Japan's 2026 Tyre Law: Studs Banned on Bare Asphalt

Japan does not have a national winter tyre season, and it does not have a national stud ban either. It has two separate instruments that most summaries blur together, and the difference decides what you can legally fit.

The stud rule turns on the road surface

The governing statute is the Act on Prevention of Dust Generated by Studded Tyres, Act No. 55 of 1990, promulgated on 27 June 1990. It was passed as an environmental measure: metal studs grind paved surfaces into airborne dust, and the cities on the Japan Sea side were choking on it.

Article 2 defines a studded tyre as one with metal studs or similar objects fixed into the contact face to prevent slipping on snow-covered or frozen road surfaces. Article 7 then states the prohibition:

No person shall use studded tyres inside a designated area, on the parts of a cement-concrete or asphalt-concrete paved road that are not in a snow-covered or frozen state.

Tunnels and certain other road sections are carved out by Cabinet Order, and fire engines, ambulances and other prescribed vehicles are exempt. Article 8 sets the penalty: a fine of not more than 100,000 yen.

Read that carefully. The trigger is not the calendar and not the region on its own — it is whether the pavement under the tyre is bare. Inside a designated area, studs on clear asphalt are an offence even in February. That is precisely why Japan moved wholesale to studless winter tyres after the Act took effect in the early 1990s, and why a visitor who imports a studded set is solving a problem Japan solved thirty years ago.

The winter fitment duty belongs to the prefectures

There is no national article saying “fit winter tyres from date X”. Instead, Road Traffic Act article 71 item 6 requires every driver to observe:

matters determined by the Prefectural Public Safety Commission as necessary, in view of road or traffic conditions, to prevent danger on the road and otherwise secure the safety of traffic.

Each prefecture’s implementing rules hang off that clause, and the snow prefectures use it to require anti-skid measures — studless winter tyres or chains — when the road is snow-covered or frozen. Breach is punished under article 120(1), a fine of up to 50,000 yen.

Two consequences follow:

• The obligation is regional. Hokkaido, the Tohoku prefectures, Niigata, Nagano, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui and Gifu are the ones that matter. Kyushu, Shikoku and the Pacific side of Honshu largely do not.
• The obligation is about grip, not about a symbol. Nothing in the wording requires a particular sidewall marking, which is why chains satisfy it just as a studless tyre does.

Separately, expressway and national highway operators can impose chain-only restrictions on named mountain sections during heavy snowfall. On those stretches a winter tyre alone does not let you through — chains have to be fitted.

Tread depth

Tyre construction sits in article 9 of the Safety Regulations for Road Vehicles. Paragraph 2 requires a vehicle’s pneumatic rubber tyres to be sound and to conform to the standards on strength and anti-skid performance laid down by public notice; the detailed figure for passenger cars is 1.6 mm, and the moulded wear indicator — the slip sign — surfaces flush with the tread at exactly that point.

Winter tyres carry a second marker. The platform appears when roughly half the original winter tread is gone: the tyre is still road-legal at that stage, but it is no longer a winter tyre in any meaningful sense. On a Hokkaido January that distinction is the whole game.

What this means for a visiting driver

Japan drives on the left, and a 1949 Geneva Convention international driving permit is the document that works — several countries’ permits are issued under a different convention and are not accepted.

No land borders

Japan is an archipelago. South Korea, China, Taiwan and Russia are maritime neighbours, not driving ones: there is no road crossing into or out of the country, and no foreign rule reaches a Japanese carriageway.

Speed limits, enforcement, tolls and licence rules are covered in the Driving in Japan guide.