Why Are Tattoos Taboo in Japan? A History of the Tattoo Ban

Tattoos are not illegal in Japan. The Meiji government banned tattooing in 1872, and the ban was lifted in 1948. The "no tattoos" signs you see at onsen, pools and gyms today are house rules set by each facility, not laws. This guide explains where the taboo came from, with sources: Edo-period penal tattoos, the Meiji ban, the suppression of Ainu and Okinawan tattoos, the yakuza image and today's bathing rules.

Many places still turn tattooed guests away, but not all. Of the 469 onsen and saunas listed on Tattoo Japan, 378 accept tattoos (as of October 25, 2026). You can search tattoo-friendly onsen by area and entry rules.

Are Tattoos Illegal in Japan?

No. Japan has no law against getting a tattoo. Tattooing stopped being a punishable offense in 1948, and in 2020 the Supreme Court ruled that tattooing by an artist who is not a doctor is not a "medical act" under the Medical Practitioners' Act. (Source: Supreme Court of Japan, Case No. 2018 (A) 1790 (Japanese))

The main legal limit is age: some prefectures, including Saitama, Hokkaido and Okinawa, ban tattooing anyone under 18. (Sources: Saitama ordinance, Art. 19-2; Hokkaido ordinance, Art. 39; Okinawa ordinance, Art. 18-3, all Japanese PDFs) Our guide on becoming a tattoo artist in Japan covers those rules.

So when people ask why tattoos are banned in Japan, they usually mean the rules at onsen, sento, pools and gyms. Those rules are set by each facility.

Why Are Tattoos Taboo in Japan?

The Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) puts it plainly in its guide to ryokan: "In the minds of many Japanese, tattoos are associated with organized crime groups", and "the sight of one may make fellow guests uncomfortable." That, the agency says, is why most of Japan's public baths have turned away people with tattoos. (Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Ryokan Q&A) Keep in mind that this is the agency's general guidance for ryokan, not a count. Tattoo Japan's listing data further down covers only the venues we list, and many of the sento there have no confirmed policy yet, so the numbers tell a different story.

That image has deep roots. Each point below is explained, with sources, further down.

• Tattoos marked criminals. From 1720, tattooing was a punishment, and the word irezumi meant an ex-convict
• The state banned them. The Meiji government saw tattoos as a sign of backwardness in Western eyes and outlawed them
• The yakuza image. Some antisocial groups have used tattoos to show off their presence, and a researcher of tattoo culture says yakuza films strengthened the link

Timeline of Japan's Tattoo Ban

Year	What happened
3rd century	Chinese chronicle notes tattooed men
720	Nihon Shoki mentions penal tattoos
1720	Shogunate adopts penal tattooing
1804–1830	Horimono boom despite bans
1870	Penal tattooing abolished
1871	Ainu women's tattoos banned
1872	Tokyo ordinance bans tattooing
1880	Penal Code bans it (in force 1882)
1899	Tattoo ban takes effect in Okinawa
1908	Punished under police ordinance
1948	Ban lifted
2001	Health ministry: a medical act
2016	Tourism agency onsen guidance
2020	Supreme Court: not a medical act

Early History: Ancient Records and Edo Punishment

Tattoos in ancient Japan

One of the oldest written records of tattooing in Japan is Chinese. The Records of the Three Kingdoms, compiled in the late 3rd century, describes the men of Wa (ancient Japan), young and old, as having tattooed faces and bodies. The original line reads 男子無大小皆黥面文身. (Source: Setsunan Law Review No. 56, 2019 (Japanese, PDF))

Japan's own early chronicles, the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720), mention tattoos as a custom of frontier peoples and as a punishment. Lines on clay figures (dogū) and haniwa suggest the practice goes back even further. (Source: nippon.com, Japanese edition)

Penal tattoos in the Edo period (1720–1870)

In 1720, shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune replaced the punishment of cutting off ears and noses with tattooing. In cases handled by Edo's main magistrates, two bands were tattooed around the convict's left arm, and the design varied from office to office. (Source: Kotobank, Heibonsha World Encyclopedia (Japanese))

In those days, the word irezumi meant this punishment and was synonymous with "ex-convict." Decorative tattoos had a different name: horimono. The new Meiji government abolished penal tattooing in 1870. (Source: Kotobank, Heibonsha World Encyclopedia (Japanese))

The horimono boom

Yamamoto Yoshimi, a professor at Tsuru University who studies tattoo culture, says decorative tattooing revived in the 17th century, when courtesans in Kyoto and Osaka began tattooing clients' names in small letters on their arms. (Source: AERA dot. via PRESIDENT Online, June 2022 (Japanese))

In the early 19th century, ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi printed the heroes of the Chinese novel Suikoden (Water Margin) covered in full-body tattoos, and the look caught on. Firefighters often chose dragons, which were believed to bring rain. The shogunate issued decrees limiting tattooing from time to time, but they had little effect. (Sources: nippon.com, Japanese edition; nippon.com, “Irezumi”: The Japanese Tattoo Unveiled) In the Bunka and Bunsei eras (1804–1830), horimono flourished despite the bans. (Source: Kotobank (Japanese))

For more on the words irezumi, horimono and tebori, see irezumi vs tattoo.

The Meiji Ban: Tokyo, the Ainu and Okinawa

1872: Tokyo outlaws tattooing

"Fearful of fueling perceptions of Japan as a backward nation, the Meiji government banned both the giving and the receiving of decorative tattoos in 1872." (Source: nippon.com, “Irezumi”: The Japanese Tattoo Unveiled (Jan 2017))

In Tokyo, an ordinance on minor offenses, the Ishiki Kaii Jōrei, was issued on November 8, 1872 and took effect on November 13. Along with tattooing, it banned public nudity, baring the shoulders or thighs and urinating in the street. Many of its rules concerned the body and were written with foreigners' eyes in mind. In July 1873, a Grand Council of State proclamation set out similar ordinances for the rest of the country. (Source: National Diet Library Collaborative Reference Database, answer by Fukuoka City Public Library (Japanese))

Foreign visitors wrote about the tattooed men they saw in Japan, and some got tattooed themselves. Prince George, later George V, and Nicholas Alexandrovich, later Nicholas II of Russia, are both said to have received irezumi during their stays in Japan. (Source: nippon.com)

The Penal Code and the 1908 ordinance

Tattooing remained an offense under the minor-offense section of the Penal Code (promulgated 1880, in force 1882), and then under the 1908 Police Offenses Ordinance (Keisatsuhan Shobatsurei), which made tattooing the body an offense. (Sources: Setsunan Law Review No. 56, 2019 (Japanese, PDF); Kotobank, Nipponica encyclopedia (Japanese))

Ainu tattoos banned (1871)

In Ainu culture, tattoos were only for women. Girls received their first lip tattoo around age 12 or 13, and the design, finished by about 20, signaled that a woman was ready for marriage. In 1871, the Japanese government outlawed tattoos for Ainu women as part of a policy to assimilate the Ainu into Wajin (ethnic Japanese) society. Many women defied the ban, believing they could not marry or reach the afterlife without their tattoos. (Source: Japan Tourism Agency multilingual database, "Tattoos")

Hajichi in Okinawa banned (1899)

According to the Okinawa Prefectural Library, until the modern era women in Amami and Okinawa tattooed the backs of their hands as a rite of passage, a custom called hajichi on Okinawa Island. After a tattoo ban took effect in 1899, women with hajichi and the people who applied them could be punished, and the custom gradually disappeared. (Source: Okinawa Prefectural Library booklist No. 5, "Hajichi", in Japanese)

Among both the Ainu and the people of Okinawa, the authorities arrested people who kept up the custom, which was branded barbaric and backward, and tattoos were removed surgically or with hydrochloric acid. (Source: nippon.com)

After 1948: Legal but Still Stigmatized

1948: the ban is lifted

Japan's Minor Offenses Act took effect on May 2, 1948, and abolished the 1908 ordinance. (Source: e-Gov, Minor Offenses Act, supplementary provisions (Japanese)) The new law did not carry over the tattooing offense, so tattoos stopped being punishable. (Source: Setsunan Law Review No. 56 (Japanese, PDF)) In nippon.com's words, the ban "was completely lifted in 1948 under the US occupation that followed World War II." (Source: nippon.com)

How tattoos became linked with the yakuza

Professor Yamamoto says that for some time after the war, many homes had no bath, so seeing craftsmen's tattoos at the local sento was part of everyday life. As home baths spread, people saw fewer bodies other than their own, and she thinks yakuza films then helped cement the image of tattoos as a mark of antisocial forces. (Source: AERA dot. via PRESIDENT Online, June 2022 (Japanese))

The law reflects that link too. Japan's anti-organized crime law, enacted in 1991, forbids designated gang members from tattooing minors or pressuring them into getting tattoos (Article 24). (Source: e-Gov, Act on Prevention of Unjust Acts by Organized Crime Group Members (Japanese))

The 2020 Supreme Court decision

In 2001, a health ministry notice listed "putting pigment such as ink into the surface of the skin with a needle tip" among acts that break the Medical Practitioners' Act when done as a business without a medical license. (Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare notice, Nov 2001 (Japanese))

That reading was tested when a tattoo artist who worked at a shop in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, was prosecuted. The first-instance court fined the artist ¥150,000, the Osaka High Court acquitted them, and on September 16, 2020, the Supreme Court dismissed the prosecutors' appeal. It described tattooing as work that calls for knowledge and skill in art, which is different from medicine. (Source: Supreme Court decision, full text (Japanese, PDF))

In a supplementary opinion, Justice Kusano Kōichi wrote that tattooing has been a Japanese custom since ancient times, while also acknowledging that some antisocial groups have used tattoos to show off their presence. Even if there is room to debate showing tattoos in public spaces, he added, there is no reason to deny the demand for tattooing itself. (Source: Supreme Court decision, full text (Japanese, PDF))

Tattoo Rules in Japan Today: Onsen, Sento, Pools and Beaches

No law bans tattooed bathers

In 2017, the government said it is hard to argue that having a tattoo, by itself, makes someone a person with a contagious disease, whom the Public Bath Act tells baths to refuse, or makes their bathing an act that badly soils the bath. (Source: Cabinet answer No. 69, Feb 2017 (Japanese))

In 2016, the JTA told hotel, ryokan and hot spring associations that refusing foreign visitors a bath solely because they have tattoos is not appropriate. Its guidance also reminded facilities that tattoos do not cause hygiene problems. (Source: MHLW and JTA notices on tattooed foreign visitors, March 2016 (Japanese, PDF))

That guidance covers foreign visitors only. The government said it does not ask for the same handling for Japanese people with tattoos, and that even for foreign visitors, the final decision rests with each facility. (Source: Cabinet answer No. 298, Jun 2016 (Japanese))

What hotels and ryokan actually do

In a 2015 JTA survey, about 56% of the 581 hotels and ryokan that responded refused bathers with tattoos, about 31% allowed them, and about 13% allowed them on conditions such as covering up. (Source: Travel Voice, Oct 2015 (Japanese))

The JTA's ryokan guide says some ryokan have no restrictions, while others decide case by case ("one or two small tattoos may be absolutely fine"). Many also offer private baths that guests with tattoos can use. (Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Ryokan Q&A)

The JTA's 2016 examples include covering tattoos with stickers, asking nothing extra when a tattoo is about palm-sized and not intimidating, suggesting quieter times without families, and offering private baths. (Source: MHLW and JTA, March 2016 (Japanese, PDF)) For where to buy cover stickers in Japan, see our guide to tattoo cover stickers.

Where you're most likely to be turned away

Here is how the venues listed on Tattoo Japan handle tattoos (as of October 25, 2026). These counts cover only the venues listed on Tattoo Japan, so they are not national averages.

Venue type	Listed	Tattoos OK	Conditions	No tattoos	Unknown
Onsen & saunas	469	378	55	32	4
Sento	1,538	818	5	14	701
Pools & gyms	2,322	23	386	193	1,720
Beaches	734	471	128	0	135

"Conditions" means you can get in with conditions, such as covering up, using a private bath or keeping to a size limit. Pools and gyms are the strictest: of the 602 whose policy is known, only 23 let you in as you are.

Sento are the easiest. Of the 837 with a known policy, 818 accept tattoos (701 of the 1,538 listed have no confirmed policy yet). The national sento association told a Japanese news site that its members don't turn people away for tattoos and that it has no rule banning them. (Source: J-CAST News, Feb 2017 (Japanese))

Some beaches have rules too. At Zushi Beach in Kanagawa, showing tattoos on the sand is prohibited during the swimming season. (Source: Kanagawa official tourism site (Japanese)) The rule is based on a city ordinance, and the city describes the target as tattoos shown in a way that intimidates others. (Source: Zushi City, 2022 beach season notice (Japanese, PDF))

For other situations where tattoos can cause trouble in Japan, such as at work, see tattoo regret and life in Japan.

FAQ

Is it illegal to have a tattoo in Japan?

No. Tattoos stopped being punishable in 1948, and in 2020 the Supreme Court ruled that tattooing by an artist who isn't a doctor is not a medical act. Some prefectures ban tattooing anyone under 18.

When was the tattoo ban in Japan lifted?

In 1948. Tattooing was banned in Tokyo in 1872 and later punished under the Penal Code (promulgated 1880, in force 1882) and the 1908 Police Offenses Ordinance. When the Minor Offenses Act took effect in May 1948, that ordinance was abolished and the tattooing offense disappeared. Ainu women's tattoos had already been banned in 1871, and the Edo shogunate had also issued decrees limiting tattooing.

Why do onsen in Japan ban tattoos?

The Japan Tourism Agency says it is because many Japanese associate tattoos with organized crime, and the sight of one may make other guests uncomfortable. It is a house rule set by each facility, not a law.

Can tourists with tattoos use onsen in Japan?

Often, yes, but it depends on the facility. Some allow all tattoos, some allow small or covered ones, and many ryokan have private baths. Check each place's rules before you go.

Are tattoos in Japan still linked to the yakuza?

For many Japanese, yes, according to the Japan Tourism Agency. In 2020, a Supreme Court justice noted that some antisocial groups have used tattoos to show off their presence, while other people see artistic value in tattoos.

The Bottom Line

Tattoos are legal in Japan, and the formal ban ended in 1948. Today's "no tattoos" rules are set by each facility and grew out of a long history: penal tattoos in the Edo period, the Meiji ban and the yakuza image.

Plenty of places will let you in. Check each venue's conditions before you go.

This article is based on publicly available information as of October 2026.