Procedure

Paying a hansokukin

The deadlines and the no-instalments rule are what the statutes give. Where to pay is not sourced, so it is not written.

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Deadlines

Two deadlines, counted from two different events

A blue ticket carries two deadlines of different kinds. Both are counted from the day AFTER something happened — but not the same something. One date field cannot produce both.

Payment after notification

10 days

counted from the day after the written notification (tsūkoku)

Road Traffic Act, Art. 128(1)

Provisional payment

7 days

counted from the day after the roadside citation (kokuchi)

Road Traffic Act, Art. 129(1)

Instalments are never allowed

Payment of a hansokukin may not be made in instalments. The Cabinet Order states no exception.

Cabinet Order, Art. 51(4)

Procedure

From citation to payment

The roadside citation, the written notification, and the payment. Which deadline applies depends on where in that sequence you are.

Citation
You are cited at the roadside. The provisional-payment clock starts the day after this.
Notification
A written notification follows. The payment clock starts the day after that one.
Payment
Pay the full amount within the deadline. Instalments are not allowed.

Where to physically pay is not stated here

What the statutes give is the deadline and the no-instalments rule. Counters, banks and opening hours are not sourced, so they are not written. Follow the instructions printed on your own notice.

Road Traffic Act Arts. 128/129; Cabinet Order Art. 51(4)

The sequence

Two documents arrive, and each one starts its own clock

Paying a hansokukin is not a single event with a single date. Two documents are involved, they arrive at different times, and each starts a window of its own.

The roadside citation comes first, handed over at the stop. From the day after it, a window of 7 days runs in which a driver MAY make a provisional payment — before any formal notification has issued.

The written notification comes later, separately. From the day after that document, a window of 10 days runs. This is the payment window in the ordinary sense: the one that determines whether the matter is concluded through the notification system.

Both windows count from the day AFTER their document, not from the document's own date. The stop itself is never day one.

The absolute rule

The amount is paid whole or not at all

The Cabinet Order states that payment of a hansokukin may not be made in instalments. There is no exception in the provision, no hardship route, and no discretion given to whoever receives the payment.

A part-payment therefore does not reduce the balance owed, buy time, or count as compliance. It is not a smaller payment — it is a payment the rule does not recognise, and the deadline continues to run as though nothing had been paid.

What is not on this page

Where to physically pay is not stated here, deliberately

This page tells you the deadlines and the no-instalments rule because those are what the statutes state. It does not tell you which counter to visit, which bank or convenience store to use, what the opening hours are, or what to bring.

None of that is in the material this site read. Those details are real and a reader plainly needs them — but inventing them, or repeating a plausible version from memory, is exactly the failure this site is built to avoid. A confident wrong instruction is worse than an admission.

Your own notice carries those instructions, and it is the authority for them. If it is unclear, the office named on it can say what its own procedure is.

If the window closes

For a 反則金 the next step is a different system; for a 放置違反金 it is also a bigger bill

This page is about the 反則金 on a blue ticket, and for that charge the sentence holds: if the payment window passes without payment, the matter does not simply stay where it is with a surcharge. The notification system is what makes the administrative route available, and once that route is no longer open the case returns to the criminal track it came from.

That is a change of instrument, of decision-maker and of consequence — not an escalation of the same charge. It has its own page on this site.

A 放置違反金 — the parking charge issued to the vehicle’s owner — works the other way. 道交法 51条の4第13項 requires the 公安委員会 to issue a written demand (督促状) when it goes unpaid, and lets it collect a late charge of up to 14.5% a year, plus the fee the demand itself cost. The statute sets that percentage as a CEILING — an amount computed «within» that rate — not as the charge, so it is the most the late charge can be rather than what it is.

What this system does not cover

What this site does not answer, and why

These are content, not gaps. Each is a bounded statement that a NAMED instrument does not contain something — never a claim that "the law is silent".

Death and injury by driving is a different Act

The Act on Punishment of Acts Causing Death or Injury by Driving was amended by the same Act that amended the Road Traffic Act (Act No. 52 of 2026), but its offences and penalties are its own. This site has not transcribed them. A case involving death or injury is outside this calculator.

自動車運転死傷行為処罰法, in force 2026-07-21