Sources

What UNESCO inscribed on 4 December 2013 is Washoku, traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese - a set of social practices around food. It is not sushi, and it is not any single dish.

Source: MAFF — 「和食」がユネスコ無形文化遺産に登録されています

★ Correction: English-language articles often say “sushi is a UNESCO World Heritage” — doubly wrong. The inscription is Washoku, not sushi, and it is Intangible Cultural Heritage, not World Heritage.

MAFF lists four characteristics of washoku: respect for diverse, fresh ingredients and their inherent flavours; a nutritional balance that supports healthy eating; expression of natural beauty and the turn of the seasons; and a close tie to annual events such as New Year.

Source: MAFF — 「和食」がユネスコ無形文化遺産に登録されています

Wasabi cultivation began in Shizuoka in the early Edo period, about 400 years ago - the first anywhere in the world. The area was designated a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System by the FAO in March 2018. Growers use almost no fertiliser; the nutrients come from the spring water itself.

Source: MAFF — 静岡県 わさび栽培地域（世界農業遺産）

Since 1 June 2021, every food business in Japan - a sushi counter included - is required by law to run HACCP-based hygiene management. Small operators may follow a simplified, sector-specific handbook.

Source: MHLW — HACCP（ハサップ）

Under the Cook's Licence Act (Act No. 147 of 10 May 1958), a chorishi is defined in Article 2 as a person licensed by a prefectural governor to use that title while working in cooking. Article 3 places the granting of the licence with the prefectural governor, not the national government.

Source: MHLW — 調理師法（昭和33年法律第147号）

Article 8 of the same Act states that a person who is not a chorishi may not use that title, or any title confusingly similar to it. The Act protects the title alone. Nothing in it requires a licence in order to cook, to stand at a sushi counter, or to open a restaurant.

Source: MHLW — 調理師法 第8条（名称の使用制限）

Article 8-2 asks operators of premises that cook and serve food to large numbers of people to endeavour to place a licensed chorishi at each site. The wording is an effort duty. It is not a condition of trading, and it does not apply to a counter on the strength of its cooking.

Source: MHLW — 調理師法 第8条の2（調理師の設置）

Fugu may be handled only by a person whom a prefectural governor recognises as able to identify the species and remove the toxic parts, or by others working under that person's supervision. National certification criteria issued on 31 October 2019 and last revised on 10 March 2025 require that the knowledge and technique be confirmed by examination, and state that practical experience is hard to assess objectively and is not appropriate as a criterion on its own. A handler certified under those criteria is in principle accepted by other prefectures.

Source: MHLW — ふぐ処理者の認定基準について（生食発1031第6号）

Japan's Cook's Licence Act (Act No. 147 of 1958). Article 2 defines a chorishi as a person licensed by a prefectural governor to use that title while working in cooking; Article 3 places the grant with the prefecture. Article 8 restricts use of the title only - it protects the word, not the work. Article 8-2 asks operators of premises cooking for large numbers to endeavour to place a licensed chorishi at each site: a duty of effort, not a condition of trading.

Source: e-Gov (Digital Agency) — 調理師法（昭和三十三年法律第百四十七号）現行条文

Article 5-2 of the Cook's Licence Act requires a licensed chorishi working in the larger premises specified by ministerial ordinance to report their name and address as at 31 December, every second year, to the governor of the prefecture where they work, by 15 January of the following year.

Source: e-Gov (Digital Agency) — 調理師法 第五条の二（届出）

A chorishi licence is not needed to open a restaurant, but a permit from the prefectural governor is: Article 55(1) of the Food Sanitation Act. The operator must also designate a food-hygiene supervisor under Appended Table 17 of the Act's enforcement regulation, and a chorishi licence is one of the qualifications listed there, so a licence holder fills the post without sitting the training course.

Source: e-Gov (Digital Agency) — 食品衛生法 第五十五条／食品衛生法施行規則 別表第十七

Anisakis is a nematode. The larvae are 2-3 cm long and 0.5-1 mm wide, and are found in mackerel, horse mackerel, saury, bonito, sardine and squid.

Source: MHLW — アニサキス食中毒に関するQ&A

Vinegar, salting, soy sauce and wasabi do not kill Anisakis larvae. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare states this explicitly.

Source: MHLW — アニサキス食中毒に関するQ&A

The measures that do work are freezing at minus 20C for 24 hours or more, or heating to 70C (or 60C for one minute), plus removing larvae by eye.

Source: MHLW — アニサキス食中毒に関するQ&A

Gastric anisakiasis brings severe pain below the breastbone, nausea and vomiting a few to a dozen hours after eating. Intestinal anisakiasis brings severe lower-abdominal pain and peritonitis from a dozen hours to several days later.

Source: MHLW — アニサキス食中毒に関するQ&A

Japan recorded 1,037 food-poisoning incidents in 2024, with 14,229 patients and 3 deaths. Anisakis caused the largest number of incidents (31.8%) but only 2.4% of patients - it typically affects one person at a time.

Source: MHLW — 令和6年食中毒発生状況の概要（PDF）

Note: the headline share is by number of incidents, not number of patients — the two rank differently. We do not convert the percentage into a raw incident count here.

Fish sold for raw consumption is a legally defined category in Japan, with a bacterial limit (Vibrio parahaemolyticus MPN of 100 or fewer per gram), a storage rule of 10C or below, and restrictions on the water used in processing.

Source: MHLW — 食品、添加物等の規格基準／生食用鮮魚介類（PDF）

Note: “sashimi-grade” is trade jargon, not a legal grade. The legal category is “fish for raw consumption,” with the standard cited above.

Japan's limit for radioactive caesium in food is 100 Bq/kg. The Fisheries Agency has sampled seafood continuously since 2011; the cumulative total was 233,821 samples as of 1 July 2026, and the share exceeding the limit has trended downward over time.

Source: Fisheries Agency (MAFF) — 水産物の放射性物質調査の結果について

Japan's advisory on seafood and mercury for pregnant women was issued on 2 November 2005 and revised on 1 June 2010 by a subcommittee of the Pharmaceutical Affairs and Food Sanitation Council. It applies to pregnant women only - the Food Safety Commission's health-impact assessment identified the fetus as the high-risk group.

Source: MHLW — 妊婦への魚介類の摂食と水銀に関する注意事項（平成22年6月1日改訂）

The advisory sets a per-species guide using a standard portion of about 80 g. Up to once a week: alfonsino, swordfish, Pacific bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna, Japanese Babylon whelk, Baird's beaked whale, sperm whale. Up to twice a week: yellowback seabream, striped marlin, scorpionfish (yumekasago), southern bluefin tuna, blue shark, Dall's porpoise, Japanese bluefish (kuromutsu). Once a fortnight: short-finned pilot whale. Once every two months: bottlenose dolphin.

Source: MHLW — 妊婦への魚介類の摂食と水銀に関する注意事項（平成22年6月1日改訂）

The advisory supplies its own conversion: one piece of sushi or one slice of sashimi is about 15 g, a serving of sashimi is about 80 g, and one cut fillet is about 80 g.

Source: MHLW — 妊婦への魚介類の摂食と水銀に関する注意事項（平成22年6月1日改訂）

Yellowfin, albacore, meji (juvenile bluefin) and canned tuna are low enough in mercury that even pregnant women may eat them normally. Children and non-pregnant adults may eat any tuna normally.

Source: MHLW — 妊婦への魚介類の摂食と水銀に関する注意事項（平成22年6月1日改訂）

Infants, children, nursing mothers and adults other than pregnant women are not covered by the advisory. The health-impact assessment found that infant exposure is lower, that children excrete methylmercury as adults do with similar effects on the brain, and that the Seychelles Child Development Study demonstrated no methylmercury-related adverse effect on children's neural development. Mercury reaching an infant through breast milk is low.

Source: MHLW — 妊婦への魚介類の摂取と水銀に関する注意事項のQ&A（平成22年6月1日改訂）

The advisory states in its own text that it is not asking pregnant women to avoid these fish. Average mercury intake through food in Japan is around 60 percent of the tolerable level the Food Safety Commission set for pregnancy. The fetal effect described is on the order of a delay of under 1/1,000 of a second in response to sound - not severe enough, the advisory says, to impair future social life.

Source: MHLW — 妊婦への魚介類の摂食と水銀に関する注意事項（平成22年6月1日改訂）

Shrimp, salmon and cod carry intake guidance in the United States but are absent from Japan's advisory. Japan built its table from a domestic survey of about 450 species and roughly 16,400 samples, in which those species measured low.

Source: MHLW — 妊婦への魚介類の摂取と水銀に関する注意事項のQ&A（平成22年6月1日改訂）

Listeria monocytogenes multiplies at refrigeration temperatures and in high salt, where most foodborne bacteria cannot. Japan's health ministry names pregnant women, people aged 65 and over, and people with reduced immune function (diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, HIV, steroid treatment) as those who become seriously ill; people aged 65 and over account for 77.6 percent of listeriosis patients. The foods it names as the main causes in Europe and North America are unpasteurised natural cheese, cured ham, meat and fish pate, and smoked salmon. Heating prevents it.

Source: MHLW — 消費者の皆さまへ 「リステリア」による食中毒に注意してください。

Pacific bluefin spawning stock biomass fell to about 9,800 tonnes in 2010. Catch limits started in 2015 under the WCPFC and became statutory TAC management in 2018. The interim recovery target was met in 2019, and the large-fish quota was raised in 2022.

Source: Fisheries Agency (MAFF) — 太平洋クロマグロの資源管理について（令和6年3月・PDF）

★ Context: this answers “does sushi drive bluefin to extinction?” with dates and figures. Recovery does not mean the stock is no longer a concern — we state the numbers without adding that judgement.

Japan's bluefin management splits the fish at 30 kg: under 30 kg counts as small, 30 kg and over as large, each with its own cap. From January 2015 the small-fish catch was halved against the 2002-2004 average.

Source: Fisheries Agency (MAFF) — くろまぐろの部屋

Full-cycle aquaculture of the Japanese eel was achieved in 2010 by what is now Japan's Fisheries Research and Education Agency, and by 2023 it could produce glass eels in the tens of thousands a year. The Fisheries Agency nonetheless states that mass production from egg to glass eel is not in practical use: a hatchery glass eel costs about 1,800 yen to produce against a market price of 180-600 yen for a wild one, so eel farming still depends on wild-caught juveniles.

Source: Fisheries Agency (MAFF) — ウナギをめぐる状況と対策について（令和8年7月）

The tatami-ishi bed, the terraced stone method used for wasabi in Shizuoka, was developed in 1892 in what is now Izu City. Large rocks at the base grade upward through gravel to sand, so spring water moves through the surface and the interior of the bed alike; the water temperature stays stable and nutrients and oxygen keep arriving. Both yield and quality run above the older methods. Cultivation in Shizuoka itself is dated to the Keicho era (1596-1615) at Utogi, and spread from there to Izu. The system was named a Japan Agricultural Heritage site in 2017 and a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System by the FAO in 2018.

Source: MAFF — 静岡水わさびの伝統栽培 〜発祥の地が伝える人とわさびの歴史〜（世界農業遺産申請書）

About 181,000 restaurants overseas are counted locally as Japanese, roughly 6,000 fewer than the previous survey - the first decline. Asia fell about 10 percent (some 9,600 outlets) while Latin America, the Middle East and Africa each grew about 20 percent.

Source: MAFF — 海外における日本食レストラン数の調査結果（令和7年）の公表について

Note: the count is restaurants treated locally as “Japanese,” regardless of Japanese ownership.

Toyosu Market opened on 11 October 2018. It handles roughly 1,342 tonnes of seafood a day (about 1.54 billion yen) alongside 997 tonnes of produce.

Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market — 豊洲市場のご紹介

Japan received 42,683,600 international visitors in 2025, up 15.8 percent on 2024 (36,870,148) and an all-time annual record.

Source: JNTO — 訪日外客数（2025年12月推計値）

In calendar 2025 (confirmed figures) an international visitor to Japan spent an average of 228,782 yen inside the country, up 0.9 percent on 2024. Japan counted 41,135,081 such visitors and 9.411 trillion yen of visitor spending. Germany was the highest-spending nationality at about 392,000 yen, then the United Kingdom and Australia.

Source: Japan Tourism Agency — インバウンド消費動向調査 2025年年間 調査結果の概要（確報）

Average in-country spend per visitor by nationality, calendar 2025 (confirmed). Germany 392,251 yen; United Kingdom 391,320; Australia 386,512; United States 339,708; Singapore 319,901; Hong Kong 226,011; Taiwan 184,413; South Korea 105,058. The all-nationality average is 228,782 yen. These are the survey's non-cruise rows; the headline totals that include cruise passengers cover a different population.

Source: Japan Tourism Agency — 訪日外国人の消費動向 インバウンド消費動向調査結果及び分析 2025年 年次報告書

Visitor behaviour in calendar 2025. Eating Japanese food was the most common thing visitors did, at 98.2 per cent, and the most common thing they said they wanted to do on a next trip, at 70.7 per cent. Of those who did it, 95.2 per cent said they were satisfied. That satisfaction figure is not the highest in the survey - everyday life experiences lead at 97.2 per cent.

Source: Japan Tourism Agency — 訪日外国人の消費動向 インバウンド消費動向調査結果及び分析 2025年 年次報告書

Tsukiji opened in 1935 as Tokyo's central wholesale market, taking over from the fish market at Nihonbashi and the produce market at Kyobashi. Trading started in stages that year: produce, poultry and freshwater fish in February, salted and dried fish in June, fresh fish in November. The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which destroyed almost every existing market in the city, is what forced the move. Tsukiji held the wholesale function until Toyosu took it over on 11 October 2018.

Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market — 中央卸売市場の沿革

Japan's standard consumption tax is 10 percent. Food taken away is taxed at the reduced rate of 8 percent, but eating in - a sushi counter included - is 10 percent. Alcohol is always 10 percent.

Source: National Tax Agency — No.6102 消費税の軽減税率制度

★ Practical note: the same wrapped order is taxed differently depending on where you eat it — 10% at the counter, 8% to take away. The rate is set at the point of order, which is why staff ask whether you are eating in.

Japan's Consumption Tax Act (article 63) requires that any price shown to consumers in advance - on a menu, in a window, in an advert - be the tax-included total. The rule does not apply where no price is displayed at all, and it does not apply to a price given verbally.

Source: National Tax Agency — No.6902 「総額表示」の義務付け