Japan PI – Glossary of Terms

Sometimes is is difficult to understand the specific terms used in Japanese Laws and Official Documents. We attempt to describe specific terms below. For a more comprehensive list of general PI terms in English, please see this list HERE or HERE.

 

Japanese PI Terms

• Koseki – Japanese Family Registry. Family registration or Koseki can be obtained from name and legal domicile or Honseki. As a resident registration keeps a record of legal domicile, theoretically, Koseki information can be obtained from name and resident address.
• Honseki – Japanese Legal Domicile. A legal domicile (permanent address) or Honseki used to be an ancestral address, but now it only plays a role of temporal ID number because you can single out any legal domicile in all over Japan.
• Juminhyo – Japanese Residence Card. Residential registration is registered at a city hall where you reside. When you move from one place to another, you must register your new address to the city hall you move in within 2 weeks. Every time a resident moves moving record can be traced from previous city hall. But since the registration is only filed only in the database for each city hall based on the strict sectionalism, it’s not easy to locate an address without previous city they used to live.
• Honmukyoku – Japanese
• Nyukoku-Kanrikyoku – Japanese Immigration Office
• Kuyakusho – Local Japanese Goverment Ward (ku) office.
• Yakuza – Japanese Mafia, or organized crime. Also known as Boryokudan.
• Divorce Certificate
• Birth Certificate
• My Namba –