A 1,000 yen note is not a lot of money in Japan. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s table of regional minimum wages for fiscal 2026 puts the lowest figure in the country at 1,085 yen an hour, in Miyazaki, and the highest at 1,280 yen, in Tokyo. One note does not buy one hour of the cheapest legal labour anywhere in the country, and the national weighted average on the same table is 1,177 yen.
What a visitor actually has to know about Japanese money is narrower than the exchange rate: how far a shop has to go in taking coins, which notes are still good, and at what point carrying cash becomes a customs matter. All three are written down.
The minimum wage table puts every prefecture above 1,000 yen an hour
The ministry publishes one sheet a year listing all 47 prefectures. For fiscal 2026 it prints the revised hourly amount, the previous amount in brackets, the increase in yen, the increase as a percentage, and the date the new amount takes effect. The dates are not the same everywhere: fifteen prefectures, among them Hokkaido, Tokyo, Osaka and Hyogo, moved on 1 October 2026, while Iwate and Kumamoto move on 1 December 2026 and Okinawa on 2 December 2026. That count of fifteen is made here from the effective-date column. Reading the table on a day in early October, some prefectures are still paying the bracketed figure.
Even the bracketed figures clear 1,000 yen. The lowest previous amount on the sheet is 1,023 yen, shared by Kochi, Miyazaki and Okinawa. The largest single increase is 65 yen, in Saga, and the largest percentage increase is 6.3 per cent, also in Saga.
| Prefecture | Revised amount | Previous amount | Takes effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | 1,280 yen | 1,226 yen | 1 October 2026 |
| Kanagawa | 1,279 yen | 1,225 yen | 1 October 2026 |
| Osaka | 1,231 yen | 1,177 yen | 1 October 2026 |
| Hokkaido | 1,131 yen | 1,075 yen | 1 October 2026 |
| Kyoto | 1,180 yen | 1,122 yen | 16 November 2026 |
| Kumamoto | 1,092 yen | 1,034 yen | 1 December 2026 |
| Okinawa | 1,086 yen | 1,023 yen | 2 December 2026 |
| Miyazaki | 1,085 yen | 1,023 yen | 24 October 2026 |
| National weighted average | 1,177 yen | 1,121 yen | not applicable |
Six coin denominations exist, and twenty of each is the legal ceiling
The Act on Units of Currency and Issuance of Coins, Act No. 42 of 1987, sets the whole of the coinage in one short article. Article 5, paragraph 1 says the denominations of coins are 500 yen, 100 yen, 50 yen, 10 yen, 5 yen and 1 yen: six kinds, no more. Paragraph 2 adds three further denominations, 10,000 yen, 5,000 yen and 1,000 yen, but only for commemorative coins issued as a national commemorative project after a Cabinet decision, and paragraph 3 leaves the mintage of each commemorative coin to a Cabinet Order.
Article 7 is the sentence that matters at a till. It reads that coins pass as legal tender up to twenty times their face value. Twenty 1 yen coins, twenty 10 yen coins, twenty 500 yen coins: past that count in a single payment, the Act stops making the coin legal tender, denomination by denomination.
Two more articles sit beside it. Article 8 has the government exchange coins that have become unfit for circulation through wear or other causes, at face value and without charging a fee. Article 9 makes a coin void if its design has become hard to make out or its weight has dropped markedly.
Banknotes carry no ceiling, and the Bank of Japan issues four of them
The Bank of Japan Act, Act No. 89 of 1997, takes the opposite line for paper. Article 46, paragraph 1 has the Bank issue banknotes; paragraph 2 states that those notes pass as legal tender without limit. Nothing in that article counts pieces. Article 48 obliges the Bank to exchange notes that have become difficult to use through staining, damage or other reasons, again without a fee.
The Bank’s own page of currently issued money lists four note denominations and six coin denominations. The four notes are 10,000 yen, 5,000 yen, 2,000 yen and 1,000 yen, and three of them appear twice, because the designs issued on 3 July 2024 did not retire the designs issued on 1 November 2004. The 2,000 yen note has a single design, issued on 19 July 2000.
The dimensions are printed with them. Every note is 76 millimetres deep; the widths run 160 millimetres for the 10,000, 156 for the 5,000, 154 for the 2,000 and 150 for the 1,000. A longer note carries the higher face value.
Nine note denominations are no longer issued and still count as valid
The Bank keeps a second list, headed as banknotes and coins that are no longer issued but remain valid. The note side of it runs to nine denominations: 10,000 yen, 5,000 yen, 1,000 yen, 500 yen, 100 yen, 50 yen, 10 yen, 5 yen and 1 yen. A 1 yen banknote is on the Bank’s valid list. So is a 500 yen note, from the years before the 500 yen coin.
The coin side of the same list has six entries, and two of them are 500 yen coins: one in nickel brass, one in cupronickel. The current 500 yen coin, a bicolour clad piece, began in 2021, which makes three valid 500 yen coins at once by the Bank’s own reckoning, the count here being made from the two lists.
A one yen coin weighs one gram, and every coin’s figures are published
The Bank prints the material, diameter, weight, edge and first year of issue for each coin. The 1 yen coin is pure aluminium, 20.0 millimetres across and 1.0 gram, so a hundred of them weigh 100 grams, that multiplication being made here. The 10 yen, 5 yen and 1 yen coins have plain edges; the 100 yen and 50 yen are milled; the 500 yen has a slanted edge of varying form.
| Coin | Material as printed | Diameter | Weight | Issue began |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 yen | copper 75%, zinc 12.5%, nickel 12.5% | 26.5 mm | 7.1 g | 2021 |
| 100 yen | copper 75%, nickel 25% | 22.6 mm | 4.8 g | 1967 |
| 50 yen | copper 75%, nickel 25% | 21.0 mm | 4.0 g | 1967 |
| 10 yen | copper 95%, zinc 4% to 3%, tin 1% to 2% | 23.5 mm | 4.5 g | 1959 |
| 5 yen | copper 60% to 70%, zinc 40% to 30% | 22.0 mm | 3.75 g | 1959 |
| 1 yen | aluminium 100% | 20.0 mm | 1.0 g | 1955 |
Sen and rin are still defined, and still rounded away
Article 2 of the 1987 Act keeps two units that nobody carries. The unit of face value is the yen, and face values are whole multiples of one yen; amounts below one yen are counted in sen and rin, a sen being one hundredth of a yen and a rin one tenth of a sen. Nothing is minted in either.
Article 3 then disposes of them. Where a debt is settled in cash and the amount carries a fraction of less than 50 sen, the fraction is dropped; where the fraction is 50 sen or more but under one yen, it is counted as one yen. The same rule applies when the whole amount is under one yen. Two exceptions are printed: the rule yields to a special agreement between the parties, and paragraph 2 switches it off for amounts the State and public corporations receive or pay.
Above one million yen, cash moves to its own customs form
Japan Customs sets the line at one million yen. Carrying more than one million yen in value out of or into the country requires a Declaration of Carrying of Means of Payment to be filed with customs at departure or arrival. The threshold drops to 100,000 yen for exports destined for North Korea.
Four categories are counted towards the million: cash in Japanese or foreign currency, cheques including travellers cheques, promissory notes, and securities such as share certificates and government bonds. A separate line covers gold bullion of 90 per cent purity or higher weighing more than one kilogram. For securities, customs asks for the larger of market value, book value or acquisition cost.
Where it is filed is also set out: on departure, at the customs office in the departure lobby if the money is going into checked baggage, before the airline takes the bag, or at the customs counter in front of the departure examination area if it is in hand baggage; on arrival, at the customs inspection area. The statutory chain behind the declaration sits in the texts of the laws themselves: Article 67 of the Customs Act, Articles 58 and 59 of its Order for Enforcement, Article 19, paragraph 3 of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act, Article 8-2 of the Foreign Exchange Order, and Article 10 of the Ministerial Ordinance on Foreign Exchange.
What the published pages do not settle
None of these sources prices an exchange counter, rates a bank against a convenience store cash machine, or says what a machine charges. Those are commercial terms set by each operator, and they are not in the Acts, the Bank’s pages or the customs guidance read here. What the public documents do fix is the shape of the money itself: six coins, four notes in seven current designs, a twenty-coin ceiling per denomination, no ceiling at all on notes, nine retired note denominations that remain valid, and one million yen as the point where cash stops being a private matter.
Sources Checked
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare — national list of regional minimum wages for fiscal 2026
Confirmed the revised and previous hourly amounts and effective dates for Tokyo 1,280 (1,226), Kanagawa 1,279 (1,225), Osaka 1,231 (1,177), Hokkaido 1,131 (1,075), Kyoto 1,180 (1,122), Kumamoto 1,092 (1,034), Okinawa 1,086 (1,023), Miyazaki 1,085 (1,023), the national weighted average of 1,177 (1,121), the 65 yen and 6.3 per cent increases in Saga, and the effective dates of 1 October, 24 October, 16 November, 1 December and 2 December 2026.
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11200000/001753404.pdf
e-Gov — Act on Units of Currency and Issuance of Coins (Act No. 42 of 1987)
Confirmed Article 2 on the yen, sen and rin, Article 3 on rounding fractions under one yen and its two exceptions, Article 5 on the six coin denominations and the three commemorative denominations, Article 7 on legal tender up to twenty times face value, Article 8 on free exchange of worn coins, and Article 9 on void coins.
https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/api/1/lawdata/362AC0000000042
e-Gov — Bank of Japan Act (Act No. 89 of 1997)
Confirmed Article 46 on the issue of banknotes and their unlimited legal tender status, and Article 48 on exchanging damaged notes without a fee.
https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/api/1/lawdata/409AC0000000089
Bank of Japan — banknotes and coins currently issued
Confirmed the four note denominations, the issue dates of 3 July 2024, 1 November 2004 and 19 July 2000, the note dimensions of 76 by 160, 156, 154 and 150 millimetres, and the material, diameter, weight, edge and first year of issue of all six coins.
https://www.boj.or.jp/note_tfjgs/note/valid/issue.htm
Bank of Japan — other valid banknotes and coins
Confirmed the nine note denominations that are no longer issued but remain valid, and the six coin entries including the nickel brass and cupronickel 500 yen coins.
https://www.boj.or.jp/note_tfjgs/note/valid/past_issue/index.htm
Japan Customs — procedures for carrying means of payment in and out of Japan
Confirmed the one million yen threshold, the 100,000 yen threshold for North Korea, the four categories counted, the gold bullion rule of over one kilogram at 90 per cent purity or higher, the valuation rule for securities, and the places of filing at departure and arrival.
https://www.customs.go.jp/kaigairyoko/shiharaishudan.htm
e-Gov — Customs Act (Act No. 61 of 1954)
Confirmed Article 67 requiring a person who exports or imports goods to declare the name, quantity and value of the goods to the Director-General of Customs and to obtain permission after the necessary inspection.
https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/api/1/lawdata/329AC0000000061
e-Gov — Order for Enforcement of the Customs Act (Cabinet Order No. 150 of 1954)
Confirmed Article 58 on the export declaration procedure under Article 67 of the Act and Article 59 on the import declaration procedure, and the proviso to Article 58 that keeps means of payment and securities under Article 8-2, paragraph 1, item 1 of the Foreign Exchange Order, and precious metals under item 2 of the same paragraph, out of the oral declaration allowed for the effects of passengers and crew.
https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/api/1/lawdata/329CO0000000150
e-Gov — Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (Act No. 228 of 1949)
Confirmed Article 19, paragraph 3 obliging a resident or non-resident who intends to export or import means of payment, securities or precious metals to notify the Minister of Finance in advance, except where the Minister has already granted permission under the preceding two paragraphs or where a Cabinet Order provides otherwise.
https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/api/1/lawdata/324AC0000000228
e-Gov — Foreign Exchange Order (Cabinet Order No. 260 of 1980)
Confirmed Article 8-2 setting the notification threshold at an amount equivalent to more than one million yen, at 100,000 yen for destinations or places of shipment designated by the Minister of Finance, and at more than one kilogram for precious metals, each measured on the combined total where there is more than one item.
https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/api/1/lawdata/355CO0000000260
e-Gov — Ministerial Ordinance on Foreign Exchange (Ministry of Finance Ordinance No. 44 of 1980)
Confirmed Article 10 defining the means of payment as banknotes, government notes, coins, cheques including travellers cheques and promissory notes denominated in Japanese or foreign currency, the securities as those under Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, and the precious metal as gold bullion whose gold content is 90 per cent or more of total weight, and valuing securities at the largest of market value, book value or acquisition cost.
https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/api/1/lawdata/355M50000040044
Last updated: October 2026
