Japanese Era Converter
Convert years and dates between the Gregorian calendar and the Japanese eras, with 干支, an age table and school years.
Exact age calculator with Korean, Japanese and Chinese ages
Frequently asked questions about Japanese eras
What year is Reiwa 8?
Reiwa 8 is 2026. Reiwa started on 1 May 2019, so Reiwa year = Gregorian year − 2018.
What does 元年 mean?
元年 (gannen) is the first year of an era. For example, 2019 from 1 May is 令和元年 and 1989 from 8 January is 平成元年.
Why are children born on 1 April in the older school year?
Under Japanese law a person reaches a new age at the end of the day before the birthday, so a child born on 1 April turns 6 on 31 March and starts school that April, together with the children born from 2 April of the previous year.
How is 数え年 different from 満年齢?
数え年 counts 1 at birth and adds a year every 1 January; 満年齢, the age used officially since 1950, counts full years since birth.
How the Japanese era converter works
This converter turns a Gregorian year or an exact date into the Japanese era calendar (和暦) and back, covering the Meiji, Taisho, Showa, Heisei and Reiwa eras and writing the first year of each era as 元年 (gannen). For every year it also shows the 干支 sexagenary sign with its kana reading and animal, builds an age table (年齢早見表) for any reference year and, when you enter a date of birth, lists the school entry and graduation years. It is useful for filling in Japanese forms, résumés, contracts and official documents, for reading older papers, and for checking which school year a child belongs to.
Each era has an exact start date: Meiji on 23 October 1868, Taisho on 30 July 1912, Showa on 25 December 1926, Heisei on 8 January 1989 and Reiwa on 1 May 2019. The era year is the Gregorian year minus the first year of the era plus one, so a year that contains a change shows two eras. The 干支 follows the sexagenary cycle counted from 甲子 in 1984. School entry follows the School Education Act, article 17, and the school year from 1 April to 31 March (Enforcement Regulations, article 59); the 1902 Act on the Calculation of Age explains why children born on 1 April start with those born from 2 April of the previous year.
Example: the year 1989 contains 昭和64年 (1 to 7 January) and 平成元年 (from 8 January), and its 干支 is 己巳 (つちのとみ, the snake). In the age table for 2026, people born in 1989 are 37 after their birthday, 36 before it and 38 in 数え年. A child born on 2 April 2020 starts elementary school in April 2027, which is 令和9年. Limitations: before 1873 Japan used the lunisolar calendar, so earlier years are matched by the Gregorian year only, and the school rules ignore repeated or skipped years.