Japanese passport

Japanese passport
The front cover of a contemporary 10 years Japanese ePassport.
Identity Information Page of a contemporary 5 years Japanese ePassport.
Issued by	Japan
Type of document	Passport
Purpose	Identification
Eligibility requirements	Japanese citizenship
Expiration	10 years or 5 years after acquisition for adults, 5 for ages under 19

Japanese passports are issued to Japanese citizens to travel outside Japan.

All Japanese passports issued after March 20, 2006 are biometric passports.

Japanese passports have the Imperial Seal of Japan inscribed in the center of the front cover, with the Japanese characters reading Nipponkoku Ryoken (日本国旅券) inscribed above in seal script and its English translation JAPAN PASSPORT in Latin letters below the Seal. Ordinary passports valid for five years are in dark blue, and those valid for ten years are in crimson in color. Additionally, official passports are in dark green, and diplomatic passports in dark brown.

Also, beneath these is the machine readable zone.

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:

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 (e.g. on page 51 of the ten-year biometric ordinary 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 personalized mentions (like registered domicile) are only indicated in Latin uppercase letters. Japanese names are in principle transcribed according to the Hepburn romanization system, but exceptions are admitted in certain cases, notably when the name is the katakana transcription of a foreign name (Japanese spouse or Japanese child of a foreigner), 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 (passport etc.).