🏷️ Food Labeling Rules Revised Oct 2026

❓ What is changing?

Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA) has revised the Food Labeling Standard (Cabinet Office Ordinance No. 10 of 2015), the rulebook behind every label on food sold in Japan, publishing the comparison of old and new provisions as Cabinet Office Ordinance No. 89 dated October 1, 2026. On the same date the CAA also updated the two documents that make the standard workable in practice: the interpretive notice "On the Food Labeling Standard" (41st revision, Notice No. 749) and the "Food Labeling Standard Q&A" (23rd revision, Notice No. 750). The main text and supplementary provisions, Appended Tables 1–27, the label format templates and the single consolidated PDF have all been replaced, and a separate document summarizing the history of past revisions was released alongside them. Labeling rules used to be split across the JAS Act, the Food Sanitation Act and the Health Promotion Act; the Food Labeling Act enacted in 2013 unified them, with the concrete labeling requirements set out in a Cabinet Office Ordinance that is amended as needed. This revision is one more layer in that process, so the baseline rule set is now a new edition. Separately, the ordinance covering items critical to safety — allergens, use-by dates, and whether a food must be heated — was revised effective April 1, 2026 (Ordinance No. 34).

👥 Who is affected?

• ●Anyone buying food at supermarkets, convenience stores or drugstores in Japan
• ●People with food allergies and their families, especially those with children
• ●Shoppers who order food through online stores or online supermarkets
• ●Anyone choosing foods with function claims, foods with nutrient function claims or supplements
• ●Businesses handling food, including restaurants, part-time staff and sole proprietors

🌏 Impact on foreign residents and visitors

Food sold in Japan is labeled in Japanese, so for foreign residents and visitors the difference between knowing and not knowing the rules is a real safety gap: how allergens are written, the difference between "消費期限" (use-by, a safety limit) and "賞味期限" (best-before, a quality guide), country of origin of ingredients, and how additives are listed. If you have a food allergy, the eight designated allergens — shrimp, crab, walnut, wheat, buckwheat, egg, milk and peanut — must be declared, so knowing where on the package to look is the fastest form of self-protection. The CAA site also publishes an English translation of the allergen annex to its notice, letting you match Japanese terms against English. Separate annexes cover bento and prepared deli foods, brown and milled rice, seafood naming, and "additive-free" claims — which is where the answer lies when labels seem to differ from shop to shop. There is also a public site for checking whether a product you bought has been recalled, and a window for filing a question if a label looks wrong.