Japan Data
Education
Dec 8, 2025
Japan ranked ninety-sixth among 123 non-English speaking countries in the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index, falling into the fifth level out of five set by the company.
Lowest Level
Japan has fallen into the lowest level in a global ranking of English proficiency. A 2025 survey by Swiss international education company EF Education First measuring the English proficiency of people in 123 non-English speaking countries and regions ranked Japan ninety-sixth overall and seventeenth among the 25 Asian entries. Japan is now at the fifth level out of five set by the company, equating to “very low proficiency” (95–123).
The survey gathered and analyzed data from free tests taken online by a total of 2.2 million people worldwide in 2024 for EF’s English Proficiency Index. This time, it included speaking and writing assessments for the first time, in addition to reading and listening. By region, 39% of test takers were from Asia, 31% from Latin America, 16% from Europe, 11% from Africa, and 3% from the Middle East. The median age was 26.
Countries that ranked alongside Japan included Mongolia in ninety-fifth place, Afghanistan in ninety-sixth, and Cameroon at ninety-eighth. In the first survey conducted in 2011, Japan placed fourteenth; however, at that time only 40 countries provided testing data. Japan has continued to fall in the rankings as the number of countries has increased with each survey.
The Netherlands again boasted the highest English proficiency and the majority of countries classed as having “very high” (1–15) or “high” (16–32) proficiency were in Europe.
Malaysia was the highest ranked Asian country or region in twenty-fourth place, ahead of the Philippines at twenty-eighth and Hong Kong at thirty-ninth. South Korea placed forty-eighth, India seventy-fourth, and China eighty-sixth.
EF noted that 2020 was the last year the index was able to report global English proficiency gains, suggesting that progress has stalled. Proficiency among young adults aged 18 to 25 has not recovered after the COVID-19 pandemic, and more countries saw further declines for this cohort.
EF English Proficiency Ranking for 2025 (Selected Countries)
Created by Nippon.com based on data from the EF English Proficiency Index.
Data Sources
(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)
education
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AloJapan.com