Koseki: the Japanese family register

Koseki: the Japanese family register
The consulate cannot obtain your koseki for you. It has no access to the registry and cannot locate your record. You order it from your registered domicile in Japan.

The koseki is the Japanese family register: the record where a household's births, marriages, divorces, adoptions and deaths are entered. Only Japanese nationals appear in it, which is why a certified copy also works as proof of Japanese citizenship.

Two kinds of copy, and they are not interchangeable

Name What it shows When you need it
Koseki tohon Every person on the register Passport applications, most consular files
Koseki shohon One individual only Where only your own record is required
 Check which one the office asking for it wants before you order. Ordering the wrong one costs another round of international post. 
Which copy of the koseki do you need?
Which copy of the koseki do you need?

How fresh it has to be

Most consular applications require a copy issued within the past three to six months. A passport application specifies six. An older copy is refused even if nothing on the register has changed.

Where it comes from

From the municipal office of your honseki, the registered domicile. That is not where you were born and not where you live: it is an address chosen and recorded in the register, and it can be anywhere in Japan.

If you do not know it, a relative on the same register usually does, or an old passport application may record it. The consulate cannot look it up.

Ordering a koseki from the United States
  • Find the municipality of your honseki
  • Ask for the tohon or the shohon, whichever the receiving office needs
  • Allow several weeks for post in both directions
  • Order it close to the date you need it, because it expires in three to six months
  • Ask a relative in Japan to collect it in person if the timing is tight

    • What is actually on it

    The register records births, marriages, divorces, adoptions, recognitions of parentage and deaths, along with the registered domicile and the head of the register. It is a record of a family line rather than of a household's current address, which is what the residence record does.

    Why it doubles as proof of nationality

    Only Japanese nationals appear on a koseki. That is why consulates accept it as evidence of citizenship for a passport application, and why losing track of your honseki makes a passport renewal harder than it needs to be.

    When a copy is not enough

    Some applications require the full register including entries that have been removed, the joseki, particularly in inheritance matters where the line has to be traced. Ask the receiving institution which version it needs.

     An inheritance file in Japan can require registers going back three generations, each ordered separately from a different municipality. Start earlier than feels necessary. 

    The digital route

    Japan has been connecting municipal registers so that copies can be obtained outside the honseki municipality. What is available changes, and it is worth asking your municipality directly what it will send abroad and how.

    All the proceduresFees and requirements

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