The Departure Board, Edition 3: five windows before January, one hard deadline

Five windows, one hard deadline, and a queue that rewards being early

September is when the teach-abroad calendar stops being theoretical. Between now and January, five government-run programmes will take applications, and they behave in three completely different ways. One has a fixed deadline you can miss. One is a queue where your place in line decides your placement. Three have not opened yet, which means the work this month is paperwork, not applications.

Get the order wrong and you spend September refreshing a portal that will not open until November, while the one deadline that actually closes goes past. So here is the order.

The queue is the part people misread

EPIK is the one worth understanding properly, because "rolling" is often taken to mean "relaxed" and it means the opposite. The official application page states that applications are processed in the order they are received, and that earlier submission followed by a complete document package after a successful interview leads to a higher chance of successful placement. There is no published closing date to work back from. The deadline is other applicants.

The Spring 2027 cycle opened on 1 August 2026 and covers a main intake in late February 2027 with later intakes in March and April. Applications for the following Fall term open on 1 February. If Korea is your first choice, the useful move this week is submitting the initial application, not perfecting it.

We were wrong to pull JET's salary figure. Here it is, from source

In August we removed JET's headline pay figure from the hub on the grounds that roughly 4.02 million yen looked like a top-of-ladder rate presented as first-year pay, and we could not confirm it against an official source. We have now confirmed it, and we had it backwards.

CLAIR, the Japanese body that administers the programme, publishes the guaranteed pre-tax remuneration by year of appointment. The first appointment is the 4.02 million yen figure. The ladder above it is shorter than we assumed.

Your contracting organisation, which is your direct employer rather than CLAIR, provides airfare to Japan, and return airfare on completion if you leave within a month of your term ending. All participants are covered by health insurance, employees' pension insurance, employment insurance and JET accident insurance. Accommodation, though, is on you in principle, and the official guidance puts initial move-in costs at four to seven months' rent, which is the number most first-year budgets miss.

The figures are restored to the live board with today's verification date. We would rather correct a pulled figure in public than quietly reinstate it.

The paperwork that decides next year

Every programme on that board asks for a version of the same file, and the slow items are identical: transcripts from every institution you attended, two referees who have actually agreed, a degree certificate, a criminal record check, and a TEFL certificate that stands up to a visa officer's scrutiny. Three of those five depend on somebody else's turnaround time, which is why September is the month to start them and January is the month people discover they should have.

On the certificate: what matters to a government programme or a visa office is the hours and the accreditation, not the marketing. A 120-hour course is the widely accepted baseline, and a regulated Level 5 qualification is what makes an application competitive against candidates who have one. You can check any qualification's regulatory status yourself on the UK government's register of regulated qualifications before you pay anyone, and you should.

If you have not started, the 120 Hour Online TEFL Course is the baseline most of these programmes accept, and the 180 Hour Level 5 TEFL Diploma is the regulated step up. Everything we run sits on the full course list.

Plan the whole move rather than just the application: what each destination pays on The Pay Desk, the visa you need on The Visa Desk, and the apostilles and police checks that take longest on The Paperwork Desk. Not sure where yet? Try the destination Explorer.

Questions we got this fortnight

Which teach-abroad programme has the nearest deadline? Fulbright's US Student Program. The 2027-2028 competition is open and the national deadline is 6 October 2026 at 5pm Eastern Time. It is the only fixed deadline among the major programmes before January 2027.

Is the EPIK Spring 2027 application still open? Yes. It opened on 1 August 2026 and there is no published closing date. Applications are processed in the order they arrive, so applying earlier improves your placement chances.

When does the JET Program 2027 application open? The official JET Program USA page states the application for 2027 departures will open in fall 2026. As of 2 September 2026 it has not opened and no date has been announced.

How much does the JET Program pay in the first year? CLAIR publishes a guaranteed pre-tax remuneration of approximately 4.02 million yen for a first appointment, rising to 4.14 million for a second, 4.26 million for a third and 4.32 million for fourth and fifth appointments.

How much does NALCAP pay in Spain? The Spanish Ministry of Education states a monthly stipend of 700 to 1,000 euros depending on the assigned region, for 12 to 16 hours a week, on a contract running 1 October to 31 May for most assignments.

Do I need a TEFL certificate for these programmes? Requirements vary by programme, but a 120-hour accredited TEFL certificate is the widely accepted baseline and a regulated Level 5 qualification is what makes an application competitive. Check any qualification's regulatory status on the UK government's register of regulated qualifications before you buy.