Since May 26, 2025, "phonetic readings (furigana)" have been added to family registers.
So, will the day come when family registers themselves can be issued in English?
In fact, we receive a large number of requests every day from customers asking for "English translation of a Japanese family register."
In this article, we share our thoughts from the angle of: "Would it really be cost-effective for the Japanese government to issue family registers in English?"
Here we focus solely on the financial side and set aside, for now, the convenience and user experience benefits of being able to "instantly issue an English version at a convenience store."
According to our estimate, the market size for English translation of family register transcripts and abstracts is roughly several billion yen per year. In other words, individuals pay several billion yen per year to translation companies for family register translations.
On the other hand, when we asked ChatGPT to estimate the government's system development cost for adding phonetic readings to family registers, the answer suggested it could be on the order of tens of billions of yen. That said, we have not been able to confirm any official figures published by the government regarding such system development costs.
Maintenance and operation costs are unclear, but even if an English-version family register issuance system were built, recouping that investment would likely take at least 10 years.
By then, machine translation technology for English will have advanced further, and highly accurate automatic translation may be possible without going through a translation company.
Based on this, comparing only the "system development cost" against the "current revenue generated by translation companies," developing an English-version family register issuance system does not appear cost-effective.
However, considering that many people already "translate on their own without using a translation company," and that "requesting a translation company takes a few days," there may be some value in introducing such a system from a convenience standpoint.
If you need translation of a family register transcript or abstract, please feel free to contact us.
