Types of Japanese Passports

The vast majority of people that naturalize will probably apply for a "red" Japanese passport after their 戸籍 {koseki} (family register) is created — which takes about a couple weeks followed by a few weeks for the passport to be issued.

It is not necessary to apply for a passport. Just like the United States, the vast majority of the populace never actually travels outside of their country for their lifetime. However, realisticly speaking, it's very likely that a naturalized person would have a Japanese passport as they most likely have family ties overseas.

Language

The passport is in two languages: English and Japanese. Very old passports, similar to my U.S. passport, also had French, the language of diplomacy. My oh my, how the French empire's influence has faded. My last U.S. passport added Spanish. My oh my, how South, Central, and Latin America's influence has increased! ☺ On current Japanese passports, the message from the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the front inside cover says:

日本国民である本旅券の所持人を通路故障なく旅行させ、かつ、同人に必要な保護扶助を与えられるよう、関係の諸官に要請する。

The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan requests all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer, a Japanese national, to pass freely and without hindrance and, in case of need, to afford him or her every possible aid and protection.

Size

Modern passports, both in Japan and elsewhere, are always ISO B7 sized (which is not a JIS standard). They used to be bigger, but became smaller when passports all over the world were standardized in size and RFID IC capabilities.

All of the passports are about 28 pages, with the exception of the beige "passport", which is a tri-fold pamphlet, and the "red" passport, which has 52 pages. You can order a one-time 40 visa page extension (査証欄の増補 {sashō-ran no zōho}) for ¥2,500. If you still need more pages, you need to apply for another passport.

Names

Unlike Chinese passports, Japanese passports do not have the person's legal 漢字 {kanji} (Japanese sinograms) in them. There are some passports from the Middle East that have Arabic names in them, and there are Cyrillic names in some Eastern Europe and Russian passports.

Despite learning the 訓令式 {Kunrei-shiki} style of ローマ字 {rōmaji} (Latin letter transliteration) in grade school, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prefers to use of all upper-case ヘボン式 {Hebon-shiki} (Hepburn style) transliteration, which is less linguistically correct but more understandable to western Europeans and Americans.

Starting in April of 2000, MoFA started allowing common variations of the Hepburn system; the common "baseball jersey" romanization is allowed so that common names like 伊藤 {Itō} can be transliterated as ITOH with an "H" to represent the macron/long vowel.

Starting in February of 2008, MoFA began allowing non-conventional transliterations/translations of Japanese names, providing you signed an oath an the back of the passport form that you promised not to abuse the "alias" and you could show a definite reason for needing the non-conventional name — for example, if you are legally known by a certain alphabetic spelling in other countries.

In other words, if you were naturalized and your official 戸籍 {koseki} (family register) given name is キンバリー {Kimbarī} (either in カタカナ {katakana} or 当て字 {ateji} (foreign names transliterated to Japanese sinograms), you can have your Japanese passport main given name as "KIMBERLY". If your legal name in Japanese on your 戸籍 {koseki} (family register) is エイドリアン {Eidorian}, you can have your main given name as "ADRIAN" in the Japanese passport.

If you have other names that you have a legal connection to but are not transliterations of your Japanese name, you can have those in parentheses by either your family name, your given name, or both. For example, if you have a dual national child and they have a non-Japanese passport with an entirely different surname, the parents often put the child's surname in parentheses by their name, so the passport names match when they go through immigration together.

If you have multiple legal active names besides your Japanese family register Hepburn-style transliteration one, they are separated by a slash/solidus inside the parentheses (ex. 'SATO (SATOH/SATOU)').

Some Japanese women who are married to foreigners keep their Japanese name for ease of use in Japanese-language society, but they put their spouse's last name in parentheses and use the spouse's English name when in English speaking countries.

Because of these reasons, both my spouse and I have Japanese passports where the family name is listed as: INOUE (HAVILL), even though I've legally changed my name in the United States, because my child still uses my original surname on her U.S. passport. In other words, my wife used to have my U.S. surname in parentheses on her Japanese passport to show her connection to me when we lived in the States. Now, we both have my former surname on our (one and only) Japanese passports to show our connection to our child while traveling in the United States.

Outside of the United States, our child uses her Japanese passport, so the name matching is not as much of a concern.

Signature

The signature on a Japanese passport can be in any language, or it can be abstract. It is not a 印鑑 {inkan} (seal/chop/stamp), although the Japan Minister of Foreign Affair's (artificially printed) seal will be on the inside cover.

My personal signature that I use on my passport is actually my original birth name. However, my ~~handwriting has devolved so much over time~~ signature technique has evolved over time that it now resembles an abstract, unreproducible ~~scribble~~ work-of-art that is not readable by a native English reader without context.

Birthplace

Because Japan is not obstinately a jus soli (birthright by soil) country, where one was born is not as important as it is compared to other countries. In its place is the field "Registered Domicile" (本籍 {Honseki}), which is where one's 戸籍 {koseki} (Family Register) is located.

The 本籍 {Honseki} (Registered Domicile) is actually an actual block of land in district in a prefecture, but on the passport only the top broad 都道府県 {tōdofuken} (prefecture) is listed.

Often times a Japanese person is born in the same place as their registered domicile, but this is not always the case. And unlike a birthplace, you can change your registered domicile anytime and multiple times.

Sometimes foreign immigration misunderstands this and writes the registered domicile in their internal records as the birth place, even though this is actually incorrect.

Visa Waiver Program

The United States created the Visa Waiver Program in 1986, which allows countries which are part of it to travel to other countries without needing to apply for a visa in advance for short term visits (usually 90 days or less).

Japan was the second country in the world to join the program — soon after the United Kingdom — in 1988.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs keeps a list of all the countries that a Japanese passport can go without a visa and for how long. The list had 61 countries in it in 2011.

Even though a paper visa is not required, currently Australia (the only country they exempt is New Zealand) and the United States (ESTA) do require a form of electronic registration and fee payment prior to visiting.

I was surprised that I could now travel to China without needing a visa, which is something I needed in the past.

Biometrics

Unlike many e-passports in Europe and similar to the e-passports in the United States, the Japanese passports do not contain biometric information such as fingerprints, retina scans, or facial recognition metadata, even though the e-passports are capable of storing this data.

Instead, Japan uses a system called "Japan Visitor Information System". "J-VIS" — sometimes called "J-BIS" because there is no "V" is often approximated to "B" in natural Japanese — is modeled after the US-VISIT system, which was created after 9.11. It takes only two fingerprints (the index fingers... it uses two instead of one for a backup in case one finger can't be read) and a photo. No facial recognition occurs yet. Because it takes only two fingers and not all ten like the U.S. system, it's not very useful for crime forensics (if you commit a crime, remember to only use your other eight fingers!). The main purpose of the fingerprints is to keep foreigners who have been denied entry to Japan or deported from reentering by changing their name and/or passport. That is why they don't fingerprint Japanese or Special Permanent Residents; these groups of people, for all practical purposes, can't be deported.

The J-VIS two-fingerprint system is not connected to the two-fingerprint system used by the automated gates at the airports (similar systems are called ClearPass or e-channel in other countries). The J-VIS system contains Interpol information, Japanese police information, and foreigner information. The automated gates' database only have records of those who registered.

Diplomats are not fingerprinted when going through Japanese immigration. However, there are Diplomatic e-passports with biometric information in them, including fingerprints. In fact, diplomatic passports are often the first passports that governments put biometric information in when they have transitioned to the new e-passports.

MRP (machine readable passport)

The United States was the first country to use MRP (machine readable passports) in 1981. Japan started using MRP passports in late 1992, at the same time it standardized the size of the Japanese passport to conform to new international guidelines. As part of the standardization process, the photos were no longer affixed to the main page. Rather, they were printed directly into the passport paper and overlaid with holograms and other counterfeit protection schemes.

A MRP passport has two lines of text at the bottom of the main first page that has all the information on the page except for the photo obviously. The font used is OCR (optical character recognition) friendly, meaning the alphabet is monospace non-proportional and designed to be easily read by computers of an early era. The trademark of the MRP zone is its use of math 'less-than' symbol to indicate space:

P<USAINOUE<<EIDO<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
1234567890USA0012318M0123456789ABCDEF<0123456

The use of MRP meant that data-entry errors at immigration were greatly reduced, and processing speed for each person was greatly enhanced, as it was difficult for immigration to accurately enter all the different foreign names in a timely and fast manner.

If the MRZ (machine readable zone) is unreadable, the RFID chip in a Japanese e-Passport is locked by this "password", as the MRZ has these bits necessary to unlock the information. This is why immigration — as well as you if you use the automated gates (自動ゲート {jidō gēto}) at the Japanese airports — still need to scan the front page of your passport as well as remove any passport covers; it is reading both the RFID (using the MRP info to unlock it) and the MRZ. Protective covers sometimes interfere with the RFID or the OCR process. Additionally, immigration doesn't like covers because it makes it harder to spot a forged passport.

RFID IC chip

(on bottom front cover)

The RFID chip is in the middle of a Japanese passport on a dedicated non-bendable non-stampable thick page to give Japanese the reassurance that it provides the maximum level of skimming (reading from afar) protection. Other passports may have the RFIC chip on a dedicated page in the back or embedded in the cover.

The presence of the RFID chip is marked by an internationally recognized icon on the bottom of the front cover and makes the passport be known as an "e-passport."

The front and back covers of a Japanese passport have a thin metal mesh woven in the fabric, so when the passport is closed it is impossible to read.

The RFID chip uses ISO 14443 type B + BAC (basic access control) technology, which is the exact same standard technology in a Japanese driver's license, the 住基カード {jūki kādo} (Japanese citizen resident card), and 在留カード {zairyū kādo} (Residency Card), meaning it can be read reliably from a range of 5cm, and has a maximum range of 9cm, when the signal is not block. In a laboratory clean room (metal walls so no ambient natural radiation can get in an out), with very sensitive heavy and expensive equipment, that range can be extended to 50cm. Unlike semiconductors, the physics regarding what we know about radio wave distances hasn't changed much in over half a century.

You may have heard claims about reading RFID from 10 meters or farther, but be aware that RFID is a very generic term like the word "radiation." There is sunlight radiation, microwave radiation, radio and TV wave radiation. There are cases of some types of RFID being read from greater distances, but none of this has been demonstrated with ISO 14443 technology, which by the laws of physics can't really work farther by design (if it could, then train station RFID turnstyles wouldn't work because they would be interfering with each other).

The key to unlock the RFID chip is in the MRP (machine readable passport) area inside of the passport. Without looking at the inside of the passport, you can't unencypt and read the RFID. That is why RFID e-passport readers still need to scan the MRP on the front page.

The information on the chip is identical to what's on the first page of the passport; including a digital version of the photo. It has the capability to hold fingerprint and retina scan info as well, but Japan hasn't adapted that technology yet. The data is digitally signed, which is the point: the RFID is merely a digitally signed version of the passport which is impossible to forge or modify.

The only two passports that do not have RFID are the Emergency Passport and the Travel Document to Japan. There are some countries that may not accept a e-passport if the RFID chip is missing, not present, or malfunctioning or broken due to suspicion of the passport being a forgery.

Colors

The colors listed below are current for 2012, but you should be aware that they do change the colors of passport covers over time. Interestingly, diplomatic passports are traditionally black, but Japan currently uses the brown color. I have seen different color versions of the emergency passport for Japan, but I'm not sure if that is a result of poor lighting and color balance for the web photography.

Limited Passport

For those who are currently on parole or being prosecuted for a crime and are in the middle of a trial, they may be issued what is know as a "limited passport" (制限旅券 {seigen ryoken}). This passport will be always be blue, and may have a notation on the second page with limitations as to the countries they can travel to, and the validity of the passport may be extra limited. It is also possible that the application will be denied.

The Blue Book: Normal Passport

Length of validity: 5 years
What: normal passport for business and tourism
Who: all Japanese citizens, both adults and children
Cost: ¥11,000 (¥6,000 for children under 11)

It's often thought of as the "child's" passport, as it's the only passport (besides the Return to Japan Travel Document and the Emergency Passport) that can be possessed by minors. The reason for this is because children grow quickly and do not resemble their photo after a few years.

However, many Japanese adults, who only travel a few times in their lifetime, sometimes choose the blue passport, as it's cheaper than the red one.

Similar to the re-entry permits for foreigners exiting and leaving Japan during their Status of Residence, it used to be possible to get a passport called a 一次旅券 {ichiji ryoken} (one-time use passport), that was even cheap than the current blue one. This passport is no longer issued however. Both normal passports are considered to be 数次旅券 {sūji ryoken.

The Red Book: Long term normal passport

Length of validity: 10 years
What: normal passport for business and tourism
Who: Japanese citizen adults (20 years of age and over)
Combinations: May not possess simultaneously with blue, dark blue, or beige Japanese passports
Cost: ¥16,000

This is the passport that most people have today. Everything in the passport is written bilingually in English and Japanese, except for the last page, which translated from Japanese, says:

WARNING

It is your responsibility to obtain the proper visas, if necessary, for your destinations, and to obey all time and activity restrictions that come with it.
If you are residing overseas for three (3) or more months you should register your address electronically by the internet at <https://www.ezairyu.mofa.go.jp/>.
Report a lost, destroyed, or stolen passport immediately so they can invalidate it. Also, record your passport number in a separate place for situations like this.
Any corrections, notations, or alterations may only be made by authorized officials. You may need to go to places other than your destination once overseas in order to travel to additional countries [for example: India].
Should your passport be rendered invalid or void or cancelled, or your are ordered to return it, you must return it to an authorized passport center as before it expires if you wish to replace it with a new valid passport. Those who wish to keep their cancelled passport as a souvenir or memento may do so by first getting the passport invalidated, upon which time it will be returned to you.
Letting people other than the authorized passport holder copy or use the passport or use the passport for other illegal purposes is illegal and you may be subject to fine, imprisonment, or both.

YOUR PASSPORT IS VALUABLE. TREAT IT ACCORDINGLY.

BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO LOSE IT OR LET IT GET STOLEN

Please confirm the safety conditions of your destinations overseas at the Japanese Embassies or Consulates.
Overseas Safety Homepage: <https://www.anzen.mofa.go.jp/>.

If you are in a dangerous situation overseas, please contact the nearest Japanese Embassy or Consulate. Or, contact Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs at: +81-(0)3-3580-3311.

The inside back cover has personal information which you should note in pencil. At the top your passport center will have written the 交付官庁 {kōfu kanchō} (issuing authority) number — which will be 1300 for Shinjuku, Tokyo — and the 受理番号 {juri bangō} (receiving number), which will probably be a five, six, or seven digit number.

The back cover has fields for:

Bearer's name. This is an opportunity to write your name in Japanese, as the first page will be in the English alphabet.
Address. This and other info here allows your passport to be returned directly to you if it's lost
Phone number
Overseas Address and Phone Number
Who to notify for an emergency. Name, Address, Phone No., and Relationship (ex. spouse)

The Beige Book: Travel Document for Return to Japan

Length of validity: usually less than a week
What: "passport" issued outside of Japan when:

one's regular passport has been lost, destroyed, or stolen
travel needs to be done to Japan almost immediately

Despite the above warnings about losing your passport while overseas, it does happen quite often to everybody that travels. It's usually a traumatic event because usually along with your passport, you've lost your money and other identification as well.

Because you often don't have any identification (because it's been lost or stolen along with your passport) and you're in a hurry to return, the pattern is to issue the travel document first without much interrogation, then when you arrive back in Japan with the travel document you will be extensively interviewed in a separate area in order to verify your identity.

Any type of ID you have will help make this interrogation process easier, especially a Japanese driver's license, but you should be aware that should your driver's license not be up-to-date — for example, your address is out of date or your registered domicile (本籍 {honseki}) differs — you should plan for the process to be thorough.

Inside the booklet will be at least one B7-sized seal, which is the same paper, format, and style as a Japanese visa that affixed on foreign passport pages.

It doesn't matter whether you've lost an Official, a Diplomatic, or a regular passport; there is no difference in the replacement travel document you receive.

To prevent illegal uses of your passport occurring without your knowledge, your previous passport will be voided and can't be used again, even if you find it.

The Dark Blue Book: Emergency Passport

Length of validity: 1 year
What: passport issued outside of Japan when:

one's regular passport has been lost, destroyed, or stolen
the IC chip MRP machine passport machine which makes normal passports is broken or unavailable
there is not enough time to wait for the machine to be fixed or replaced
travel must be done to another country besides Japan in less than 10 days

The emergency passport is given to those who are in a similar bad situation like the "Travel Document for Return to Japan" beige booklet mentioned above, but it is used for cases where the person does not need to go immediately back to Japan, but rather needs to go to another country first, and is time pressed.

Because there's no RFID chip in the passport and there's normally a chip in a Japanese passport, some countries that normally allow one to travel visa-free (visa-waiver program) may require you to apply for a visa to enter.

Most embassies and consulates for Japan are capable of issuing a proper replacement passport promptly, but you may get issued one of these if you're in a non-major country, such as Slovenia or Iceland.

The Light Brown Book: Diplomatic Passport

Length of validity: length of the (usually single) mission; no set expiration date
What: passport issued to:

foreign ambassadors, consuls, and diplomats
minister level government officials and high level officials from the three branches of government (Minster of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister, etc)
royal family (except for the Emperor and Empress; by international convention, the constitutional head of states do not use or need, therefore do not possess, passports)

Combinations: may possess simultaneously with a regular passport
Restrictions: may not use for non-official business; use your regular passport for non-official travel and business

The inside of a Diplomatic Passport is similar to an Official Passport in that your role and relationship to the government is on the first page. It lacks the legal warnings on the last page that are on the normal red and blue passports.

Diplomatic passports are given to high level officials only; not everybody that works at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo for example has one. Diplomatic passports potentially protect you, your residence, and your immediate family (listed inside the passport) from search and arrest. They do not protect you from being deported. The official process for deporting a diplomat is the host government declares the diplomat to be a "PERSONA NON GRATA", and must leave immediately. Additionally, your government can decide to waive your diplomatic immunity if the conditions merit (for example, you are caught on international television murdering somebody and the immediate evidence is damning). If this happens then the possession of a Diplomatic Passport becomes irrelevant.

You can have diplomatic protections without being in possession of the passport. Likewise, even if you have a diplomatic passport, it doesn't mean anything unless your government has pre-registered you with the host government.

In addition to legitimate ambassador and diplomatic work, diplomatic passports are used by field agents in the intelligence community (that's a fancy word for "spy") while working overseas using the embassy as a base. The reason they do this is because the legal penalties for espionage in most countries are quite severe. Unlike what you see in the movies, a field agent isn't like James Bond. They do not dress up as Japanese and pretend to be a native. Their primary job is to bribe and encourage natives of the country to betray their nation and provide/sell them secrets. The intelligence community even has a word for spies that operate without registering with governments as foreign agents using diplomatic cover: "illegals".

The downside of using a diplomatic passport to keep from getting arrested for spying is that the host government has a pretty good idea of what you really intend to do while you're in the country. Thus, you wouldn't want to use a diplomatic passport unless you had to as entering a country on one will usually mark you as someone who is to be kept an eye on (as far as the Vienna Convention will permit)

The Green Book: Official Passport

Length of validity: Length of mission + approximately 6 months
Cost: free (often called the "no-fee passport")
Combinations: may possess simultaneously with regular passport
Restrictions: many; the first page lists your purpose and who sent you, and the countries the passport is valid for is explicitly listed. You must use your regular passport for non-official travel and business.

An official passport is one that is given to public servants and government workers for the performing of official duties while overseas. While the passport may be mistaken for a diplomatic passport, it actually affords the holder no extra privileges beyond what a regular passport offers. The only possible privilege one receives is that you're very unlikely to be denied entry into the country, because the passport was created for a (or a few) specific countries for a specific job. The inside of an official passport reflects this, as the first page is very different from a typical passport:

As you see from this example, this "OFFICIAL", is a "cook" (probably a very good one) for a person that probably has a Diplomatic Passport.

In the U.S., in addition to government workers and public officials, "Official" passports are also given to people that work in the Peace Corp. Some people in the U.S. call them "no-fee passports", which emphasizes that there is very little special privilege gained from these passports, aside from there lack of cost.

Similar to the U.S. and the Peace Corp, Japan gives "Official" passports to people in the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA {ｼﾞｬｲｶ}).

Fun fact: the very first passport issued by Japan was issued by the Japanese Empire to a juggler/acrobat by the name of 隅田川浪五郎 {SUMIDAGAWA Namigorō}, for the purpose of performing at the World Expo in Paris in 1867 (Exposition universelle de 1867).

Namigorō SUMIDAGAWA

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