
Sukesan Udon Opens a Pop-up Restaurant in Tokyo for a Limited Time: July 13 to 15
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the passport statistics for 2023 on February 20th, in line with “Passport Day”.
The total number of passports issued in 2023 was approximately 3.53 million, marking a 158.3% increase compared to the previous year. Since the start of online applications in March 2023, the usage rate of the domestic switch-over application was about 31%.
The number of incidents involving the loss or theft of ordinary passports was approximately 32,000, a 124% increase from the previous year. About 80% of these incidents occurred within Japan. As of the end of 2023, the number of valid passports was approximately 21.51 million, a decrease of about 240,000 from the end of the previous year.
The “Overseas Passport Regulation” was established on February 20, 1878, marking the first legal use of the term “passport”. To commemorate this, February 20th was designated as “Passport Day” in 1998.