Bringing Medication Into Japan — and the One That Is Banned Outright
Two medications approved abroad for the same condition. One cannot be imported into Japan at all, even for treatment. The other can, if you get permission first. Both answers sit on the same official page — the one that also tells you, in as many words, that the Japanese list has no brand names on it.
We are not doctors and we are not lawyers, and this page cannot tell you whether your medication is allowed. It tells you what two official pages say, what the paperwork is, and where to send it.
There is a reason we cannot do more than that. Japan’s controlled-substances list does not include brand names of medicines — the Narcotics Control Department says so itself, and adds that if you are not sure, you should check the category of your medicine with the doctor who prescribed it. That is the step. Do it early enough that you can still act on the answer.
Two medications for the same condition, two opposite answers
The Narcotics Control Department publishes a question-and-answer page for travellers. Two of the questions name medications approved in the United States for ADHD. The answers are not the same, and the difference is not a matter of degree.
| The question, as the page asks it | The official answer |
|---|---|
| Can I bring ADDERALL into Japan? | No. “Amphetamine, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) of ADDERALL, is
controlled as ‘Stimulants’ under the Stimulants Control Act, and cannot be imported
into Japan, even for treatment purposes.” There is no permission to apply for here. The answer is not apply in advance. It is no. |
| Can I bring VYVANSE into Japan? | Yes. “Lisdexamfetamine, API of VYVANSE, is controlled as ‘Stimulants’
Raw Materials’ under the Stimulants Control Act. You can import/export it into/from Japan,
by getting an advanced permission.” The page also names it as ELVANSE, VENVANSE, ADUVANZ and TYVENSE in other countries. |
Same condition, same official page, opposite outcomes — because Japan classifies the two active ingredients differently. That is the reason we will not summarise the rest of this page into a list of drugs you can and cannot pack. A list that gets one of these two rows wrong is worse than no list.
Where the 14 days applies — and where it does not
There is one number on these pages that is easy to carry away without the scope it came with. So the scope first.
The sentence lives in the Narcotics Control Department’s application guidance, in the part about submitting an application for narcotics and stimulants’ raw materials — immediately after the list of offices you send it to. The health ministry page we read carries no such figure, and neither does the psychotropics carve-out further up. We have not read the Q&A document the ministry points at, so we cannot tell you what is in there. What we can say is that this is the number for that application, not a number that attaches to travelling with medicine.
Within that scope, here it is in full:
“You should apply at least 14 days prior to your travel. In case of urgency, please contact us. Please note that contacting us does not necessarily mean that your application will be handled. Please be aware that Tokyo NCD, in particular, cannot accept any last-minute applications for any reason, even if you contact us by phone or email.”
Two things follow from that, and both are easy to read past.
“At least 14 days” is a floor, not a promise. The page says when you should apply. It does not say how long processing takes, and it does not say what happens to an application that arrives on day 14 or on day 13. We cannot fill any of that in for you.
The urgency route comes with its own warning. You are invited to contact them if you are in a hurry, and told in the next sentence that doing so does not necessarily mean your application will be handled. That is not the same as saying it never is — but it is not a route you can plan around. For Tokyo, the page goes further and rules out last-minute applications for any reason at all.
What the government names — and why it is not a list you can check yourself
The application guidance names specific substances by category, as a reference. Two things about it matter more than the names themselves.
| Category, as the page labels it | What it names |
|---|---|
| Narcotics | Morphine, Fentanyl, Oxycodone, Codeine, Tapentadol, GHB (Xyrem, Xywav, Lumryz)
… The page adds its own footnote: “TORAMADOL is not a narcotic.” (spelled that way in the original) |
| Stimulants’ Raw Materials | Lisdexamfetamine (Vyvanse, Elvanse…), Pseudoephedrine … |
| Psychotropics the page labels this group no permission required |
Methylphenidate (Dexmethylphenidate), Zolpidem, Alprazolam, Clonazepam, Diazepam,
Buprenorphine … Read the next section before you rely on that label. |
First: every one of those entries ends in an ellipsis. They are examples the page offers as a reference, not a complete list. “My medicine is not named there” tells you nothing.
Second: the category boundaries will not match your intuition. Codeine is named under narcotics and pseudoephedrine under stimulants’ raw materials. Methylphenidate is named in the group the page labels no permission required, while amphetamine cannot be imported at all. The page does not explain what any of them are prescribed for, and we are not going to fill that in. There is no rule of thumb here that survives contact with the actual categories.
There is a separate, shorter list of substances that no individual traveller can bring either way:
“No individual travelers can import/export medicines including the following substances, even if they are prescribed medicines in yourcountry” (run together in the original) — Heroin; Opium powder; Methamphetamine and Amphetamine (INN: Dexamphetamine, Levamfetamine); Methaqualone.
The page says the following substances. It does not say only the following substances. Do not read a short list as permission for everything absent from it.
“Controlled” does not automatically mean “needs permission”
The guidance opens by saying that if you enter or leave Japan carrying medicine containing substances controlled in Japan for your own medical use, you need to get permission in advance — and that the procedure depends on the category: narcotics, psychotropics, stimulants, stimulants’ raw materials, cannabis, opium.
Then it carves out an exception, and this is where a flat “controlled means permission” falls apart:
| Situation | What the page says |
|---|---|
| On its table, within the quantity, not injectable | No doctor’s certificate and no permission from the authorities under the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Law. |
| Over the quantity, or injectable | You should have a certificate written by your doctor, identifying the disease, why the drug is necessary for your treatment, and the names and quantities prescribed. The page says should have here, not must. |
| Narcotics and stimulants’ raw materials | Permission before you enter or leave Japan. No quantity carve-out is stated for these — which is not the same as one not existing. |
The carve-out is written around a specific table of psychotropics and quantities — and it only holds if the medicine is not in injection form, which is easy to read past. We have not been able to retrieve that table, so we can tell you the shape of the rule but not a single number in it, and we cannot tell you whether a psychotropic that is not on the table gets the same treatment.
One number does survive, in a footnote: if you are importing psychotropics
more than one month’s supply, the page gives you an address to write to
(yakkan@mhlw.go.jp — written with the @ on that page, unlike the ministry’s
own contacts further down). That is a different threshold from the table, and we are not going to assume
they are the same one. If your medication is in this area, this is exactly the question to put
to the office rather than to a travel blog.
What the certificate has to contain — and there are two versions
Where a certificate comes into it, the page lists what it must contain — and here the wording is must include, even though whether you have to hold a certificate at all is put as should. It gives that list twice, with two different versions, in two different parts of the page. The page does not say what happens if you turn up with the wrong one, and we are not going to guess.
| On the narcotics / stimulants’ raw materials application | On the psychotropics footnote (the page’s *2) |
|---|---|
| Your name | Your name |
| Your current address | not listed |
| The specific reason why you take your medicine. The page states it “will not be accertable” (the original’s spelling) if it says just “for personal use”, “for medical conditions”, “for travel” or “for treatment”. | Name of your disease, and the necessity of the medicine for your treatment. No rejected wording is listed on this one. |
| A list of your medicine, including doses and the strength | A list of your medicine, including doses and the strength |
| The signature of the prescribing doctor | The signature of the prescribing doctor |
| The date of issue — issued within 3 months | The date of issue. No three-month limit is stated here. |
The left-hand list is the one that names wording it will not take — “for personal use”, “for medical conditions”, “for travel”, “for treatment”. If you are asking a doctor for that letter, that is the line worth showing them. The same list wants the certificate issued within 3 months; it does not say three months before what, so we cannot tell you whether the clock runs to the application or to your arrival.
It would be tidier to merge them into one list of requirements. It would also be wrong: the right-hand list does not ask for your address, does not reject any wording, and does not put a three-month clock on the certificate. Which list applies depends on which category your medicine falls into — which is the question this whole page keeps returning to.
The things that go wrong after you have the letter
The guidance spends an unusual amount of space on the mechanics of sending the application — again, the narcotics and stimulants’ raw materials one. Two of the items below are ones the page itself ties to delay or non-delivery. The rest are simply conditions it states, and it does not say what happens if you miss one.
| What the page says | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Photos of HEIC files cannot be opened | “Our email system cannot view ‘HEIC files’. Please send your photos as ‘JPEG files’, ‘PDF files’ or ‘Word files’.” They want the name and strength to be legible. |
| Over 10MB, split it | Large attachments may not be delivered. Send in multiple emails, and the page strongly recommends a short follow-up note with no attachment asking them to confirm receipt — it also says undelivered mail is not their responsibility. |
| Do not write “For Vacation” | In the reason-for-departure field, write “To return home” or “To go to anothercountry” (run together in the original). The page says “For Vacation”, a common answer, takes longer to process. |
| The [at] in the addresses is literal — on the ministry’s page, not this one | The health ministry writes its own enquiry contacts as
yakkan[at]mhlw.go.jp and tells you to
replace [at] with @ when sending. That notice belongs to those
contacts, not to the Narcotics Control Department addresses. |
| Show the certificate at customs | “Please show the ‘IMPORT CERTIFICATE/EXPORT CERTIFICATE’ to an officer at the Customs.” The pages never say whether this is the same document as the Import Confirmation further down. Do not assume either way. |
For narcotics and stimulants’ raw materials, you carry it yourself
“When you enter/leave Japan, you must carry your medicine with yourself. (You can’t send your medicine to/from Japan and you can’t also entrust carrying it to other people, such as your family.)”
This closes the two workarounds people reach for — posting it ahead, or handing it to whoever else is travelling with you. Note the scope, which is narrower than it first looks: the sentence sits in the narcotics and stimulants’ raw materials part of the guidance, before the psychotropics section begins. We cannot tell you from these pages whether it reaches further than that. It says nothing either way about how you distribute your own bags, so we will not either.
One more thing that only bites on the way out: if you intend to go home with leftover medicine, you submit an export application form as well. If you do not require an export permission, the page asks you to say so in your email. The paperwork is not only about getting in.
The quantity rules are a separate question
Everything above is about what the substance is. There is a second, unrelated axis: how much of it you are carrying. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare publishes amounts up to and including which you do not have to apply for an Import Confirmation at all.
| Category, as the ministry lists it | Amount without an Import Confirmation |
|---|---|
| Poison, deadly poison, prescription drug | Up to 1 month supply |
| Drug for external use (excluding the above) | Up to 24 per one item |
| Injectable drug and syringe for the drug | Up to 1 month supply — only “pre-filled syringe” or “self-injection kit” |
| Other drugs, quasi drugs | Up to 2 month supply |
The ministry follows that table with a sentence that cancels the obvious reading: “Regardless of the description above, you cannot bring prohibited drugs and controlled drugs into Japan.”
“Under a month’s supply, therefore fine” is not a rule. A month of something banned is still banned — the Adderall answer at the top of this page is the case in point. What the quantity table answers is the narrower question do I need an Import Confirmation.
And that cancelling sentence does not follow the table directly. In between sits a paragraph about products containing designated pharmaceutical ingredients that are sold abroad with advertising about enhancing cerebral function and other mental effects: those are not to be imported unless use of the product complies with a doctor’s prescription or instruction — followed by a sentence saying it would be permissible to bring such a product into Japan yourself, for self-medication during your stay. We cannot tell you how those two sentences fit together, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Where an Import Confirmation is what you need, it comes as three steps and the middle one is the one that catches people: you apply for it, receive it before you leave home, and show it to the officer at customs. Holding the paper is not the finish line; presenting it is. And note the wording — before you leave home, not before you board.
What the box above should stop you doing is treating that as the shape of every case. Being under the quantity means no Import Confirmation. Being over it means this procedure. But what the ministry says about prohibited and controlled drugs is a different sentence entirely — that you cannot bring them in, not that a further form covers them. That sentence does not stand alone either: prescribed narcotics and stimulants’ raw materials have their own permission route, and the Vyvanse answer at the top of this page is exactly that route in use.
For narcotics and stimulants’ raw materials, the ministry uses the same phrase. Import is “strictly prohibited” except where they are prescribed for a specific patient who brings them with permission obtained before you leave home, applied for through the directors of the Regional Bureaus of Health and Welfare. Importing medicines is described on that page as subject to control under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law and the Customs Law, and the page says procedures should be done, depending on what you are bringing — even for personal use.
Where the paperwork goes
There are two different sets of contacts on these pages, and they are not interchangeable.
| For | Where |
|---|---|
| Questions about drugs, quasi drugs, cosmetics and medical devices arriving at Narita, Tokyo International Airport, etc. |
Kanto-Shin’etsu Regional Bureau of Health and Welfare yakkan[at]mhlw.go.jp — the page labels this “contact for further information”, not an application address. |
| The same arriving at Kansai International, Chubu Centrair, Fukuoka, Naha, etc. |
Kinki Regional Bureau of Health and Welfare kiyakuji[at]mhlw.go.jp |
| Narcotics & raw materials enquiries |
Compliance and Narcotics Division, Pharmaceutical Safety and Environmental Health Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Listed for “Place of arrival: All”. |
| Narcotics & raw materials the application itself |
The Narcotics Control Department in charge of the area where you are arriving. If your entry and departure airports are in different areas, the page tells you to submit to the office covering the entry airport area. |
The ministry contact listed for “Place of arrival: All” is where you ask questions. It is not where the application goes. Applications for narcotics and stimulants’ raw materials go to the Narcotics Control Department for your arrival area — one of three cases the page sets out, the other two being people living in Japan and people in hospital here. The page does not say what happens to an application sent elsewhere, so we will not guess.
On what to send: the guidance lists an application form (IMPORT) for entering Japan, an application form (EXPORT) for leaving, the doctor’s certificate, and photographs of the medicine’s packaging or related material. The forms differ for narcotics and for stimulants’ raw materials. The import and export forms serve different journeys, so do not assume everyone files both — the export form is the one tied to taking leftovers home.
What we could not find out
Everything above comes from two official English pages. Several things they point at, we could not retrieve — and each of them is a real gap rather than a detail.
- The psychotropics table. The whole no-certificate carve-out is defined by quantities in a table we do not have. We cannot give you a number.
- The controlled-substances list itself, and the ministry’s table of designated pharmaceutical ingredients. Both are linked as separate documents.
- The ministry’s own Q&A document. For the detail of the Import Confirmation application, the ministry tells you to check a Q&A document for people importing medicines into Japan. We have not been able to read it, so anything in it is outside everything on this page.
- What the online application actually covers. The ministry says it is now possible to apply online for some personal import procedures. It does not say which.
- The extra notice for arrivals at Narita International Airport (NRT) or Tokyo International Airport (HND). The page links to it without reproducing it, so we have not read what it adds.
- How any of this is handled at customs. These are health-ministry and Narcotics Control Department pages. They tell you to show your paperwork to an officer at customs; what customs itself publishes, we have not read.
If you take one thing from this page
“First of all, you must check which category your medicine belongs to and go through the corresponding procedure.” That is the order, and it is one of the few places on these pages that says must. Everything else here is downstream of it.
Ask the doctor who prescribed your medicine which Japanese category your medicine falls into — that is the page’s own wording, and it is not the same as the brand name, because the Japanese list does not carry brand names. If the answer puts you in the narcotics or stimulants’ raw materials application, that is the one the guidance says to file at least 14 days before you travel. Both halves of that come from the official pages; neither is our advice.
Where the official pages send you next
Both pages hand off to somewhere else at the point where our reading stops. If you are actually going to do this, these are the doors they point at — and we have not been through any of them.
| For | Where the page points |
|---|---|
| The Import Confirmation application | A dedicated application page, and separately a Q&A document for people importing medicines into Japan. |
| Narcotics, psychotropics and stimulants’ raw materials | The health ministry sends you to the Narcotics Control Department’s own site for the detail. |
| Which office to email | A separate location and e-mail address list (PDF). The rule for choosing is on the page; the actual addresses are in that file. |
| Arriving at Narita (NRT) or Tokyo International (HND) | A further Attention notice, linked but not reproduced. |
Sources
Checked 20 August 2026. Both sources are the English pages published by the bodies responsible. Where the original spelling is unusual, we have kept it and said so.
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare — Information for those who are bringing medicines for personal use into Japan: mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryou/iyakuhin/kojinyunyu/topics/tp010401-1_00001.html
- Narcotics Control Department — Application Guidance: ncd.mhlw.go.jp/en/application2.html
Everything above is what these pages said on the date at the top, and pages like these are revised. More importantly, we can be right about the paperwork and still be no use to you, because we are not in a position to tell you whether your medication is permitted. These pages set out categories, procedures and where to send them; they do not hand that answer to a reader, and neither do we.
And one thing that is our position rather than a quotation: we cannot settle whether your medicine is allowed, and nothing on this page should be read as though we had. Use it to know what to ask and how early to ask it. Then ask them. The date at the top is the last time we read the sources — if it is a long way behind you, go to the sources themselves.