Deadline Sept 20, 2026, 23:00 JST | MLIT has published draft amendments to the vehicle safety standards ordinance and notification
On August 21, 2026, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) published a draft ministerial ordinance amending part of the Road Vehicle Safety Standards, together with a draft notification amending the notification that sets out the detailed provisions of those standards. A public comment procedure under the Administrative Procedure Act is now open, running from 23:00 on August 21, 2026 to 23:00 on September 20, 2026. The case number is 155260927 and the responsible office is the Vehicle Standards and International Policy Division, Logistics and Automobile Bureau, MLIT. The safety standards (hoan kijun) set out, under the Road Transport Vehicle Act, the structural and equipment requirements that cars and motorcycles must meet. Compliance is verified at initial registration inspection and at the periodic shaken inspection, so in practice these rules are the pass mark for a vehicle. This time both the ordinance itself and the notification containing the detailed provisions are being revised at once. The cited legal bases include Article 10(1) (including as applied under Article 99), Article 75-3(1) and (8), Article 75-4(1), Article 76 and Article 104 of the Road Transport Vehicle Act, as well as Article 3(2) of the related Fees Cabinet Order. The substance of the amendments is set out in two PDFs on the e-Gov case page: an outline of the ordinance amendment and an outline of the notification amendment. This is still a draft: promulgation and entry into force come only after the comment period, so the standards that apply to vehicles on the road today are unchanged for now.
For foreign residents who own a vehicle in Japan, the safety standards are far from abstract. Whether your car passes shaken, and whether you may fit aftermarket parts or add-on devices, is decided by compliance with these rules. If you have registered an imported car or a vehicle brought from your home country, or you are planning modifications, the final text could mean extra servicing or parts replacement. People who drive for delivery or transport work may also see changes in cost and scheduling if vehicle requirements shift. Tourists renting a car, by contrast, face no procedure of their own — the rental vehicle already meets the standards. The practical hurdle is language: both the draft texts and the summaries are available only as Japanese PDFs, with no translation provided. If you want to read the details or submit a comment, going through the comment guidelines with someone who reads Japanese is the safer route.
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Source:
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism / e-Gov Public Comment (Digital Agency) website — draft amendments to the Road Vehicle Safety StandardsThis article was edited and written by freegent Inc. based on the source above.