Bringing Medication to Japan (2026): The Certificate Was Renamed, and Some ADHD Drugs Are Banned

Most English guidance on bringing medicine into Japan is out of date in two specific ways, and one of them can end a trip at the airport. The certificate that every article tells you to apply for stopped existing under that name in 2020. Applications moved online in 2025. And two medications prescribed for the same condition are handled in completely opposite ways — one needs permission applied for two weeks ahead, and the other cannot be brought into the country at all.

This guide sets out what the rules say, with the quantities and the timings. It is not medical advice and it cannot tell you whether your specific medicine qualifies — that depends on the ingredient and the amount, and only the authorities can confirm it. What it can do is make sure you are asking the right question, early enough.

The certificate changed its name in 2020

Search for how to bring prescription medication into Japan and you will be told to obtain a yakkan shoumei. That instruction has been wrong for over five years.

And the application moved online in 2025

The second change is more recent. From July 1, 2025, applying through the online import confirmation system became the standard route for personal-use applications, replacing the postal process that older guides describe in detail. The system covers personal imports and imports by doctors for treating their own patients.

This matters practically, because a guide written around the postal process will have you preparing a stamped return envelope and posting documents to a bureau in Saitama. That route still exists as a fallback, but it is no longer the default, and the bureau explicitly states that it does not handle applications at a counter — there is no office you can visit to sort it out in person.

Most travelers need no certificate at all

Before any of that applies, check whether you are inside the allowances. Japan permits personal import within published quantities with customs confirmation only, no certificate required. The allowance assumes you are the person who will use it.

Who checks this, and when

Inside the allowance, the check happens at customs on arrival — the ministry describes it as importing after receiving confirmation from customs, with no certificate involved. Above the allowance, the decision has already been made before you fly, by a health bureau issuing the certificate. That is the practical difference between the two paths: one is a conversation at the airport, and the other is paperwork that has to exist before you board. There is no route where an over-limit quantity gets resolved on the spot.

Count units, not boxes

This is where people get it wrong, and the ministry publishes the arithmetic so there is no need to guess. A month or two months is worked out from the dosage instructions:

The ministry states plainly that where a box contains multiple items, the calculation uses the contents, not the number of boxes. So "I only brought three boxes" is not an argument; what matters is how many tablets those boxes contain against your prescribed dose.

One person, one supply

Two restrictions that follow from the allowance being personal. You may not sell or give away what you brought in under it. And you may not bring in other people's supplies alongside your own — a family carrying four people's medication is four personal imports, each judged separately, not one bulk import.

Two ADHD medications, opposite treatment

If there is one section of this guide to read carefully, it is this one, because the consequences are not administrative.

Now compare the other one. Lisdexamfetamine, sold under names including Vyvanse and Elvanse, is classified as a stimulant raw material. That is a permitted-with-permission category, not a prohibited one. Apply in advance and you can bring it.

Two treatments for the same condition, on opposite sides of an absolute line. Neither the brand name nor the fact that it is legally prescribed at home tells you which side you are on. Check the active ingredient, not the brand, and check it months before you book anything — this belongs at the start of planning, alongside deciding when to visit, not in the week before you fly.

Narcotics: permission, and 14 days

For medicines classified as narcotics, the rule is advance permission from the narcotics authority — and it applies even when you are carrying your own prescription personally. The official English guidance is explicit about the timing: apply at least 14 days prior to your travel.

Named examples in the official material include morphine, fentanyl, oxycodone, codeine and tapentadol. Codeine is worth pausing on, because it appears in ordinary cough and pain preparations in a number of countries and does not feel like a narcotic to the person carrying it.

What the application needs

Applications go by email, fax or post to the narcotics office covering the airport where you will arrive, and the authority publishes a list of which office covers which area. Note that the office also publishes holiday closures with document deadlines attached — during one recent holiday period, travelers arriving in a two-week window were told to submit everything a week before the holiday began. If your trip runs into Golden Week or New Year, add margin to the 14 days.

Going home counts too

The application form comes in two versions, import and export, and the second one exists for a reason: taking controlled medicine back out of Japan is also a regulated act. If you are staying long enough to be prescribed something here, or you arrive with a narcotic and leave with what is left of it, the departure side needs the same attention as the arrival side. Handle both when you apply, rather than discovering the second half at the airport on the way home.

Psychotropics are lighter, up to a point

Medicines classified as psychotropics — the official examples include diazepam and triazolam — are handled differently. At or below the threshold quantity, and excluding injections, you need neither a doctor's certificate nor official permission. Above it, or for injections, you need a certificate giving the condition, the necessity of treatment, the medicines and doses, the doctor's signature and the issue date.

In practice the threshold that matters is one month's supply: carrying more than that, or carrying injections, moves you into the paperwork. The ministry publishes an email address specifically for amounts exceeding a one-month supply.

It has to be in your own luggage

A rule that surprises people who assumed shipping ahead was the tidy solution. For narcotics, psychotropics and stimulant raw materials, import is permitted only where the patient the medicine was prescribed for carries it personally.

Things that are medicine in Japan but not at home

The category a product falls into is decided by what is in it, not by how it is sold where you bought it. Two consequences worth knowing.

First, supplements. The ministry states that a product sold abroad as a food, including supplements, may be treated as a medicine in Japan if it contains pharmaceutical ingredients or is marketed with medicinal claims. Second, quasi-drugs: items with mild effects on the body, such as hair tonics and bath preparations, may fall into that category — and for personal import, quasi-drugs follow the same rules as medicines.

The souvenir trap on the way out

This runs the other way, and it is easy to miss. Under the CITES convention, some traditional medicine ingredients cannot be freely imported or exported. The ministry names rhinoceros horn, musk, tiger bone and bear gall, and anything containing them. If you are buying traditional remedies as gifts, that is a real restriction rather than a theoretical one, and it applies to preparations that include those ingredients rather than only to the raw materials. Separately, some substances sold abroad as legal highs are designated substances in Japan and prohibited outright.

Where to apply, and who decides

Two different authorities handle two different things, and sending your paperwork to the wrong one costs you days you may not have.

Nobody will decide it for you in advance by email

One realistic expectation to set. The bureaus answer questions about procedure, and the health bureau states that a first enquiry should come by telephone, on weekday lines that run in a morning and an afternoon window. Whether a particular product is regulated at all is a separate question, and the bureau directs that one to a prefectural pharmaceutical affairs division. So there is no single inbox that answers "can I bring this" — which is another reason the whole thing belongs at the start of your planning.

Which bureau depends on your airport

For the health bureaus, jurisdiction follows the customs district your goods enter through. The Kanto-Shinetsu bureau covers the Hakodate, Tokyo and Yokohama customs districts — which is the route for arrivals at Narita and Haneda. The Kinki bureau covers Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Moji, Nagasaki and Okinawa. So a traveler flying into Narita and one flying into Kansai apply to different offices for the same medicine.

Phone lines are open on weekdays only, in split morning and afternoon windows, and the bureau states that first contact should be by telephone. None of this is fast, which is the argument for starting early rather than the argument for skipping it.

What to do, in order

A sequence that fits into planning a trip rather than into the last week of it.

One thing that costs nothing and helps at every stage: carry the doctor's letter and the original boxes even when you are well inside the allowance. Nothing requires it below the threshold, but it converts a conversation at customs into a document check. For a first trip, our seven-day itinerary and airport guides cover the rest of the arrival logistics.

Medication and Japan FAQ

Sources

The replacement of the old certificate from September 1, 2020, the quantity allowances for each category, the worked examples for calculating a two-month supply, the rule that contents rather than boxes are counted, the prohibition on importing for others or reselling, the treatment of supplements and quasi-drugs, and the CITES-restricted ingredients: the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's page on personal import of pharmaceuticals. The move to online application from July 1, 2025, the application routes and the bureau jurisdictions by customs district: the ministry's import confirmation system page and the Kanto-Shinetsu Regional Bureau of Health and Welfare's procedural page. The 14-day lead time, the medical certificate contents and its three-month validity, the accepted photo formats, the named narcotics and stimulant raw materials, the prohibited substances, the psychotropic thresholds and the requirement that the patient carry the medicine personally: the Narcotics Control Department's English guidance for travelers. All read on August 31, 2026. This is a summary of published rules, not medical or legal advice, and the classification of any individual medicine should be confirmed with the authorities before you travel.