Japan's Legal Requirements for E-Commerce: The Tokushoho Page Explained

The Tokushoho page — formally the disclosure required under Japan's Act on Specified Commercial Transactions (特定商取引法, Tokutei Shōtorihiki Hō) — is a legally mandated page that every store selling to Japanese consumers must publish, listing the operator's identity, prices, payment terms, delivery timing, and return conditions. It is the first thing a cautious Japanese shopper checks before buying from an unfamiliar site, and its absence is one of the most common reasons overseas stores get flagged as untrustworthy or rejected by Japanese payment gateways. This guide explains what the law requires, what goes on the page, and the adjacent rules — tax-inclusive pricing and privacy — that overseas Shopify merchants most often miss.

Note: this article is general information for merchants, not legal advice. For decisions about your specific situation — especially around regulated product categories or personal address disclosure — consult a lawyer qualified in Japan.

What the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions is

The Act on Specified Commercial Transactions is Japan's core consumer-protection law for non-face-to-face selling. E-commerce falls under its "mail order sales" (通信販売, tsūshin hanbai) category, which obligates sellers to disclose a defined set of information to consumers before purchase and regulates advertising claims, order confirmation screens, and cancellation terms. The disclosure is what Japanese merchants and shoppers alike call the 特定商取引法に基づく表記 — "notation based on the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions" — or simply the tokushoho page.

Does it apply to overseas sellers?

If you are marketing to consumers in Japan — a Japanese-language storefront, JPY pricing, shipping to Japanese addresses — you should operate as if the Act applies to you, and practically speaking you have no choice: Japanese payment providers, gateways such as those covering konbini payment, and marketplace partners all require a complete tokushoho page before approving your account. Japanese consumers, trained by years of fraud-awareness campaigns, treat a missing or thin tokushoho page as a scam signal and leave. Compliance and conversion point in the same direction here.

What the tokushoho page must contain

The required items for mail-order sales are well defined. The standard set:

Item	Japanese label	What to write
Seller name	販売業者	Registered company name (not just the brand name)
Responsible person	運営責任者	Full name of the operations manager or representative
Address	所在地	Physical business address, written out in full
Phone number	電話番号	A number where consumers can actually reach you
Contact email / form	メールアドレス等	Monitored email address or contact form
Selling price	販売価格	Tax-inclusive prices, or a statement that prices are shown on each product page
Charges beyond the price	商品代金以外の必要料金	Shipping fees, COD fees, konbini payment fees, customs duties if applicable
Payment methods and timing	支払方法・支払時期	Every accepted method and when payment is due for each
Delivery timing	引渡時期	When goods ship or arrive relative to order/payment (e.g. "ships within 5 business days of payment confirmation")
Returns and cancellation	返品・交換について	Your return policy, stated separately for defective goods and customer-convenience returns

Two practical notes. First, list charges concretely: if COD carries a carrier fee or konbini payment carries a processing fee, name the amount — see our Japanese payment methods guide for how those fees typically work. Second, the returns section deserves care, covered next.

Returns: Japan has no cooling-off for mail order — your stated policy rules

A frequent misconception: Japan's famous "cooling-off" cancellation right does not apply to mail-order/e-commerce sales. Instead, the Act provides a default rule — if you do not clearly display your return policy, consumers may return goods within eight days of receipt at their own shipping expense. Display a clear policy and your policy governs. That makes the returns section of the tokushoho page one of the few places where writing a few careful sentences directly changes your legal position. State separately:

• Defective or wrong items: replacement or refund at your expense, with the notification window (e.g. within 7 days of receipt).
• Customer-convenience returns: whether you accept them at all, in what condition, within what window, and who pays return shipping.
• Non-returnable categories: opened cosmetics, food, hygiene products, made-to-order items — name them explicitly.

The personal-address question for small operators

Sole proprietors and small overseas teams often hesitate to publish a home address and personal phone number. Japanese guidance has recognized this tension: in certain cases — notably individual sellers on platforms — disclosure practices such as providing details on request have been discussed, but the safe baseline for a standalone store is full publication. Practical mitigations overseas merchants use include a Japanese virtual office or the address of a Japanese logistics/3PL partner acting as your designated contact point, and an IP phone number answered in Japanese business hours. Whatever you choose, an address that turns out to be fictitious is far worse than any disclosure concern — gateways verify. This is a good example of where a quick consultation with a Japanese lawyer or administrative scrivener pays for itself.

Tax-inclusive pricing: the sōgaku hyōji rule

Since the total-price display obligation took full effect in 2021, prices shown to Japanese consumers must include consumption tax (currently 10% standard, 8% reduced rate for most food and beverages). "¥3,000 (+tax)" as the primary display is not compliant; "¥3,300 (tax included)" or simply "¥3,300" is. On Shopify:

1. In Settings > Taxes and duties, enable "include tax in prices" for the Japanese market so catalog prices are tax-inclusive.
2. Price in whole yen — JPY has no decimal subunits, and fractional yen displays instantly mark a store as foreign.
3. Audit every price surface: product pages, collection pages, cart, checkout, and — often forgotten — email flows and ads. A Klaviyo template pulling an exclusive-tax price feed breaks the rule; see our Klaviyo Japan localization guide for the template audit checklist.

Privacy: APPI basics for store operators

Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) is the privacy layer of your compliance stack. It is less prescriptive than GDPR but has real obligations for anyone handling Japanese customers' data:

• Purpose specification: state what you collect customer data for (order fulfillment, marketing email, analytics) and stick to those purposes. A Japanese-language privacy policy page is the standard vehicle.
• Cross-border transfer: storing Japanese customer data on overseas systems (Shopify, Klaviyo, your CRM) generally requires informing users, typically handled in the privacy policy's disclosure of third-party services and countries involved.
• Marketing consent: separately from APPI, Japan's anti-spam law (特定電子メール法) requires opt-in consent before sending promotional email, a functioning unsubscribe, and sender identification in every message. Do not pre-check the marketing checkbox at checkout for Japan; the practice is common globally but undermines both compliance posture and list quality.
• Security and breach response: maintain reasonable safeguards and be aware that significant breaches trigger notification obligations to the regulator and affected individuals.

Adjacent rules that trip up overseas brands

Advertising claims

The Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations (景品表示法) prohibits claims that overstate quality or deal value — fake "was/now" pricing, perpetual countdown timers, and unverifiable superlatives are enforcement targets. Cosmetics and health products face an additional layer under pharmaceutical-affairs rules (薬機法) that sharply restricts efficacy claims; "cures," "regenerates," and many Western marketing staples are simply not sayable in Japan.

Subscription and final confirmation screens

Rules strengthened in 2022 require the final order confirmation screen to clearly show quantity, total price, payment timing, delivery, and cancellation terms — with specific teeth aimed at subscription offers disguised as one-time purchases. If you sell subscriptions to Japan, the cancellation method must be as easy to find as the signup button. Standard Shopify checkout satisfies the basic display requirements, but custom landing-page funnels and subscription apps need review.

Setting up your tokushoho page on Shopify

1. Create a page in the Shopify admin (Online Store > Pages) titled 特定商取引法に基づく表記. Keep the title in Japanese — it is the exact string shoppers search the footer for.
2. Fill in every required item from the table above, in Japanese, using a definition-list-style layout (item name, then content).
3. Link it in the footer navigation of every page, including checkout where your plan allows footer links. Footer placement is where 100% of Japanese shoppers expect it.
4. Mirror the key terms — shipping fees, delivery timing, returns — on a separate shopping-guide/FAQ page; the tokushoho page is legal disclosure, the guide is user experience.
5. Keep it synchronized: whenever you add a payment method, change your 3PL, or revise return terms, update the page the same day. Payment gateway re-reviews check it.

If you are still deciding how to structure your Japanese storefront in the first place — expansion store versus localized global store — the disclosure requirements are identical either way, but implementation differs; see Shopify Markets vs. a dedicated Japanese store and the broader Japan expansion playbook.

FAQ

Is a tokushoho page really mandatory for a small overseas store?

Treat it as mandatory. Beyond the legal obligation attached to marketing to Japanese consumers, Japanese payment gateways will not approve you without one, and Japanese shoppers will not trust you without one. It is also one of the cheapest conversion assets you can build.

Can I write the tokushoho page in English?

The disclosure must be understandable to the consumers you are targeting — for a Japanese-language store, that means Japanese. An English-only page on a Japanese storefront fails the practical purpose and reads as a red flag.

Do I need a Japanese entity or address to comply?

No entity is required to publish the disclosure, but you must list a real, reachable address and phone number. Many overseas merchants use a Japanese virtual office or their 3PL partner as the customer-facing contact point. Verify your gateway accepts the arrangement before relying on it.

What happens if my page is incomplete?

Administrative guidance and, for serious cases, business suspension orders exist under the Act, but the immediate consequences are commercial: gateway rejection, marketplace delisting, and lost consumer trust. Incomplete pages are usually discovered at payment-provider review, before any regulator sees them.

Does the eight-day return rule apply if I state "no returns"?

If you clearly and properly display a no-returns policy for customer-convenience returns, your stated policy governs mail-order sales — though defect liability cannot be waived, and a blanket "no returns" line hurts conversion more than a fair, clearly bounded policy.

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Yulie is a Klaviyo partner agency based in Japan. We help overseas Shopify brands build Japanese storefronts that clear gateway review and consumer scrutiny — tokushoho and privacy pages, tax-inclusive pricing audits, and the localized email and LINE programs behind them. Get in touch and we will reply within one business day, in English, no meetings required.