The draft ordinance that adds a law-compliance question to Japan's arrival card replaces three forms, not one. Alongside the arrival card filled in by passengers applying for landing, it rewrites the arrival record used by people returning on a re-entry permit and the application form for cruise-ship tourist landing permission. Comments close on 27 November 2026.
Three forms are being replaced
The draft is an amendment to the Enforcement Regulation of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, published for public comment by the Immigration Services Agency on 29 October 2026 as e-Gov case 315000150. It cites Article 6(2) of the Act, which governs the landing application, and Article 14-2(1) and (2), which govern cruise-ship tourist landing permission.
The operative text names the forms it replaces: 別記第六号様式, 別記第六号の二様式 and 別記第十七号の二様式. The agency's own summary describes the change to the first of those and calls everything else 「所要の改正」, without saying what changes on the other two. The email subject line the agency asks commenters to use is wider than the summary: 「パブリックコメント（外国人入国記録等に関する省令案について）」.
What the agency says it is adding
On Form 6, the arrival card, the summary gives the new item verbatim. The front gains 「４ 日本の法令遵守の意思の有無」 and the back 「４ あなたは、日本の法令を遵守する意思はありますか？」. The stated reason is that the agency considers it appropriate 「外国人が我が国への上陸を申請する段階で、法令を遵守する意思の有無を網羅的に確認した上で、上陸の許否を決することが適当である」.
If you live here and hold a residence card
Form 6-2 is your form. Article 5(1) of the Regulation directs holders of a re-entry permit under Article 26(1) of the Act — including anyone treated as holding one under the deemed re-entry provisions in Articles 26-2(1) and 26-3(1) — and holders of a refugee travel document under Article 61-2-15(1) to Form 6-2 rather than Form 6.
The same paragraph carries the electronic alternative: an applicant who supplies the listed information to a device designated by the immigration inspector does not have to hand over the paper form. That alternative is written to exclude the identical two groups. Re-entry permit holders and refugee travel document holders are carved out of it by name, so the paper form is the route for residents coming home, and whatever the draft does to Form 6-2 reaches them at the counter.
The summary is silent on this form. If you want to know whether the compliance question is being added to the card residents fill in, the comment period is the mechanism for asking.
If you are arriving on a cruise ship
Form 17-2 is not a passenger form at all. Under Article 13-2(1), the application for cruise-ship tourist landing permission is filed on Form 17-2 together with one copy per person of a statement written by each foreign national who wants to land, on Form 6-7. The applicant is the captain or the carrier of the designated passenger ship, as Article 13-2(5) confirms when it directs revocation notices to the permit holder on Form 17-4 and to that captain or carrier on Form 17-5. Passengers landing this way never touch Form 6.
How to comment before 27 November 2026
The requirement is 「令和８年１１月２７日（金）（必着）」 — arrival by Friday 27 November 2026, not postmark. Three channels are open: the e-Gov comment form for case 315000150, email to nyukan74@moj.go.jp with the subject line quoted above and the text in the message body, or post to 〒100-8973 東京都千代田区霞が関１－１－１, 出入国在留管理庁参事官室. Attachments and links are rejected by email, and comments by telephone are not accepted.
Comments must be in Japanese and must give reasons. Individuals supply a name, address and contact details; companies supply a name and location. The agency does not reply individually, and publishes comments with personal details removed, grouped or summarised as it sees fit.
What happens after the window closes
The summary gives promulgation as 「令和８年１２月（予定）」 and commencement as 「令和９年１月（予定）」 — December 2026 and January 2027, both planned rather than fixed. Nothing changes at the border before promulgation, and the forms in use until then are the current ones. The promulgated ordinance is where the final wording of all three forms will appear, including the two the summary passes over, and it will carry a commencement date that the draft leaves blank.
Sources: e-Gov — 改正の概要, case 315000150, e-Gov — 省令案, e-Gov — 意見募集要領, e-Gov — ISA public comment cases, Ministry of Justice — 出入国管理及び難民認定法施行規則