Top 10 Universities in Japan for 2026 - Postgraduate

Japan offers a raft of unique opportunities for international postgraduates. Combining a proud academic tradition with rigorous standards and a welcoming attitude towards foreign students, Japan makes for an emerging postgraduate destination and a great place to study a Masters.

There are currently over 220,000 international students in Japan, but this figure is increasing year-on-year. This page takes a look at how Japanese universities do in current global league tables.

The following table lists the best 10 universities in Japan in 2026, according to global rankings.

This information is based on the latest rankings tables, researched and published by Times Higher Education, QS and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

Each ranking system uses its own methodology, with different factors having more or less influence on a university's result.

For more information on how to use international rankings as a postgraduate, see our guide.

Japan holds its own in the global rankings, with multiple universities in the top 100 of the QS rankings.

However, these league tables don’t tell the whole story. In particular, one of the metrics that the Times Higher Education ranking uses is how many times a paper has been cited in English. Japanese scholars don’t always have the same tendency to publish in English as academics elsewhere in the world, which may help explain the relative lack of Japanese universities at the top end of the Times Higher Education worldwide league table.

One way to get past this is to look at rankings that are designed specifically for Asian universities. For example, the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings ‘recalibrate’ the metrics used for the international table to give a clearer indication of Asian universities’ relative position. As you can see in the table below, Japanese institutions feature heavily in the top 100 of this particular ranking.