With the exception of Tatra87 and myself, there’s probably not a lot of other Curbsiders that have a yen (no pun intended) for a tutorial on Japanese license plates. But in the odd chance that it comes up as a Jeopardy category, here’s just a quick rundown…
Let’s start with the organization – unlike in the US where states have authority for vehicle licensing and registration, in Japan it’s all run at the national level. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism administers vehicle registration for all cars, trucks, buses, etc. The only exceptions are “kei-class” mini-cars and motorcycles where registration is done by local authorities.
Japan has forty-seven prefectures – and within those are 107 Regional Land Transportation Offices, usually referred to as “LTO’s”, where registration occurs.
Now let’s look at the plates…the basic plate used nation-wide for most regular-size vehicles is one with a white background and green characters – 330 mm (13 inches) by 165 mm (6.5 inches).
1: The prefecture or smaller region where the vehicle is registered in Kanji characters. Just FYI – Japanese uses three forms of written characters – Kanji which are traditional Chinese non-phonetic symbols, Hiragana which is phonetic, and Katakana which is also phonetic but mostly used for transplanted foreign words.
2: A numerical code designating the engine size and exterior dimensions – there are nine categories; 1 = mid-sized truck, 2 = bus, 3XX = passenger car with engine two liters and above, 4 = small truck, 5 = passenger car (non-kei) with engine size below two liters, 6 = three-wheeled vehicles, 7 = 3-series overflow, 8 = special purpose such as police and fire vehicles, 9 = heavy special purpose vehicle, and 0 = construction equipment.
3: A series of Hiragana characters that designate a privately-owned, rental car, or company-fleet vehicle.
4: Four-digit registration number.
Other categories;
Kei-class cars use a yellow plate with black characters.
Regular/large-size commercial vehicles use a green plate with white characters. Kei-sized commercial vehicles use black background with yellow characters.
A regular white plate with a red diagonal line is a temporary plate issued when the vehicle has been previously deregistered or the Japan Compulsory Insurance has expired. After buying a new JCI policy, typically you’ll have five days to get the vehicle re-inspected and re-registered.
Under the Status of Forces Agreement, the Japanese government registers privately-owned vehicles of US military-affiliated personnel – Japan denotes these with a “Y” (JDM) or “E” (non-JDM import) instead of the Hiragana character. Kei vehicles use an “A”.
Diplomatic plates used by foreign embassies are single-lined and bright blue.
Personalized Plates. Japan allows limited personalized plates at extra cost. If you want a specific four-digit number combination, you can request it. In addition, recently there are a variety of plates with added imagery showcasing regional highlights or locations. One type of personalized plate that may be unique to Japan is the “jiko-shiki” or backlighted plate.
Motorcycle plates, though dimensionally smaller, are somewhat similar.
Up to 50cc – white small plate
Up to 90cc – yellow plate with triangular mark
Up to 125cc – pink plate with triangular mark
Up to 250cc – white regular plate
Over 250 cc – white regular plate with green border
The JCI inspection sticker is also affixed to the plate, versus the front windshield for cars/trucks.
Miscellaneous. Japanese law requires both front and rear plates. The rear plate is affixed with a crimped seal over one of the retaining bolts to hinder tampering and plate switching. Plates stay on the car when it is sold or ownership transfers as long as it remains within that registration area. If you move within Japan or the vehicle is sold to someone in another prefecture, then the plates are replaced with those from that new registration region.
Fun Fact 1. The jiko shiki backlighted plate was initially approved for the northern island of Hokkaido which has long, brutal winters. Snow would collect and cover the plate – so small fluorescent bulbs were placed behind it illuminating the letters and also melting the snow.
Fun Fact 2: Some numbers are prohibited for use on Japanese license plates. Specifically, the combinations 42 and 49 at the end of plates, which are phonetically very similar to Japanese words for death (死に) and “to run over” (轢く). The number combinations 42-19 (死に行く, “proceeding to death”) and 42-56 (死に頃, “time to die”) are also restricted.
I’ve heard that the annual ‘MOT’ tests are so strict in Japan, that very few cars manage to make it past the ten year mark. One comment is that a car can be failed on a scruffy interior alone. I’m also curious what the road tax is for vehicles there? My country has a sliding scale road tax charge dependent on engine size alone. People are shocked that I pay approximately US$1,000 a year but, we have very fine transport infrastructure so worth every penny. Good to see that there is a classic car culture in Japan and I enjoy your articles. I’m guessing there’s a spot where the fan gather every weekend judging from your photographs?
I think you may have me confused with my fellow Tokyo cohort Tatra87 – he is amazingly talented in finding the many exclusive automotive gems here. To answer your questions;
1) I did a post on registration costs here in Japan a few months back – the link is
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/comment-classic/curbside-commentary-the-cost-of-owning-a-vehicle-in-japan/
2) On Sundays many enthusiasts bring there cars to the “Gaien” section of downtown Tokyo – it’s a large tree-lined venue – one of the few that permits curbside parking. Tatra captures a lot of his finds there.
Yep the SHAKEN test is one reason ex JDM imports exist failures used to get the squeeze but now they get sold off,
NZ is littered with ex JDM cars they are the main reason compliance laws got tightened too much absolute junk arrived, rust, poor quality collision repairs you name it, dealers are a bit more choosy now, My commute used to take me past a compliance place and failures were parked on the street fo collection by dealers with the faults written on the front or rear glass, stuck at traffic lights they made interesting reading, rust was a common theme.
The Philippines is the dumping grounds for any Japanese vehicle that fails. From large trucks which are on their last legs to all the Corolla taxis plying the streets of Manila. The Manila taxis of today are generally newer than 10 years but only some. The derelicts that I rode around Manila, between 1990-2003, were quite the experience.
https://www.spot.ph/newsfeatures/humor/78626/10-metro-manila-taxi-struggles-a4362-20190730?s=0k09f3ob0pj7t2o1rgpq465e6o
Thank you for this! There might be just a few Curbsiders interested in this topic, but I’m one of them, and I’m always intrigued by the license plates in Tatra87’s and your posts from Japan.
Most of what I know about the topic I’ve just pieced together from various posts, so it’s great to have this all in one place. Several things in here are completely new to me, like the backlighted plate – I’ve never seen an example of this from anywhere else.
A while ago I looked up the special-design plates (like the Tokyo cherry blossom plate you show here), and I recall that each prefecture was permitted to design its own specialty plate. Most of them are very attractive designs – some of them more on the humorous side. But I’m curious how popular these are in the real world. I rarely see them in pictures on Japanese streets, which surprises me.
Thanks for including the diplomatic plates too. Since I live not far from Washington, DC, I see US diplomatic plates pretty regularly.
Earlier this year I saw a car with Japanese Status of Forces Agreement plates – probably from a US servicemember who recently returned from Okinawa. (I think servicemembers have a few weeks to register their cars in the US… I see US Forces in Germany plates occasionally, but this is the first Japanese plate I’ve seen.) This car, obviously not a JDM vehicle, has the Y plate. I looked it up at the time, and I vaguely recall that Y is the most common SOFA prefix, and its not just limited to JDM vehicles. But it seemed very complex and I didn’t read any definitive answers about it. Also, no one is quite sure what Y stands for – legend had that it stood for Yankee, but most folks don’t believe that’s true.
Well, again, thanks for this article!
Glad you enjoyed it Eric. Regarding the decorated regional plates, I see them off and on here in Tokyo – not that many. I haven’t looked up how much extra they cost over the regular plate but that may be a reason.
On SOFA plates, there are around 13 Roman letters authorized in the agreement to designate a US military-affiliated owner, but since the US reduced and consolidated many of its bases here in the 1970’s, Y (regular) and A (Kei) are almost exclusively used these days.
Thanks for the education, Lincolnman! I never noticed that the kei and heavy commercial plates use yellow and black like California has used on and off over the years.
Nice piece. But my question is why very often on photos or movie I notice the vehicle plate are from Shinagawa City, I know it is region of Tokyo, but why so many cars are registered there.
Shinagawa is the largest Tokyo LTO and encompasses most of metro (central) business and population areas.
I was curious about the Japanese number plates, I’d noticed the commercials were different.
Here’s my Japanese rental car – I think it was an Osaka registration,
My question has to do with the number sequences on the plates. Given that Japan uses only up to four numeric digits on the license plates (only roughly 10k possibilities),, many different cars will share the same numeric sequence. How does one differentiate ownership and registration status from a glance at the plates, when many cars share the same number sequence?
When you add the upper right designator (300-399/500-599 for cars) plus the 46 hiragana characters and the regional Kanji, the chance of a similar number is fairly low.
Thanks for unraveling this mystery!
I’ve long been puzzled by the abundance of Arabic numbers and Latin lettering, often English I have seen in pictures of Japan. I’m guessing the typical Japanese can at least read Arabic numbers, although pronunciation might be a world off? But signage? Now I know we here in the US are kind of language challenged to anything besides English, and I include myself in that, but the character based written language vs a letter based language seems just so different.
And my understanding is there are very few Japanese who speak or understand or write western languages, making it’s use all the more confusing to me.
Here’s just my take Mike – certain foreign elements have a sense of prestige and stature in Japanese culture – one example is English words, or more accurately words with Roman lettering (French and German words too). I haven’t seen much Arabic but perhaps that’s just me.
English education in Japanese schools tends to be of the “rote” method – focusing on writing and grammar, much less on pronunciation and conversation. I’ve found many Japanese can read and understand a written English sentence but struggle with any conversation.
I think there’s an amusing parallel with the way Westerners will use kanji (perhaps to the extent of getting it tattooed) based on a shaky, romanticized idea of what they think it means.
I noticed the Japanese surprising use of slightly inappropriate English words on signage – here’s a couple that caught my eye.
The other one….
Longtime CC reader but have not commented till now…
I’m always amazed to see old cars on the streets in Japan because I didn’t think it possible till I saw them on CC. I served in Japan with the USAF at Yokota AB in 1975-77. It was my understanding that the regular safety inspections cars underwent there were so stringent it became more expensive after a few years to keep an old car repaired to pass the inspection than to buy a new one. The junkyards there were full of 5-10 year old cars that looked pretty good to me. Because the safety inspections were not as stringent for GIs stationed in Japan, I could buy a 1971 Honda N360 for about $500.00. My buddies there all drove Mazdas, Toyotas, Nissans of about the same age that were purchased for the same price. In fact, there was a retired Air Force NCO who ran a used car dealership selling cars to airmen. These were cars he purchased from junkyards. Am including a pic of my ride from that time. Again, I didn’t think old cars existed in Japan. I never saw them when I was there. The rules must’ve changed!!
Thanks for this Jim. I too am a license plate geek (I love all things numbers), and am happy to finally see an explanation to a question I’ve posited here many times.
Many of T-87’s shots of cars he finds have their 4 digits have some meaning to the car on which they are mounted. For example a 19-57 on a ‘57 Chevy, or a 20-02 on a BMW 2002, or maybe 21-12 on a Red Barchetta.
Apparently, you can request a number there if it is available. I thought the same thing as Dutch 1960 above, in that there just aren’t enough available combinations, until you explained it so well.
Again, thanks for this post!
As mentioned by KiwiBryce, ex-JDM cars are a major part of the New Zealand car market. So much so that lookalike adaptations of Japanese plates are now officially available for a fee. These follow the Japanese plate dimensions, avoiding major surgery to plate surrounds. The NZ versions are available in 300 and 500 variants depending on engine size, with the prefecture replaced with the Kanji for Nippon. The NZ six alphanumerics replace the Japanese four numerals but without hyphens. The example shows a friend’s 1991 Nissan Figaro Pike car.
We have something similar in some Aussie states, but I think I prefer yours.
Great thing! The bureaucracy in my country would never develop such an amount of flexibility.
Thanks Jim-san. Building so many Japanese models, I’ve become quite familiar with the style but without knowing all the symbolism. Strange things can happen (like 2000cc-class plates on a kei), but nowadays I make an effort to avoid the incorrect engine-size mark.
A Japanese friend commented I even put the parking permit on this Edsel!
Like so many things in Japan, the plate dimensions are a result of the postwar occupation. I believe that the Japanese simply copied US plate dimensions due to the large number of American cars sent to Japan during the occupation that bore US Army plates, but I cannot confirm this. Does anyone know if that is why Japanese and American license plates share similar dimensions? I’ve noticed that now it is possible to get European plates to fit the plate location of American cars. Once upon a time, that wasn’t true, and it required some significant fabrication to fit European plates to American cars operated in Europe, but the reverse isn’t true, as most states don’t offer Euro-dimensioned plates for European cars imported to the US.
Was just on the Japanese Wikipedia page about Japanese license plates. There is also a subsection on historical development.
Here is the link:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%81%AE%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3%E3%83%90%E3 %83%BC%E3%83%97%E3%83%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88
In any case, the AI translator delivered a usable result for a translation into my language. I hope it works for English too.
Thank you for having tackled this thorny issue, Jim-san. I was particularly interested in the taboo numbers bit. A plate saying “proceeding to death”.. The mind boggles!
When I lived in Bangkok, many buildings in the Central Sukhumvit area avoided having a 13th floor, as they figured many Westerners would avoid that floor. And those buildings also had no 4th floor (the Floor of Death!) to keep from scaring away the Japanese.
Thank you. Most enlightening. I asked my son who lives in Hamamatsu about JDM plates and he didn’t really know. He knows the number on his Honda and that’s good enough for him!
I wrote at my own blog in 2017 about a vanity plate a friend of mine has on his BMW in Kyoto and I described it here. It was the first time I learned it was possible in Japan to get a specific plate:
http://blog.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com/2017/02/toishi-sharpening-stone-and-kyoto.html
I think Japanese were seduced by their burgeoning wealth through the 70s and 80s and got into the habit of updating their cars ever few years. I prowled a lot of junkyards there through the 90s and noticed most of the cars had bald tires. I think mechanics or inspectors told folks they needed new tires and they decided to get new cars instead. Plus, buying a used car brought up issues of impurity: you didn’t know who the previous owner was. I remember a Japanese friend being disgusted when I wanted to look in a used clothing store. In those days used cars were very cheap, but that is much less true today, since now most Japanese are forced to economize. Also recycle shops have become cool and can be found everywhere.
Are there any aspects of this registration system inherently designed to deal with prevention of car theft? Reading your description of the license plates including the engine size, and the specific location led me to this random thought. Does they system make registration or export any more difficult than what otherwise would be the case?
In Ontario the biggest problem we have is cars being stolen then loaded into shipping containers a few hundred miles down the road. No registration system could combat that, re-vinning for that matter.
Car theft, and overall crime in general, is fairly low here in Japan. My sense is the registration system was designed with two goals; 1) a rigid inspection to preclude “clunkers” from being driven. Japanese roads are very small and traffic is dense – cars breaking down and causing an obstruction would pose significant problems. 2) a mandatory insurance program tied to the inspection to ensure all drivers are insured.
Makes sense, thanks Jim.
I’m most familiar with red diagonal slashed temporary plates. My son’s soon to be in the US HiAce van had those when was driving around Yokohama in September. His friends in Japan also use temporary plates as a way drive modified cars They put a car on the road for a while with temporary plates and insurance, then park it and drive a different car. There’s more paperwork but less inspection.
I also occasionally see these plates in the US on recently imported vehicles, despite not registering Kei cars Oregon has a lot of grey imports