If you run an eikaiwa, international preschool, after-school program, or other child-facing education business in Japan, the Japan-version DBS is not something to leave until late 2026.
Quick version, if you only have a minute:
- This law (informally called the “Japan-version DBS”) is about a lot more than a background check — expect it to touch hiring, training, conduct rules, reporting, and how you handle sensitive records.
- Schools and licensed childcare providers have to comply. Many eikaiwa, cram schools, and after-school programs aren’t required to, but can opt into the same accreditation — and parents may start expecting it regardless.
- If you hire foreign teachers, build extra time into your hiring calendar. Background checks are expected to take longer for non-Japanese nationals, and staff will need plain-language explanations of what’s happening and why.
- This is general information, not legal advice. Check the Children and Families Agency’s own materials and talk to a specialist before you touch contracts or hiring practices.
The official law is the こども性暴力防止法. Its full legal name is 学校設置者等及び民間教育保育等事業者による児童対象性暴力等の防止等のための措置に関する法律, commonly translated as the Act on preventing child-targeted sexual violence by schools and private education/childcare providers.
The law is scheduled to come into force on December 25, 2026. For owners and administrators, the main point is this: the law goes beyond a criminal record check. Child-facing organizations will be expected to put real safeguards around hiring, staff training, reporting, inappropriate conduct, information handling, and incident response.
This article is general information for business operators. It is not legal advice. The exact duties for your organization depend on your legal status, services, staffing model, and future government guidance. Check the Children and Families Agency materials and speak with a qualified adviser before changing contracts, work rules, or hiring procedures.
1. Why this matters more than owners think
Many small and mid-sized education businesses think of child safety as common sense. That is not enough anymore.
Parents, schools, landlords, franchise partners, and municipalities are likely to ask more specific questions after the Japan-version DBS begins. They will want to know whether you screen staff, train staff, manage one-on-one situations, keep records safely, and have a clear way for children, parents, and employees to raise concerns.
The bigger business risk here isn’t the law itself — it’s trust. A parent may not know the details of the law, but they will understand whether your school has a serious safeguarding system or is improvising.
2. Does the law apply to every eikaiwa or international preschool?
No, not in the same way for every business. This is where owners need to be careful.
The law covers mandatory operators such as schools, licensed childcare facilities, certified centers, and certain child welfare or disability child service providers. If your international preschool is tied to a licensed nursery, certified childcare and education center, or another regulated childcare facility, your duties may be different from a language school that only runs afternoon English classes.
The law also creates a system for certain private education and childcare businesses to apply for national accreditation. The official materials list examples such as cram schools, tutoring schools, sports clubs, after-school clubs, unlicensed childcare facilities, temporary childcare, and similar child-facing services.
An eikaiwa with regular children’s classes may not be a licensed school, but it may still be close to the kind of business the government is trying to bring into a safer framework. The official materials describe private education broadly: a business that teaches children something, not only academic subjects, can be relevant depending on details such as frequency, face-to-face contact, and staffing.
Do not assume you are outside the law because you are “just an English school.” Also do not assume you are fully covered without checking your actual legal status. Map your business properly.
| Category | Examples | What it likely means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Mandatory operators | Schools, licensed childcare facilities | Required to comply once the law takes effect |
| Accreditation candidates | Cram schools, tutoring schools, sports clubs, after-school clubs, unlicensed childcare, temporary childcare, many eikaiwa with regular children’s classes | Not required, but can apply for official accreditation — and may face pressure to from parents or partners |
| Probably outside scope | Adult-only lesson providers, businesses without regular in-person contact with children | Likely not directly covered, but worth confirming rather than assuming |
3. Start by classifying your services
Before you rewrite job ads or ask staff for documents, make a simple service map.
List each service you offer:
- Preschool or kindergarten-style program
- After-school English program
- Weekend children’s classes
- Private or semi-private lessons for children
- Dispatch teaching at kindergartens or preschools
- Holiday camps or seasonal programs
- Babysitting, childcare, or extended care
- Online-only lessons
- Adult-only lessons
Then mark which services involve regular face-to-face contact with children. Pay special attention to programs where the same child attends repeatedly over several months.
For each service, ask:
- Are we a licensed school, childcare facility, unlicensed childcare facility, private education provider, or something else?
- Do our teachers work alone with children?
- Do admin staff, drivers, volunteers, interns, contractors, or substitute teachers have regular child contact?
- Do we send staff to another school or receive staff from another company?
- Are we likely to apply for government accreditation once the system opens?
This map will make the rest of the compliance work much easier.
4. Build the background-check process into hiring
The Japan-version DBS check is expected to affect hiring and assignment for people who work with children.
For new hires and internal transfers, the official overview says the check should generally happen from the informal offer or internal notice stage until work starts. In unavoidable cases, there may be limited flexibility after work begins, but operators should generally avoid placing a person alone one-on-one with children until confirmation is complete.
Foreign staff need extra planning. The official overview estimates that checks for foreign nationals may take about one to two months. Japanese nationals are expected to take about two weeks to one month.
That timing can affect:
- April school-year hiring
- Replacement teachers
- Visa sponsorship and start dates
- Summer programs and seasonal camps
- Last-minute substitute cover
- Internal transfers into children’s classes
If you hire foreign teachers, do not treat the background check as a final-week task. Build it into your offer timeline and explain the process clearly to candidates.
JOBS IN JAPAN has a guide to visa sponsorship for foreign job seekers. Employers should read that topic from the other side as well, because visa timing and DBS-style timing may overlap.
5. Update job ads, offer letters, and work rules carefully
The official overview says employers should prepare recruitment and employment documents so that the background-check process is clear and legally workable.
For operators, that usually means reviewing:
- Job ads
- Application forms
- Interview scripts
- Written pledges or declarations
- Offer letters
- Employment contracts
- Work rules
- Probation rules
- Disciplinary rules
- Assignment and transfer rules
Avoid vague wording such as “must be safe around children” without saying what the process involves. Also avoid casual questions that are broader than necessary. The check is about specified sexual-crime history and child-safety measures, not an open-ended investigation into a person’s private life.
A better job-ad note might say:
“This position involves regular contact with children. Depending on the role and applicable law, the successful candidate may be required to cooperate with child-safety screening and training under Japan’s こども性暴力防止法 or related safeguarding procedures.”
Before using wording like this, have a lawyer or labor specialist review it for your business.
6. Decide who needs training, not only who needs checking
A certificate is only one part of the system.
Covered operators are expected to train workers who come into contact with children. The Children and Families Agency has published worker training materials, including videos and materials with English-subtitled versions.
In practice, training should cover the situations your staff actually run into day to day:
- One-on-one lessons
- Bathroom assistance and changing support, if relevant
- Nap-time and childcare routines, if relevant
- Physical contact and comforting children
- Photos and videos for parents or marketing
- Private messaging with students or parents
- Social media boundaries
- Gifts, favoritism, and special treatment
- Reporting concerns about another staff member
- What to do if a child discloses something worrying
Do not make this a once-a-year checkbox. New foreign teachers, part-time staff, substitutes, and admin staff may all need clear practical training in language they understand.
7. Tighten your rules on inappropriate conduct
The official materials discuss conduct that may not itself be sexual violence but can lead to risk.
Examples include private SNS exchanges with children, taking children’s photos on personal devices for non-work reasons, meeting a child privately, unnecessary physical contact, or repeatedly seeking assignment to a specific child without a proper reason.
Every child-facing school should have written rules on these topics. Small schools often rely on trust and habit, but that creates gaps.
Set clear rules for:
- Personal LINE or Instagram contact with students
- Teacher-owned phones and classroom photos
- When doors stay open or visible
- Whether one-on-one lessons are allowed
- How toilet or changing assistance is handled
- How staff report uncomfortable behavior
- Who receives and investigates reports
- How records are kept
The goal is to remove ambiguity before something goes wrong, without making good teachers scared of normal classroom interaction.
8. Protect sensitive information properly
The Japan-version DBS will involve sensitive information. Mishandling that information can create serious legal, employment, and reputational problems.
Operators should decide in advance:
- Who is allowed to access check-related information
- Where records are stored
- Whether records are kept or deleted, and when
- How access is logged
- What happens if information is leaked
- Who communicates with the worker
- What can and cannot be shared with managers, parents, or other staff
Do not let criminal-record information float around in email threads, chat groups, shared folders, or printed files that anyone can open. If your school does not already have a privacy and access-control system, this is the time to build one.
9. Plan for foreign staff communication
It’s common for these schools to employ foreign teachers, and language quickly becomes its own compliance risk. Some will understand Japanese legal notices easily. Others will not.
If your process is only explained in Japanese, mistakes are likely.
Prepare plain-language English explanations for:
- Why the check exists
- Whether the role is covered
- What information the teacher must provide
- Expected timing
- Whether work can begin while waiting
- What restrictions apply before confirmation is complete
- How training will be handled
- Who to contact with questions
This does not replace the official Japanese documents. It helps staff cooperate without confusion.
10. Use the government source links directly
The Children and Families Agency has official pages and materials for operators. These are the best starting points because details may change before and after enforcement.
Useful government links:
- Children and Families Agency: こども性暴力防止法 official page
- Explanation videos and materials for businesses
- Training materials for workers
- Guideline and templates listed on the official law page
- e-Gov law listing for Law No. 69 of 2024
If you operate in Japanese, bookmark the Japanese pages. If you manage foreign staff, also use the English-subtitled training videos where appropriate.
11. A practical preparation checklist
Before December 2026, owners and administrators should work through this list:
- Confirm your legal status and whether you are a mandatory operator, accreditation candidate, or otherwise affected business
- Map every service that involves children
- Identify all workers with regular child contact, including part-time staff, contractors, volunteers, and substitutes
- Review job ads, application forms, offer letters, contracts, and work rules
- Build expected check timing into hiring calendars, especially for foreign staff
- Create or update child-safety training for teachers and administrators
- Write rules for photos, messaging, physical contact, one-on-one situations, and reporting
- Decide who handles sensitive information and how it is stored
- Prepare English explanations for foreign staff
- Review government materials regularly as the enforcement date approaches
- Get legal or labor advice before changing work rules, offers, or disciplinary procedures
Final thoughts
Whatever kind of school you run, this belongs on the operations calendar now — not the panic list for late 2026.
The businesses that handle this well will be able to explain their child-safety system clearly to parents, staff, partner schools, and regulators. A certificate alone will not be enough.
If your school hires foreign teachers, JOBS IN JAPAN can help you reach candidates who understand that child-facing education work in Japan requires professionalism, patience, and clear boundaries. When you post a role, be specific about visa sponsorship, Japanese level, teaching duties, child-safety training, and expected start dates so applicants know what the process really involves.
