Students in uniform in a Japanese school classroom, the setting JET Programme assistant language teachers are placed in

Edition 31 September 20266 minute read

JET 2027 opens this month, and the paperwork is the hard part

The month we have been pointing at since July has arrived. The JET application window for 2027 opens in September, which is now, although the programme page still has not published the exact day. The pay is laid out below across all five contract years, and so is the part that actually decides applications: four documents that all depend on somebody else moving, in the month university records offices are slowest. There are also two corrections in this edition, one of them to a figure we printed ourselves.

Katie Troy, Managing Director at The TEFL Institute

Katie TroyManaging Director, The TEFL Institute. With teaching experience and a degree in education, Katie has taught young learners in Zambia and Abu Dhabi.

Updated 1 September 2026. This edition went to subscribers by email this morning. Before publishing it here we re-audited the reader poll reported in it and found the vote count had been inflated by automated clicks. Five addresses had registered a vote on every single option, among them two marketing-email archiving services and two mail-security link scanners. The emailed version puts the total at 46 votes. The verified human total is 17. Online still leads, by better than two to one, so the online desk promised for Edition 4 stands. The corrected figures are in the poll section below. The emailed version carries the earlier numbers.

The big oneJET 2027 opens this month, and the paperwork is the hard part

The official timeline says the 2027 application becomes available in September 2026 and closes in November 2026. Interviews run from late January to early February 2027, results are announced in April, placements are notified in May, and departures are in July or August 2027.

Read the caveat, because it matters. The programme page still says exact dates have yet to be determined and asks you to check back closer to the cycle. So September is the month, but not the day. The sensible move is to register for the launch notification and get your documents together in the meantime, rather than refreshing the page. Check the official JET timeline.

The pay, across all five years. Year one is 4,020,000 JPY, about 21,600 EUR. It rises to 4,140,000 in year two, 4,260,000 in year three, and 4,320,000 for years four and five, about 23,200 EUR. Those figures are published as current as of April 2025. National social insurance, pension and employment insurance are deducted from monthly pay, so budget on the net rather than the headline. Participants get at least ten days of paid leave, and the exact amount is set by the contracting organisation.

The bottleneck, and it is not the form. JET wants two recommendation letters submitted through the portal, and it does not accept personal references. It wants official transcripts from every college or university you have attended, including anywhere you studied abroad. It wants proof of your degree or expected graduation, and a two-page statement of purpose. Every one of those depends on somebody else moving, and September is the month university offices are at their busiest.

Openings board

Programme	Pay	Deadline	Status
JET Japan	4.02M JPY / year about 21,600 EUR	Nov 2026	OPENING NOW RISING
EPIK Korea	2.35M to 2.8M KRW / month about 1,470 to 1,750 EUR	Rolling	LIVE WIRE FLOOR UP
UK sponsored teaching roles	£47,408 leader role about 55,300 EUR	6 Sep 2026	THIN NO ESOL TODAY
NALCAP Spain	Figure not restated see note	Closed 30 Jun 2026	LINE CLOSED VERIFIED 18 AUG

JET, EPIK and the UK board were each checked against their official pages on 31 August 2026. EUR conversions use European Central Bank reference rates published 28 August 2026, at 185.92 JPY, 1600.39 KRW and 0.85720 GBP to the euro. The Spanish ministry page would not load for us, so the NALCAP row carries only what we verified on 18 August and no stipend figure. Salary figures are gross unless the programme says otherwise.

On the wireTwo corrections and one programme off the board

Korea: the bottom of the EPIK pay scale is not actually on offer

The official scale still prints Level 3 at 2.1M KRW a month, and we have quoted that range before. The same page now states that all applicants must qualify for at least Level 2, because Level 3 positions are not currently available. So the real floor is 2.35M KRW, about 1,470 EUR, and the ceiling is 2.8M at Level 1 plus. Worth reading the allowances too: an entrance allowance of 1.8M KRW that varies by region, a 300,000 KRW settlement payment, 1.3M KRW on completing a contract and 700,000 KRW on renewing, housing provided by your office of education, severance of roughly a month’s pay, and half your medical insurance premium covered. The page was updated on 4 May 2026 for the Fall 2026 intake. Read the salary and benefits page.

A correction: the UK sponsored ESOL roles we pointed at have gone

In Edition 2 we said sponsorship eligible ESOL roles were live on the UK government board and quoted a range of 32,606 to 42,000 pounds. Checked again on 31 August, the board carries seven sponsored teaching vacancies in total and not one dedicated ESOL post among them. The closest are a Curriculum Leader for English and Maths in Cumbria at 47,408 pounds, about 55,300 EUR, closing 6 September at 8am, and a qualified English teacher post in Manchester on the main to upper pay scale, closing 30 September at noon. That link was the second most clicked in Edition 2, so if you followed it and found nothing that matched, this is why. The board moves weekly, so it is worth a look rather than a bookmark. Search the official board.

Taiwan: we could not verify TFETP this fortnight, so it is off the board

Both official Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program pages returned no readable content when we checked on 31 August. We know the programme recruits on a rolling basis and we know the current application page has not published a salary figure for some time. Rather than repeat a number we cannot stand behind today, Taiwan comes off the openings board this edition and goes back on when the page answers.

Reader favouritesOnline won the poll again, on a smaller number than we printed

Seventeen verified readers voted in Edition 2. Online took 7, Asia 3, Europe 3, Middle East and Eurasia 2, Latin America 1 and Africa 1. That is the second time Online has led, and it leads by better than two to one, so a proper online desk, with platform rates and the tax and invoicing side, is going into Edition 4.

Why this number is not the one in your inbox. The emailed edition reported 46 votes. Auditing the click data afterwards, five addresses had voted on every option available: two belonged to services that archive marketing email, two were mail-security scanners that follow every link in a message before it reaches a person, and one showed the same pattern. Each of them added a vote to every region. Stripping them out leaves 17 human votes. We would rather publish the smaller true number than the larger one, and we would rather say why.

CV corner: what to do in the fortnight before a portal opens

1. Start the transcripts today. Every institution you have attended, study abroad included. September is the slowest month for university records offices and this is the item that most often arrives after a deadline. Request them now and hold them in the format the portal accepts.

2. Brief your referees, do not just ask them. JET routes recommendations through its own portal and will not take a personal reference, so your referee needs the programme link, your draft statement and a date. A referee who understands the placement writes a better letter than one who is guessing.

3. Write the statement before the form exists. Two pages, double spaced, and it should say what you will contribute to a classroom and a town, not why you would enjoy living abroad. Drafting it now means you are editing in October instead of writing.

Watch: is the 180 hour Level 5 TEFL Diploma worth it, honestly

A straight answer on what the regulated qualification adds and when a 120 hour certificate is enough. Watch on YouTube.

Every figure has a date

Sources for this edition are the JET application and departure timeline, JET contract information, the EPIK Apply page, EPIK Salary and Benefits, the UK government Teaching Vacancies board and the ECB reference-rate page. Programme figures were last verified 31 August 2026 and euro conversions use the ECB rates published 28 August 2026. The Taiwan TFETP pages and the Spanish ministry NALCAP page would not load when we checked, and this edition says so rather than restating figures from them. The reader poll figures were re-audited on 1 September 2026.

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