Japan's Import Confirmation Rule for Personal Medication

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare expects you to arrange personal medication before you leave home. The process is called Import Confirmation, and quantity thresholds decide whether you need it.

Import Confirmation comes before departure

The ministry states the rule in one sentence: “when you bring medicines for personal use into Japan, you have to apply for Import Confirmation, and receive it before you leave home, and show it to the officer at customs.”

You apply and receive it before you fly, then show it to a customs officer on arrival.

Quantities that need no Import Confirmation

Below these limits the ministry does not require the process:

• Poison, deadly poison, or prescription drugs: up to a 1-month supply: “Poison, Deadly poison, Prescription drug: Up to 1 month supply.”
• Non-prescription external-use drugs: up to 24 units per item: “Drug for external use (excluding Poison, Deadly poison, Prescription drug): Up to 24 per one item.”
• Injectable drugs and syringes for the drug: up to a 1-month supply, “Injectable drug and Syringe for the drug: Up to 1 month supply.”
• Other drugs and quasi-drugs: up to a 2-month supply, “Other Drugs, Quasi drugs: Up to 2 month supply.”

These are ceilings for skipping Import Confirmation.

Narcotics and stimulants are stricter

Outside those thresholds, the ministry prohibits one category outright: “It is strictly prohibited to import narcotics and Stimulants’ Raw Materials into Japan except in the case of prescribed narcotics and Stimulants’ Raw Materials for a specific patient bringing them with permission before you enter Japan.”

The exception is narrow: a named patient, a prescribed narcotic, and permission obtained before entry. No quantity threshold lets a narcotic or stimulant raw material in without that permission.

This catches American travellers most often. A medication that is an ordinary prescription at home can fall under Japan’s narcotics or stimulants classification without the traveller realising. Check your prescription against this category through the ministry’s guidance or your consulate before you assume the ordinary allowance covers it.

Cosmetics

The ministry also gives cosmetics a personal-use allowance: “When you bring cosmetics for personal use into Japan up to the amount described below, you do not have to apply for Import Confirmation.” The unit limit sits in a table on the source page and we print no number here. Check the ministry’s page for it.

If you run short in Japan

The one-month ceiling limits what you bring, not how long you stay, and a lost bag has the same effect. Either way, more medicine comes through a doctor in Japan, who decides what to prescribe. Nothing guarantees it will be the drug or brand you use at home.

Booking apps cover this. Air Doctor lists doctors for visitors in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and other Japanese cities, with a clinic visit, a doctor to your hotel or a video call where available, and names “prescription concerns” among what it is for. For a refill you want a general practitioner, and its Tokyo listings include GPs alongside paediatricians, dermatologists and other specialists.

Its terms set the limit: the service is “NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL EMERGENCY MEDICAL TREATMENT”. If you are seriously unwell, call 119 for an ambulance or go straight to an emergency room. If your medicine falls under the narcotics or stimulants rule above, get that permission before you fly.

What the ministry’s page does not say

• It does not say which named medications count as “poison”, “deadly poison”, “prescription drug”, or narcotics and stimulants. That depends on the medicine itself.
• It does not state a penalty for arriving without Import Confirmation when it was required.

If any part of your regimen is a controlled substance, a stimulant or an injectable, apply for Import Confirmation well before your flight and confirm the classification with the ministry directly.

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