Japanese law, built into your organisation's systems and AI.
japanlaw.org is free for personal use. For an organisation, Genjido can build it into the work: access without rate limits, your own deployment, notice of changes to the laws you follow, and AI agents and automations made for your teams.
The law belongs to everyone: anyone can look up what it says about their own life, free. Using japanlaw.org for business is something we set up with you.
Personal
Freefor anyone
For looking up the law for yourself, about your own life, whoever you work for.
Read every law in the collection, the English beside the Japanese
Follow definitions and links between laws
Connect your own AI assistant to the MCP server, no sign-up
For example
Your own work
Checking your paid leave, your overtime or your notice, or what your employer may and may not do. It is personal use while you work for a company, as long as the question is your own.
Your own life in Japan
Your visa, your taxes, your tenancy, your rights as a consumer.
Studying, or wanting to know
Learning the law, researching it, or simply reading what it says.
The public MCP server limits requests per address, so it stays quick for everyone.
For organisations
Business
By agreement
For professionals, organisations and law firms in their work, and anyone using japanlaw.org for business or commercial purposes, on the website, the MCP server or the API.
Staff looking up the law for the organisation's work
Professionals and law firms researching for clients
In-house systems and AI agents that use it
Products or services offered to others
Not sure which? If the question is your own, it is personal use. If you are looking the law up for your employer, your clients or a product, it is business use.
The same laws, the same links to the paragraph and the same tools for AI assistants, built into how your organisation works. We agree the details with you.
Access without rate limits
Your own capacity, apart from the public server’s per-address limit, so your systems and agents can ask as often as the work needs.
Run it on your own servers
The same laws, search and MCP server inside your network or private cloud, answering without connecting to anything outside. How it is kept up to date, we agree with you.
Notice of changes to the laws you follow
Choose the laws. When an amending Act is , you hear what it changes, provision by provision, with the changed words marked and the day it . Where the notices go, we agree with you.
Connected to your systems and AI agents
Your in-house assistant or search, your contract and policy tools: we help connect them, so every answer points to the article it rests on.
AI agents built for your work
We can build the agents your teams need: one that answers staff questions from the rules that apply to them, one that checks a contract or a policy against the law, each answer pointing to the provision it rests on.
Automations
The routine work around the law, set up to run on its own: a change to a law you follow sent to the team it concerns, a summary drafted for review, a checklist kept current.
Help putting AI to work across your organisation
From the first trial to everyday use: where AI helps your teams, how to set it up so its answers can be checked, and how your people work with it well.
More laws
Tell us which laws your work needs; adding them can be part of what we agree.
Other languages
English and Japanese today; the laws and our support in other languages, as we agree.
Billed by invoice
Paid by bank transfer against an invoice.
How organisations can use it
Each starts with a question someone at work asks, and ends at the provision that answers it.
Checking contracts against the law in force
Your contract tool asks while a draft is reviewed, and the reviewer sees the provision the clause has to meet, down to the paragraph.
What it uses
Integration
Access without limits
A question it answers
Does this freelance contract set the payment date the law requires?
Colleagues abroad read the provision in English beside the Japanese, and see whose English it is: the Ministry of Justice's, or a marked machine translation.
What it uses
Integration
Support in English
A question it answers
What must our Japanese office do before asking staff to work overtime?
A list of the laws your business depends on, and a notice for each amendment to them, with the day it takes effect, whether that day is set yet, and what it changes.
What it uses
Change notices
Integration
A question it answers
Which amendments to the laws we follow take effect in the next six months?
The answer lists, for each law
Each amendment, the day it takes effect, and the provisions it changes, each with a link to its before-and-after page.
Questions organisations ask
What counts as personal use?
Looking up the law for yourself, about your own life: your paid leave, your overtime or your notice, what your employer may and may not do, your visa, your taxes, your tenancy, your rights as a consumer. Studying the law, or simply wanting to know, counts too. It is free for anyone.
I work for a company. Can I use it free?
Yes, for your own questions. Checking your contract, your hours or your leave is personal use, wherever you work. Looking up the law to do your company's work, for its HR, its contracts or its customers, is business use.
Who needs a contract?
Professionals, organisations and law firms using it in their work, and anyone using japanlaw.org for business or commercial purposes: staff looking up the law for their work, in-house systems and AI agents that use it, research for clients, and products or services built on it. The website, the MCP server and the API alike. The full wording is in the terms of use.
Can you build AI agents for us?
Yes. We can build the agents your teams need, connected to the laws they work with, each answer pointing to the provision it rests on. What they do, and where they run, we agree with you.
Can you add laws, or other languages?
Yes, as we agree. Tell us which laws your work needs. The laws are in Japanese and English today, and other languages can be added.
Is the English official?
Where the Ministry of Justice’s English matches the text in force, it is shown and marked as theirs. Everywhere else the English is this site’s machine translation, marked as such. Only the Japanese text has legal effect.
Which version of the law does it show?
The text in force today, updated with every amendment from e-Gov, the government’s database of laws. Amendments that are published but not yet in force are shown, with the day they take effect, before they do.
Where do our questions go?
With your own deployment, questions are answered inside your environment and nothing is sent to us. On the public server, the questions your assistant sends reach japanlaw.org; what it records is set out in the privacy policy.
How is it paid for?
By a contract with Genjido LLC, billed by invoice and paid by bank transfer.
Is this legal advice?
No. japanlaw.org gives the text of the law, where it comes from and what changed. For advice on your own situation, ask a lawyer or another licensed professional, such as a labour and social security attorney (社労士) or a tax accountant (税理士).
Talk to us
Tell us about your organisation and what you would like japanlaw.org to do for it. Genjido answers by email, and we take it from there together.
What you would like to do: connect your AI agents, notice of changes, your own deployment, or something else
Roughly how many people would use it
The laws, and the languages, your work needs
Promulgation公布
The official publication of a law or amendment once it has been made, in the Official Gazette (官報), so that anyone can know what it says. A law cannot bind anyone before it is promulgated, and it usually starts to apply on a later enforcement date.
The day a law or an amendment starts to apply. It is often months or years after promulgation, so that people have time to prepare. The Ministry of Justice's English usually says a law "comes into force" or "comes into effect", and sometimes calls the day its "enforcement date". Its "enforcement" more often means the word's other sense, carrying a law out, as in an Order for Enforcement (施行令), the Cabinet Order (政令) that sets out the details for carrying out an Act.