Japanese Era Converter — Reiwa, Heisei, Showa to Western Year
Convert Japanese era years (Reiwa, Heisei, Showa, Taisho, Meiji) to Western years and back, with exact era start dates and an age chart.
Free, with no sign-up and no watermark. The file is processed in your browser and never uploaded.
Convert between Japanese era years (和暦) and Western years (西暦): Reiwa, Heisei, Shōwa, Taishō and Meiji. Type a year or an exact date to get the era year, or type an era date such as R8, S60.3.15, H31/4/30 or 平成31年4月30日 to get the Western year.
Change-over years are handled to the day — 7 January 1989 was Shōwa 64 and 8 January 1989 was Heisei 1 — and the page includes a full age chart (年齢早見表) with each year’s zodiac animal.
Step by step
- Choose a direction: Western year → Japanese era or Japanese era → Western year.
- Enter a year or date: A Western year, an exact date, or an era date in letters (R8), kanji (令和8年) or words (Reiwa 8).
- Copy the result: The result shows the romanised era, the kanji form with 年 and the letter form.
Handy for
Japanese documents
Read dates on residence cards, bank papers, contracts and medical forms.
Rirekisho and forms
Write your birth year and education years in 和暦 on a Japanese résumé.
Age checks
Find the age of someone born in a given year with the age chart.
Good to know
The first year of an era is written 元年 (gannen) rather than 1年.
To go from Reiwa to Western, add 2018; from Heisei add 1988; from Shōwa add 1925.
Need a résumé photo too? See the Rirekisho Photo Maker.
Questions
What year is it in Japan?
2026 is Reiwa 8 (令和8年). Reiwa began on 1 May 2019.
Why does my date give a warning?
Eras change on a particular day, not on 1 January. A date like Heisei 31.5.1 doesn’t exist because that day was already Reiwa 1, so the converter tells you which era the date really falls in.
Does it cover eras before Meiji?
No — it covers the modern eras from Meiji (1868), when era names started to change only with each emperor.
Is anything I type sent anywhere?
No. The calculation runs in your browser on your own device; nothing is uploaded or stored, and the page keeps working offline once it has loaded.
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