Why Do Lost Wallets Get Returned in Japan?

The short answer

Wallets lost in Japan tend to come back, and not only because of the finder's conscience. Several things work together: a law that obliges finders to hand items in and sets a reward (horokin), more than 6,000 koban (small neighbourhood police boxes) nationwide, and systems at the police and rail companies for managing huge numbers of lost items.

That said, they don't always come back. Even in Tokyo's figures, about two-thirds of the wallets handed in were returned to their owners, while the rest were not.

Tokyo's lost property in numbers

According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (Tokyo's police force), 4,538,244 lost items were handed in to the police in Tokyo in 2025, along with about 4,508.8 million yen in cash. The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reports that both the number of items and the amount of money were the highest since records began in 1940. The police believe the rise in foreign visitors is one of the reasons.

By category, ID documents such as driving licences and cards were the largest, at about 820,000 items, and about 338,000 wallets and purses were handed in. Of the wallets and purses processed in 2025, about 227,000, or roughly two-thirds, went back to their owners. Of the roughly 4.5 billion yen in cash processed, about 3.23 billion yen was returned to its owners.

On the other hand, the cash reported to the police as lost came to about 8.3 billion yen. By nippon.com's estimate, only about 54% of that reached the police. In other words, nearly half of the money lost is never found, so saying "in Japan everything comes back" is going too far.

The law pairs handing things in with a reward

What happens to lost property is set out in detail in the Civil Code and the Lost Property Act (Ishitsubutsu-ho). The original act was passed in 1899 (Meiji 32), and the current Lost Property Act is the result of a full revision in 2006. A finder must promptly return the item to its owner or hand it in to the police. If you find something inside a facility such as a station or shop, you give it to the facility's manager. Keeping it for yourself instead of handing it in is a crime: embezzlement of lost property.

At the same time, handing things in pays off. If the owner is found, the finder can claim a reward (horokin) of 5 to 20% of the item's value. If no owner comes forward within three months, the finder can, as a rule, receive the item. However, items containing personal information, such as smartphones, driving licences and cards, never become the finder's property.

According to guidance from the Gunma Prefectural Police, to gain these rights you must hand the item in to the police within one week of finding it, or to the facility within 24 hours if you found it on the premises. Professor Mark D. West of the University of Michigan, a scholar of Japanese law, told Al Jazeera that in Japan the laws are well developed and people know well about the possibility of a reward and where to take things (a koban or a department store's lost-and-found counter).

The koban and the "logistics" of lost property

The koban dates back to 1874 (Meiji 7), when police officers in Tokyo were stationed at key points around the city. As of April 2022 there were 6,250 of them nationwide, serving as a local first point of contact for everything from giving directions to taking in lost property. You can hand things in at any police station or koban, and the same goes for someone reporting a loss (an ishitsu todoke, or lost-property report).

Items handed in are recorded, and those whose owner is unknown are published on online "lost property search" sites. Businesses that handle large volumes of lost items, such as rail companies, can register with the police as "special facility possessors" and store items themselves. There is also a rule that cheap items such as umbrellas and clothing can be sold or otherwise disposed of after two weeks, so the whole system is built to cope with huge amounts of lost property.

Childhood experience seems to play a part as well. In an Al Jazeera article, a former police officer now teaching at a university said that when a child hands in a 1-yen or 5-yen coin, officers go through the same procedure and praise them.

What surprises travellers

Stories of the police getting in touch months later to say "we've found it", or of a smartphone dropped on a mountaintop being posted back, are not unusual. Al Jazeera described a case in which a mobile phone lost near the summit of Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture was handed in by a hiker and sent back to its owner in Kyoto.

According to nippon.com's summary of Tokyo police statistics, about 225,000 mobile phones were reported lost in 2025, but only about 144,000 were handed in to the police, and about 120,000 of those went back to their owners. The reality is that items that are handed in have a good chance of coming back, but many are never handed in at all.

Items whose owner is never found and which the finder does not claim eventually become the property of the prefecture or similar authority. In Osaka there is even a shop that buys unclaimed lost property from the police and resells it; Al Jazeera reported that it sells about 10,000 umbrellas a year alone.

Is "Japanese people are honest" the whole story?

Abroad, the usual explanation is that Japanese people are especially honest, but experts take a more down-to-earth view. Professor West also points out that because Japan has little serious crime such as murder, the police can afford to put effort into managing lost property. Copying the same system in another country would mean big administrative costs.

So wallets tend to come back not just because of people's character, but because everything is in place: a law setting the duty to hand things in and the reward, koban everywhere, and a system to record, store and publish vast numbers of lost items. Of course, some people do keep what they find, and some cases end up prosecuted as embezzlement. The right way to think of it is "a country where things are likely to come back", not "a country where it's fine to lose things".

What to do if you lose something

First, contact whoever manages the place where you lost it: the rail company if it was on a train or in a station, or the counter at the shop or facility. At the same time, file a lost-property report at a nearby koban or police station. In Tokyo, if any cash involved is under 1 million yen, you can also report it through the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's online procedure. Items lost outside Japan, however, cannot be reported. You can also search for items handed in to the police on the "lost property search" sites of the National Police Agency and each prefectural police force, by type, place and date. It takes time, though, for an item to become searchable after it is handed in, so if it is urgent, contact the police station that covers the place where you lost it directly.

For credit cards and smartphones, don't wait for them to be found: contact the card company or mobile carrier and have them stopped. When the police contact you, go to collect the item with ID. The counter at Tokyo's Lost and Found Center is open on weekdays from 8:30am to 4:30pm, and you can also have items sent by post if you pay the postage.

Tips

If you lose something, first ask whoever manages the place where you lost it (the rail company, shop or facility), and at the same time file a lost-property report at a koban or police station. Any koban will take it.
For credit cards and smartphones, don't wait for them to turn up: call straight away to have them suspended.
Items handed in to the police can be searched for on the "lost property search" sites, but it takes time for them to appear. If it's urgent, phone the police station that covers the area to check.
If you find a wallet, don't touch what's inside and take it to the nearest koban. Anything you find inside a station or shop goes to that facility's staff.
If you are leaving Japan soon, ask the police station that contacted you about having the item posted to you (postage paid on delivery) if you can't collect it.