Emergencies in Japan: who to call and what to do

110 reaches the police; 119 reaches the fire department, which also dispatches ambulances. There is no separate ambulance number in Japan — if someone is hurt or seriously ill, you dial 119.

• Both are free, from mobiles and from payphones — calling 110 or 119 from a payphone needs no coin and no card (ordinary calls still do). Payphones also stay usable in a power outage, which is why Japan still has them.
• Say what you need first — “ambulance” or 救急車 (kyūkyūsha) for medical help, 火事 (kaji) for a fire — then the address. If you don’t know the address, read out the nearest intersection, building name, or the address printed on a vending machine or utility pole.
• Interpretation exists but varies. Many fire departments can bring an interpreter onto a three-way call, and the police can loop in an interpreter too. Coverage and languages differ from city to city, so don’t count on it. If you don’t think you can be understood, call one of the national hotlines below and let them place the 110 or 119 call for you.

Not sure whether it’s an emergency at all? Japan has #7119, a nurse line that tells you whether to call an ambulance or just see a doctor, and #8000, the same service for children. Both are useful — but #7119 is still being rolled out region by region, and neither line promises support in your language. If you need English or Chinese, start with the JNTO hotline above.

This is the part travelers underestimate. You cannot join Japan’s public health insurance as a short-term visitor, so treatment is billed as private care: you pay the full amount, and normally you pay at the counter that day rather than being invoiced later.

• Travel insurance is the whole answer here. Buy it before you fly, and keep the policy number where you can read it offline.
• Find a hospital set up for foreign patients. JNTO runs an official directory you can filter by language spoken, department, and whether the facility takes credit cards. Plenty are cash-only, so find out before you go, not at the counter.
• Keep every receipt. Your insurer will want the itemized bill and, usually, a diagnosis in writing. Ask for both before you leave the hospital.
• The ambulance itself is publicly funded and free. A small number of municipalities have started charging a fee when a hospital judges the case to be clearly non-urgent, but that is the exception, not the rule — never hesitate to call 119 for a real emergency.

Japan gets earthquakes constantly, and the vast majority are harmless. Your phone will usually warn you before the shaking arrives: Earthquake Early Warning is broadcast automatically to phones in the affected area — no sign-up, no charge, and it’s loud on purpose. Whether a foreign phone picks it up depends on the phone and the network, which is the best reason to install the Safety tips app below.

The Safety tips app, supervised by the Japan Tourism Agency, pushes earthquake, tsunami, volcano and typhoon alerts in 15 languages, and includes a flowchart of what to do and cards you can show people around you. Install it before you arrive, not during.

Japan is unusually good at reuniting people with lost belongings, and the small neighborhood police box — the 交番 (koban) — is where that happens. Left something on a train or in a taxi? Go to a koban, not a police station.

• File the report and keep the number. For lost items you file an ishitsu-todoke; if something was stolen, a tōnan-todoke. Either way you get a receipt with a reference number — your insurer will require it, and so will your embassy.
• Lost passport: report it at a koban or police station first, then take that receipt to your embassy or consulate with photos and ID. Emergency travel documents are typically issued in a few days; a full replacement passport takes longer. Many embassies require an appointment, so check before traveling across the city.
• Know how to cancel your cards from overseas. Write your issuer’s international collect number down somewhere other than your phone.

• Save +81-50-3816-2787 (JNTO, 24 hours) to your contacts.
• Install Safety tips and allow its notifications.
• Buy travel insurance and store the policy number offline.
• Photograph the photo page of your passport and keep a copy somewhere other than your phone — email it to yourself.
• Make sure you can get online — an emergency is the worst time to discover your data plan doesn’t work. See our SIM and eSIM guide.

Checked in July 2026 against JNTO’s Japan Visitor Hotline page, JNTO’s medical institution search, AMDA International Medical Information Center, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency on #7119, the Japan Meteorological Agency on Earthquake Early Warning, JNTO’s tsunami guidance, the Safety tips app and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police on lost property.

This page covers practical steps only and is not medical advice — if someone is seriously ill or injured, call 119. Phone numbers, hours and language coverage are as of the last check and can change; interpretation support at 110 and 119 differs by municipality. This page contains no affiliate links; links go to official or primary sources.