From Reporting a Pregnancy to Registering a Birth: the Procedures and Costs of Giving Birth in Japan

When you find out you are pregnant in Japan, the first places to go are a hospital and the counter at the municipality where you live. Reporting your pregnancy, the Maternal and Child Health Handbook, the subsidy for prenatal checkups, a benefit toward the cost of childbirth, and the notification and status of residence for the child once born — the procedures continue from pregnancy through after the birth, and municipalities handle much of it.

This article is based on provisions such as the Maternal and Child Health Act and the Family Register Act, and on materials published by the Children and Families Agency, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the Immigration Services Agency of Japan, and the Japan Pension Service, confirmed in September 2026. This article does not judge which benefits you are eligible for, or how much you can receive. Check with the health insurance you are enrolled in, and at the counter of the municipality where you live.

Once you find out you are pregnant, report it to your municipality

Article 15 of the Maternal and Child Health Act provides that a pregnant person must promptly report the pregnancy to the mayor of their city, town, or village. It is the municipality that issues a Maternal and Child Health Handbook to the person who made the report (Article 16 of the same Act). The Immigration Services Agency’s 生活・就労ガイドブック (“Guidebook on Living and Working”) explains that reporting gets you the following from your municipality.

• Issuance of the Maternal and Child Health Handbook (母子健康手帳)
• Issuance of a voucher or subsidy coupon that lets you receive prenatal checkups with public support
• Consultation with a public health nurse or similar
• Introduction to parenting classes (for mothers and for fathers)

The Children and Families Agency’s Maternal and Child Health Handbook information support site advises people who have come from abroad that, when you make the report, there is an interview with a public health nurse or similar, where you can also raise anything you are worried or troubled about. The same page also recommends asking at the counter whether a foreign-language Maternal and Child Health Handbook is available.

After you report, there is also financial support. The Children and Families Agency’s “Support Benefit for Pregnant Women” turned the “Childbirth and Childcare Support Grant,” which began under a supplementary budget in FY2022, into a law-based system from FY2025 onward. According to the agency’s guidance, once a fetal heartbeat is confirmed at a medical institution, you can apply at the municipality where you are registered as a resident; after your pregnancy is certified, you receive ¥50,000, and if you report the number of children you are carrying from eight weeks before your due date, you receive ¥50,000 multiplied by that number. This also covers cases of miscarriage or stillbirth. Some municipalities let you choose to receive the benefit as coupons or similar instead of cash.

There is no Ukrainian-language Maternal and Child Health Handbook

The Maternal and Child Health Handbook records, in a single booklet, the mother’s health from pregnancy through after the birth, and the child’s health from the newborn period through infancy. A pregnant woman is meant to have the necessary entries made in the handbook each time she has a checkup or receives health guidance (Maternal and Child Health Act, Article 16, Paragraph 2). The handbook’s format is set by Cabinet Office ordinance, and according to the Children and Families Agency a new format took effect on April 1, 2026.

There are also multilingual editions that place a foreign language alongside the Japanese. However, the multilingual editions published on the Children and Families Agency’s site cover 10 languages — English, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Nepali, Tagalog, Indonesian, Spanish, and Thai — and there is neither a Ukrainian nor a Russian edition. The relationship between a child’s vaccination records and the Maternal and Child Health Handbook is covered in the article on vaccinations a child received in Ukraine.

Every municipality subsidizes at least 14 prenatal checkups

Prenatal checkups (妊婦健診) are for regularly checking on the condition of the mother and the fetus. According to the Children and Families Agency, the national notification “Desirable Standards for Health Checkups for Pregnant Women” recommends a checkup once every four weeks from early pregnancy through week 23, once every two weeks from week 24 through week 35, and once a week from week 36 until the birth, adding up to around 14 checkups by the time of delivery.

The cost is publicly subsidized by the municipality. The results of a survey the Children and Families Agency published on April 8, 2026 (as of April 1, 2025) are as follows.

Item	As of April 1, 2025
Number of checkups publicly subsidized	All 1,741 municipalities nationwide subsidize 14 or more
Average public subsidy per pregnant woman	¥113,647 nationwide average (excluding 123 municipalities that do not state an amount)
Voucher format	A “voucher format” listing the checkup items, used by 1,614 municipalities (92.7%); a “subsidy-coupon format” or similar, listing the subsidy amount, used by 127 municipalities (7.3%)
Municipalities that set the public subsidy so that no copayment arises	1,141 municipalities (65.5%)
Seeing a doctor outside your municipality	All 1,741 municipalities provide the public subsidy through arrangements with medical institutions, reimbursement (paying back later), or similar

Whether there is a copayment for a checkup, how to use the voucher, and how things are handled if you move to a different municipality all differ by the municipality and the medical institution. It is worth asking about these when you receive your Maternal and Child Health Handbook.

The cost of childbirth, and the lump-sum childbirth allowance

The 生活・就労ガイドブック explains that, because pregnancy and childbirth are not an illness, health insurance basically does not apply. As an exception, the cost of a procedure such as a cesarean section is covered. In place of insurance, there is the “lump-sum childbirth allowance” (出産育児一時金).

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the lump-sum childbirth allowance is a system in which, when a person enrolled in public health insurance gives birth, they receive, in principle, ¥500,000 per child from their insurer. The conditions for receiving it are, first, being enrolled in Japan’s public health insurance at the time of the birth, and second, giving birth after at least four months (85 days) of pregnancy; the method or place of birth does not matter. The amount was raised from a principle of ¥420,000 to a principle of ¥500,000 in April 2023. The Guidebook notes that a birth not covered by the Obstetric Care Compensation System — for example, one before 22 weeks of pregnancy — receives ¥488,000 instead.

There are three ways to receive it.

• Direct payment system: the facility where you give birth applies on your behalf, and your insurer pays the facility directly. At the counter, you pay only the balance of the total cost after the allowance is subtracted.
• Receipt-by-proxy system: you apply to your insurer yourself and have the facility receive the payment.
• Reimbursement: you pay the full amount to the facility first, then apply to your insurer afterward to receive the allowance.

If the cost is less than the allowance, you can claim the difference from your insurer. The deadline to apply is within two years of the day after the birth. Whether the direct payment system is available differs by facility, so check when you book your delivery. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s site “Shussan Navi” (birth-navi.mhlw.go.jp) lets you look up the services and cost of childbirth by facility.

The premise of the allowance is that you are enrolled in public health insurance. Enrollment in National Health Insurance and in workplace health insurance is covered in the article on Japan’s health insurance and pension.

For people who work, and people enrolled in the National Pension

A person enrolled in their own right in workplace health insurance who takes leave for childbirth and does not receive wages can receive a “childbirth allowance” (出産手当金). According to the Guidebook, this covers the period of leave from 42 days before the due date (98 days for a multiple pregnancy) through 56 days after the birth, and the amount is, in principle, two-thirds of your wage per day.

For Category 1 insured persons under the National Pension (such as the self-employed, or people not enrolled in a workplace pension), there is an exemption from premiums. According to the Japan Pension Service, National Pension premiums are exempted for four months starting the month before the one containing your due date or the birth date (six months, starting three months before, for a multiple pregnancy), and this period counts as though premiums had been paid when your future basic old-age pension is calculated. You can report this from six months before your due date, and also after the birth. The counter is the National Pension section of the municipality where you are registered as a resident.

A 2026 decision to revise childbirth benefits

The framework for the cost of childbirth is set to change. The “Act Partially Amending the Health Insurance Act and Other Acts” (Act No. 31 of 2026), passed on May 29, 2026 and promulgated on June 5, created new insurance benefits for childbirth called the “delivery fee” (分娩費) and the “childbirth lump-sum benefit” (出産時一時金). According to the bill’s summary, the delivery fee is an amount the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare sets with reference to the cost of a standard delivery, and insurers can pay it to the facility on the person’s behalf. The Ministry’s outline of the law explains its purpose as “reducing the financial burden on pregnant women accompanying childbirth.”

The law is to take effect on “a date set by cabinet order, within two years from the day of promulgation.” As of September 2026, the benefit actually used for childbirth costs is the lump-sum childbirth allowance described above. Even after the new benefit takes effect, for births at a specially designated facility that has notified the government, the rules for the lump-sum childbirth allowance will continue to apply for the time being. The same law also includes a revision to the Maternal and Child Health Act under which the national government sets the desirable standard and a standard amount for prenatal checkups.

Once the child is born: a birth notification within 14 days, and a status of residence within 30 days

The Guidebook states that, once a child is born in Japan, the father or mother must submit a birth notification. The deadline, set by Article 49 of the Family Register Act, is within 14 days. The same article requires that a birth certificate prepared by the doctor or midwife who attended the birth be attached to the notification. It is submitted to the municipality where the child was born, or where the person making the notification lives (Guidebook).

If a child without Japanese nationality remains in Japan for more than 60 days after birth, they must apply for a status of residence at a regional immigration services bureau within 30 days of the birth (Guidebook). Because the application requires documents proving the birth, such as a certificate of the birth notification’s entries, you complete the birth notification at your municipality first. The Guidebook warns that if you do not obtain a status of residence after 60 days from the birth, your certificate of residence will be deregistered, and you may be unable to receive administrative services such as National Health Insurance or the child allowance.

If both parents are foreign nationals, a child born in Japan does not acquire Japanese nationality even so. The Guidebook advises inquiring at the embassy of the parents’ country of nationality about registering the birth and passport procedures in that country. Article 7 of Ukraine’s Law “On Citizenship of Ukraine” provides that a person is a citizen of Ukraine if either parent was a citizen of Ukraine at the time of the birth. The counter and appointment procedure at the Embassy of Ukraine in Tokyo are covered in the article on the embassy.

Materials you can read in Ukrainian

The Immigration Services Agency’s 生活・就労ガイドブック has a Ukrainian-language edition, and Chapter 4, “Пологи та виховання дітей” (“Childbirth and Raising Children”), lets you read about reporting a pregnancy, prenatal checkups, the birth notification, reporting to your home country, the lump-sum childbirth allowance, and the childbirth allowance. However, the Ukrainian edition is the 7th edition, a different edition from the Japanese 8th edition, which is based on the system as of August 1, 2025. Preparing to go to the hospital and medical interpreting are covered in the article on the hospital article, and where to consult is covered in the article on the consultation-counter article.

What to check at the counter

• What to bring when reporting your pregnancy. Whether an interpreter can be arranged. Whether a foreign-language Maternal and Child Health Handbook is available (at your municipality)
• How to use the voucher or subsidy coupon for prenatal checkups, and whether any checkup involves a copayment (at your municipality or medical institution)
• When and how to apply for the Support Benefit for Pregnant Women (at your municipality)
• Whether the facility where you will give birth offers the direct payment system, and roughly what the cost will be (at the medical institution)
• Where to apply for the lump-sum childbirth allowance and the childbirth allowance (the health insurance you are enrolled in; for National Health Insurance, your municipality)
• What documents are needed for the birth notification and the status-of-residence application (your municipality; the regional immigration services bureau)

The systems and figures given here were confirmed as of September 2026. Childbirth benefits are set to change through a legal revision, and practice also differs by municipality. Before going through a procedure, check the latest guidance at each counter.