Japanese Law Translation (Ministry of Justice)

Cannot be cited for

It says of itself, on its own front page: the translations are not official texts, not all of them are finalised, only the original Japanese has legal effect, and they are to be used solely as reference material. So it may never be cited as the law. It must be cited only as a translation, beside the Japanese, and the Japanese must come from e-Gov where the question is what the law says today - because the second limitation compounds the first: the snapshots are years behind. Its Nationality Act still prints the naturalisation age as twenty, which Act No. 24 of 2022 lowered to eighteen; its criteria ordinance still prints 5 million yen for the Business Manager status, which has been 30 million since the 2026 ordinance; its Immigration Act still cites article 61-2-12 where the current text says 61-2-15. A title marked 'tentative translation' has not been proofread at all.