Group classes from $370.000 COP/week, flexible private packages valid for 6 months, and online at the same price. No hidden fees — and 15% off your first package.
Enroll in minutes, pay securely with Wompi and enjoy 15% off your first package. We are waiting for you in Medellín, Pereira or online.
| CEFR A1 to C1, tracked attendance and certificates — 40 h/month, 1 to 15 months |
| What it costs | From $1,700,000 COP per month, plus government fees set by the authorities |
The application is filed online with the Colombian authorities, anchored by the acceptance letter and completed with a valid passport, recent bank statements, photos and apostilled documents where required — in Japan, apostilles are issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Collect them before departure together with official Spanish translations where needed; the distance makes remote fixes slower than anywhere else.
Every paper, before the long flight.
Mister Fox Spanish School holds a government ETDH licence (Resolution 6784 of 2022); the Spanish program is registered by Resolution 005093 of 2024 with the Secretaría de Educación Municipal de Pereira and appears in SIET, the public registry of the Ministry of Education. Reserve a Visa Program with a 15% deposit and the carta de aceptación is issued by the school directly. PRIMERA15 takes 15% off a first package.
Pereira sits in the heart of the Eje Cafetero, the coffee region Japan already knows through its cafés — except here you study fifteen minutes from the farms. Time zones are honest: Japan runs about 14 hours ahead, so live online classes from home mean Japanese mornings for Colombian evenings. Doable for a head start; the real program belongs on campus, where every hour outside class is also Spanish.
Not for short stays: an entry permit on arrival, normally 90 days, extendable to 180 within the calendar year. For a longer study-anchored stay, the type V student visa applies. Confirm current rules with official Colombian sources.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), before departure. Non-Spanish documents also need an official translation for the file.
The grammar and vocabulary are genuinely new territory, but pronunciation is a gift — Spanish uses sounds Japanese speakers already command. Contact hours decide everything, which is what immersion plus a structured program provides.
Yes, with honest expectations: the 14-hour difference means Japanese mornings for our evening classes. Many students do a level online as a head start, then move the project to campus.
From choosing a program to a decision.
1 month · 40 h
$ 1.700.000

