Skip to content
Convert tools

Japanese Era Converter — Wareki (Reiwa, Heisei, Showa) to Western Year

Convert western years and dates to Japanese era dates (Reiwa, Heisei, Showa, Taisho, Meiji) and back. Handles the year an era changed, gannen (year 1) and abbreviations like R8 and H31.

Convert in your browser · No sign-up

Full dates are supported from 1873-01-01 (when Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar); years from 1868. Input such as 令和8年, R8, H31/4/30 or 2019-05-01 is recognised.

Up to 100,000 UTF-16 units per input and 1,000,000 per result. See the supported formats and examples below.

Result

Add your input or load an example, then run the tool. Your result will appear here.

How to use

  1. Choose the direction: western to Japanese era, or Japanese era to western.
  2. Enter a year (2019), a full date (2019-04-30) or an era date (令和8年, R8, 平成31年4月30日).
  3. Convert. For a year that spans two eras, both are shown with the dates each one covers.

Example

2019 → 平成31年 (1/1–4/30) · 令和元年 (5/1–12/31)
R8.10.19 → 2026-10-19

Details and limitations

The first year of an era is written 元年 (gannen) in Japanese, for example 令和元年 = 2019. In romaji and abbreviations it is year 1 (Reiwa 1, R1).

Era start dates: Meiji 1868-10-23, Taisho 1912-07-30, Showa 1926-12-25, Heisei 1989-01-08, Reiwa 2019-05-01. Dates before 1873 used the lunisolar calendar and are not converted day by day.

FAQ

What year is Reiwa 8?

Reiwa 8 is 2026. Reiwa started on 1 May 2019, so Reiwa N = 2018 + N.

What about 1989 and 2019, when the era changed?

1989 is Showa 64 until 7 January and Heisei 1 from 8 January. 2019 is Heisei 31 until 30 April and Reiwa 1 from 1 May. Enter a full date to get a single answer.

Which abbreviations are accepted?

M, T, S, H and R for Meiji, Taisho, Showa, Heisei and Reiwa, with dots, slashes or hyphens, such as R8.10.19 or H31/4/30. Full-width digits work too.

Format references

Tool page updated: