99% of Seal Requirements Abolished, but the Registered Seal Remains: Japan’s Hanko and Seal Registration

Once you start living in Japan, you may be asked, after signing a document, to “put your seal here.” A hanko, or inkan (印鑑), is a stamp carved with a name or other text, pressed onto paper with red ink, and has long served in Japan as a substitute for a signature. In 2020, the national government undertook a major review of this custom, and moves toward abolishing the requirement for a seal on administrative procedures affected more than 99% of them. Even so, for some procedures — such as buying or selling a house or car — a seal registered with your city, ward, town, or village (a “jitsuin,” registered seal) and a seal registration certificate are still required today.

What follows is based on materials from the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, materials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and guidance from Tokyo’s Chiyoda, Itabashi, and Nakano wards, checked in September 2026. The detailed rules of seal registration differ by city, ward, town, or village. This article does not judge whether your own seal can be registered, or whether a particular procedure requires a registered seal — check with the counter of the municipality where you live, and with whoever you are dealing with.

Mitomein, Bank Seal, Jitsuin

The same seal can be called different things, and carry different weight, depending on where it has been registered.

Whether you need a seal to open a bank account depends on the financial institution, and a Financial Services Agency pamphlet states that “a signature may be acceptable in some cases” (see “How to Open a Bank Account in Japan”). When renting a room, you may be asked for your joint guarantor’s seal registration certificate (see “How Renting an Apartment in Japan Works”).

The 2020 Review Made the Mitomein Almost Unnecessary

According to the Cabinet Office’s Regulatory Reform Promotion Office, of the procedures citizens and businesses submit to the national government and other bodies (including attached documents), 14,992 kinds had required a seal. Under the 2020 review, it was decided to abolish, or consider abolishing, the seal requirement for 14,909 of these (99.4%). None of the procedures requiring only a mitomein kept the seal requirement; the 83 procedures that remained were said to be ones requiring a seal certificate, or a registered seal. Examples of procedures that remain include new vehicle registration, the documents for an inheritance-division agreement in an inheritance tax return, and applications to register a company or corporation.

The same material also cites Diet testimony (from the House of Councillors Budget Committee on November 5, 2020) noting that a mitomein has little effect in confirming a person’s identity.

A Contract Is Valid Even Without a Seal

For contracts between private parties, the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry explain in their June 19, 2020 “Q&A on Seal Requirements” that a contract is formed when the parties’ intentions agree, and that, except where special provisions exist, affixing a seal to a document is not a required condition. Article 228, paragraph 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that a private document bearing the “signature or seal” of the person concerned is presumed to have been made by that person — a signature is treated the same as a seal.

That said, nothing in law prohibits the other party from asking for a seal. Confirm the form of the contract with the other party before you sign.

Seal Registration Is Set by Municipal Ordinance

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the seal registration and certification system is not based on national law but on each city, ward, town, or village’s own ordinances, regulations, and guidelines. The Ministry explains its purpose as regarding a person who holds the registered seal and a seal registration certificate as that person, and using the seal registration certificate together with a document bearing the jitsuin to show that the document is genuine.

Since July 2012, foreign residents have also been covered by the Basic Resident Registration system, and foreign residents with a resident certificate have been able to register a seal. The Ministry’s materials state that people such as short-term visitors, who do not have a resident certificate created, cannot newly register.

The Registration Procedure (Nakano Ward’s Example)

• Registration is open to people 15 or older who are registered as residents of and live in the ward (excluding people without the capacity to understand what they are doing).
• If you bring the seal you want to register and a government-issued, photo-bearing identification document (residence card, My Number card, driver’s license, and the like) and go to the counter yourself, registration can be completed the same day.
• If you have no photo-bearing document, the ward mails an inquiry document to your address, and registration is completed on the day you bring the reply document back to the counter.
• Once registered, you are given a “seal registration card.” The fee is 300 yen for registration and 300 yen per copy of the seal registration certificate.

Based on Nakano Ward’s “Seal Registration (Application in Person)” (checked September 2026). What you need to bring and the fees differ by municipality.

Which Characters Can a Foreign Resident Register?

The characters you can register on a seal are those in the name shown on your resident certificate. For a Ukrainian person, the name on the resident certificate is shown in the same Roman alphabet as on your residence card. Comparing the guidance of three wards, all agree on one point: if your resident certificate also carries a common-use name (tsusho) or a katakana rendering, that too can be used.

The treatment of initials-only seals was exactly opposite between wards. None of the three wards’ guidance mentions an example of a seal carved in Cyrillic. Chiyoda Ward states that a seal not expressed in the characters shown in the Basic Resident Register cannot be registered.

Other Conditions on the Seal Itself

Chiyoda and Itabashi wards list conditions on size (the impression must be larger than an 8-millimeter square and fit within a 25-millimeter square), state that anything whose shape changes easily, such as a rubber stamp, cannot be used, and that a seal with a chipped border cannot be used. A seal already registered by another member of the same household also cannot be registered (Itabashi Ward). Chiyoda Ward recommends avoiding, as far as possible, a mass-produced seal (a so-called “sanmonban”).

Before having a seal made, it is safest to ask the counter of the municipality where you live whether the impression you want to register meets the conditions. For how a name or common-use name appears on a resident certificate, see also “Words That Come Up in Japan’s Resident Registration.”