The first travel documents for overseas travel by Japanese citizens were introduced in 1866, near the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. These documents took the form of a stamped "letter of request" allowing Japanese citizens to travel overseas for business and educational purposes. The term "passport" was formally introduced into the Japanese language in 1878, and in 1900 the first regulations governing the usage of Japanese passports were introduced. The modern form of the Japanese passport first came about in 1926, and the first ICAO-compliant, machine-readable Japanese passports were introduced in 1992.
Types of passports
Ordinary passport: Issued to normal Japanese citizens.
* Ordinary passports are issued in two different lengths of validity: 5 and 10 years. Japanese citizens up to 19 years of age can only be issued a 5 years passport, while those who are 20 years of age or older can choose either a 5 years or 10 years passport for different registration fees.
Emergency passport: Issued to overseas Japanese nationals when machine-readable passports are unable to be issued by a diplomatic mission of Japan due to a malfunction and there is no time to wait for the passport to be issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, or to overseas Japanese nationals who failed to be issued a Travel Document for Return to Japan, valid for 1 year from date of issuance.
* Travel Document for Return to Japan : Emergency single-use travel document issued to overseas Japanese nationals to return to Japan, features a white cover with the PaulowniaGovernment Seal of Japan. Invalidated immediately after use.
All Japanese passports issued after 20 March 2006 are biometric passports. Japanese passports have the ChrysanthemumImperial Seal of Japan inscribed in the centre of the front cover, with the Japanese characters reading Nipponkoku Ryoken inscribed above in seal script and its English translation JAPAN PASSPORT in Latin letters below the Seal. Ordinary passports valid for five years feature dark blue covers, and those valid for ten years feature crimson-coloured covers. Additionally, official passports feature dark green covers, and diplomatic passports feature dark brown covers.
The passports contain a note from the issuing country that is addressed to the authorities of all other countries, identifying the bearer as a citizen of that country and requesting that he or she be allowed to pass and be treated according to international norms. The note inside of Japanese passports states: In Japanese: In English:
Language
Japanese passports are entirely printed in both Japanese and English, except for the note of caution that is found at the end of the passport, which is only printed in Japanese. This note contains information about what the bearer should know when encountering various situations in a foreign country. The surname, given name and other personalised mentions are only indicated in Latin uppercase letters. Japanese names are in principle transcribed according to the Hepburn romanisation system, but exceptions are admitted in certain cases, notably when the name is the katakana transcription of a foreign name, in which case the original spelling of the name in the Latin alphabet may be used, only if you submit the official document with the original spelling issued by the government. The signature may be written in any language and in any spelling the individual desires.
