Japan Foreign Index
Real data on life as a foreigner in Japan
Community-contributed surveys combined with government statistics — giving you an honest picture of employment, salary, and daily life that official sources can't provide.
The data gap
Japan publishes excellent macro statistics on foreign residents — visa categories, nationality breakdowns, regional distribution. What it doesn't publish is what it's actually like to live here.
What's a realistic salary for a foreigner in tech? How long does it take to feel settled? How much does Japanese ability actually matter for your career? These questions get answered in expat forums and Discord servers — one anecdote at a time.
3.8M+
Foreign residents in Japan
~0
Public salary datasets by visa type
10+
Years of government data available
—
Individual experience data
What this becomes
Salary benchmarking
Know what people like you actually earn — filtered by visa, industry, Japanese level, and years of experience.
Cross-referenced with government data
Survey responses sit alongside e-Stat population data and MHLW wage surveys so you can see where community experience diverges from official numbers.
Living as a dataset
Housing costs, commute times, satisfaction scores, job search timelines — the things that matter to your daily life, measured.
About
Forin is an independent project built by a foreign resident in Tokyo. It started as a side project to answer the questions I couldn't find reliable answers to when I first arrived — and grew into something I thought other people might find useful.
The platform is early. The survey has a handful of responses. The data visualizations are basic. But the goal is to build something rigorous enough that researchers, HR professionals, and policymakers eventually find it worth citing — while keeping it useful for individuals making real life decisions.
Help build the dataset
The survey takes about 5 minutes. All questions are optional beyond the basics. Your response is anonymous — collected through Google Forms so you know exactly who holds your data.