Reading a 住民票: what every line means
A 住民票 is a certificate of residence: a copy of what a Japanese municipality has recorded about who lives at an address. It is one page, it is dense, and almost none of it is labelled in English.
This is every field that appears on one, with the Japanese exactly as it is printed. It explains what each line is; it does not say what anybody should do with it.
| On the document | What it is | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 住所 | Address (as printed) always present | The address the person is registered at. It is written largest unit first — prefecture, ward, district, block — which is the reverse of an English address. |
| 住所（ローマ字） | Address always present | The same address in Latin letters. A translation carries both, because the Japanese is what the office wrote and the Latin is what a reader elsewhere can use. |
| 世帯主 | Head of Household (as printed) always present | The person the household is registered under. It is a registration label, not a rank — it says whose name the record is filed against. |
| 世帯主（ふりがな） | Head of Household (reading) | The reading of that name in kana. Kanji do not say how they are pronounced, so this line is what a romanised spelling is actually built from. |
| 世帯主（ローマ字） | Head of Household always present | Self-explanatory once located. |
| 備考 | Remarks (as printed) | Remarks. Where an office records anything that has no column of its own, so its contents vary from one municipality to the next. |
| 世帯員 | Resident | Each person registered at the address, with their own relationship line. A 世帯 is a registration unit rather than a family — people at one address can be two households. |
| 発行年月日 | Date of Issue always present | The date this copy was issued, usually in an era year. It is the age of the copy, not of anything recorded on it. |
| 発行者（市区町村） | Issuing Authority (as printed) always present | The municipality that holds the register and issued the copy. |
| 発行者（ローマ字） | Issuing Authority always present | Self-explanatory once located. |
| 職名 | Title of Issuing Official always present | The title of the official the certificate is issued under — 区長 for a ward, 市長 for a city. The title is translated; it is part of what makes the sheet a certificate. |
| 証明書番号 | Certificate Number | The office's own reference for this copy. |
The block at the foot — the issuing office, the official's title, the date and the certificate number — is the part that makes the sheet a certificate rather than a printout, which is why a translation carries all of it.