Japanese calendar tool
Convert between Gregorian and Japanese era dates. Type a Gregorian day and we detect the era; type Reiwa 8 and we give you the matching Gregorian range. Era-boundary years (1989, 2019) are flagged so your spreadsheet doesn't lie.
Current era: Reiwa (令和)
Era is detected automatically. Dates before 1868-01-25 (Meiji 1) aren't supported because pre-Meiji eras follow the lunisolar calendar.
Gregorian
Tue, August 4, 2026
2026-08-04
Wareki
Reiwa 8年
令和8年8月4日
Meiji (明治)
1868-01-25 → 1912-07-29
Meiji 1 = 1868 (gannen)
Taisho (大正)
1912-07-30 → 1926-12-24
Taisho 1 = 1912 (gannen)
Showa (昭和)
1926-12-25 → 1989-01-07
Showa 1 = 1926 (gannen)
Heisei (平成)
1989-01-08 → 2019-04-30
Heisei 1 = 1989 (gannen)
Reiwa (令和)
2019-05-01 → ongoing
Reiwa 1 = 2019 (gannen)
On a Japanese tax form, you'll see boxes for era + year (令和__年) instead of a four-digit Gregorian year. Year 1 of any era is called 元年 (gannen, literally "origin year") and starts on the day the emperor changed, not on January 1. So Reiwa 1 was only May 1 through December 31 of 2019, eight months, not twelve. Forms designed before the era change still ask for it that way, and any conversion that treats Gregorian year as a proxy for era year quietly produces dates a year off.
Four Gregorian years contain an era boundary: 1912, 1926, 1989, and 2019. Each one is a footgun. 1989, for instance, is both Showa 64 (January 1 through January 7) and Heisei 1 (January 8 onwards). A lookup that maps year 1989 to "Heisei" gets the New Year holiday wrong by an entire era. The same trap fires in 2019, where everything before May 1 is Heisei and May 1 onwards is Reiwa. This converter always uses the actual date, never just the year.
Reiwa 8 maps to most of 2026 (January 1 through December 31, no boundary inside this year). The five common forms you'll see are:
Every modern era reduces to a single sum: add the era's offset to the year-of-era and you have the Gregorian year. Showa 47 plus 1925 gives 1972; Reiwa 8 plus 2018 gives 2026. The table below covers all five supported eras.
| Era | Kanji | Letter | Gregorian span | Add to era year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reiwa | 令和 | R | 1 May 2019 onward | 2018 |
| Heisei | 平成 | H | 8 Jan 1989 to 30 Apr 2019 | 1988 |
| Showa | 昭和 | S | 25 Dec 1926 to 7 Jan 1989 | 1925 |
| Taisho | 大正 | T | 30 Jul 1912 to 24 Dec 1926 | 1911 |
| Meiji | 明治 | M | 25 Jan 1868 to 29 Jul 1912 | 1867 |
Dates before 25 January 1868 are rejected outright: pre-Meiji eras followed Japan's older lunisolar calendar, and mapping them onto Gregorian days would require guesswork this tool refuses to do. Impossible year-of-era values are clamped instead of raising errors, so typing Showa 70 snaps to the era's final day, 7 January 1989, as Showa 64. Reiwa accepts a few years beyond the current one, which keeps forward-dated paperwork such as invoice due dates and contract expiries usable. One quirk worth knowing: Showa reached year 64 despite lasting about 62 years, because Showa 1 covered only 25 to 31 December 1926 and Showa 64 only the first seven days of January 1989.
Reiwa 8 is 2026. Add 2018 to any Reiwa year to get the Gregorian year; the whole of 2026 sits inside Reiwa, with no era boundary to worry about.
Both. January 1 through January 7 of 1989 is Showa 64, and January 8 onward is Heisei 1. Only the full date, never the year alone, settles which era applies.
No. Support starts on 25 January 1868, the first day of Meiji 1. Earlier eras ran on a lunisolar calendar whose years do not line up with Gregorian ones day for day.
Showa ended on 7 January 1989, so Showa 70 never existed. The converter clamps out-of-range era years to the nearest real date in the same era rather than failing.
Assuming the era continues, 2030 is Reiwa 12, since 2030 minus 2018 equals 12. The converter allows a few years of forward dating for planning purposes.