Japan's Appended Table 1 Explained — Items 1–16, List vs Catch-All, and How Non-Japanese Teams Classify

Hello, this is Ryuta Hamamoto from TIMEWELL.

If you sit on a global trade compliance team and your Japanese supplier or subsidiary keeps saying "Appended Table 1" or beppyo dai-1, this is the map. Within the first ten minutes of almost every export-control conversation I have with companies that touch Japan, that term shows up. Which item of Appended Table 1 covers this SKU? What is Appended Table 1 at all? If those answers are fuzzy, Japanese export-control work does not start.

Japan's security export controls begin with one question: does the good you plan to export sit somewhere in Appended Table 1 of the Export Trade Control Order? That check is classification — gaihi hantei in Japanese — and everything else hangs off it. This article walks through the table from primary sources on e-Gov so a non-Japanese compliance officer can use it. By the end you should have Items 1 through 16 as a working mental model, not a black box.

After you have the item number, you still need a record: We publish a Japanese-language template pack: classification and non-applicability certificate forms with a fill-in Q&A (Word), plus four Excel sheets (classification certificate, item-by-item comparison, catch-all check sheet, classification log). It reflects the ordinance amendments effective 14 February 2026. → Download the classification template pack (Free. Company name and work email required.)

Where Appended Table 1 sits in Japanese law

Japan's export rules rest on the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA). Article 48, Paragraph 1 says exporting certain goods to certain destinations needs a license from the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. The statute does not list the goods. The cabinet order does: the Export Trade Control Order (Cabinet Order No. 378 of 1949), often called the Export Order. Article 1 of that order defines license-required exports as goods listed in the middle column of Appended Table 1, destined for regions listed in the lower column of the same table¹.

So Appended Table 1 is the catalog of goods whose export needs METI's license. Middle column = goods. Lower column = regions². License need is the combination of the two.

Classification (gaihi hantei) is the process of deciding whether the goods or technology you will move fall on the control list. If yes, you go toward a license. If no, you still run catch-all checks, then export. For any exporter, practical work almost always starts here.

One more structural fact saves months of confusion: Appended Table 1 is a mid-layer instrument. Top to bottom, the stack is FEFTA (statute); Appended Table 1 of the Export Order plus the Foreign Exchange Order table (cabinet orders — categories and regions); the Goods and Technologies Ministerial Ordinance (concrete specs); operational and service circulars (interpretation); and the Matrix Table (the working Excel tool)³. Appended Table 1 only decides which categories belong to which item numbers. Millimeters, watts, and other thresholds live in the ministerial ordinance. Staring at Appended Table 1 alone will not finish a classification. I return to that below.

If you are unsure how mature the Japan-facing program is, take the free export-control readiness check first. Knowing the starting point makes the rest of this piece concrete.

Items 1 through 16 at a glance

Item numbers run from 1 to 16 — but the table does not have 16 rows. Between Item 3 and Item 4 sits Item 3-2 as its own row, so you have 17 item rows². First-time readers miss this almost every time.

Item	Field	Examples in the middle column
1	Arms	Firearms and ammunition with accessories and parts, explosives, military fuels, etc.4
2	Nuclear	Nuclear fuel and source materials, reactors and related equipment, etc.5
3	Chemical weapons	Precursors for military chemical agents and manufacturing equipment, etc.5
3-2	Biological weapons	Organisms and toxins usable as raw materials for military bacterial agents; development, manufacture, or dispersal equipment, etc.5
4	Missiles	Rockets, UAVs, multistage rocket stages and reentry vehicles, etc.5
5	Advanced materials	Advanced materials whose specs are set by ministerial ordinance6
6	Materials processing	Machine tools, bearings, etc.6
7	Electronics	Integrated circuits, etc.6
8	Computers	Computers whose specs are set by ministerial ordinance6
9	Telecommunications	Communications equipment whose specs are set by ministerial ordinance6
10	Sensors and lasers	Underwater detection equipment, optical detectors, etc.6
11	Navigation	Accelerometers, gyroscopes, etc.6
12	Marine	Submersibles, etc.6
13	Propulsion	Gas turbine engines, space vehicles, etc.6
14	Other	Powdered metal fuels, explosives precursors, etc.6
15	Sensitive items	Formed inorganic fiber products, radar-absorbing materials, etc.6
16	Catch-all	Broad range of goods not covered by Items 1–15. Details below7

Four blocks help memory. Item 1 is arms — military materiel as such⁴. Items 2–4 (including 3-2) are the WMD cluster: nuclear, chemical, biological, missiles⁵. Items 5–15 are dual-use: civilian goods that can support weapons programs depending on performance — machine tools, ICs, accelerometers, and so on⁶. Item 16 alone is the catch-all receptacle⁷.

Item 1 is special. From Item 2 onward most middle columns say goods "meeting specifications prescribed by ordinance," but Item 1 states its coverage without that delegation⁴. My read: weapons themselves are controlled regardless of performance band.

Why the cabinet order alone cannot answer classification

Suppose your hunch is "Item 7, electronics." Can you finish classification from Appended Table 1 Item 7 alone? No. That is the table's main quirk for foreign teams used to a self-contained control list entry.

Middle columns for Items 2–15 open with goods "meeting specifications prescribed by ordinance of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry"⁵. The cabinet order only names categories ("integrated circuits," "machine tools"). Thresholds live in the Goods and Technologies Ministerial Ordinance (MITI Ordinance No. 49 of 1991)³. Practical classification is two-stage: pick candidate item numbers in Appended Table 1, then match product specs to the ordinance parameters.

Shuttling among order, ordinance, and circulars in raw Japanese text every time is painful. Industry uses METI's Matrix Table — Excel that consolidates control content by item number (Items 1–15) across Appended Table 1 and the Foreign Exchange Order table⁸. Caution: one product can sit under more than one item. METI's own example: machine tools under both Item 2 (nuclear) and Item 6 (conventional arms-related). Never eyeball only; search exhaustively⁸.

Amendments are frequent. Appended Table 1 and the ordinance track international regime changes almost every year. The critical and emerging items amendment (Cabinet Order No. 102 of 2025, in force 28 May 2025) added advanced-semiconductor gear such as nanoimprint lithography and mask writers⁹. The fiscal 2025 regular list amendment (Cabinet Order No. 376 of 2025) put its list changes in force on 14 February 2026⁹. In 2026, always ask whether the materials on the desk reflect the latest effective edition. For semiconductor-specific accumulation, see Japan's semiconductor export-control items.

List controls vs catch-all: why Item 16 is different

METI describes Japan's system as two pillars: list controls and catch-all (complementary) controls¹⁰. Inside Appended Table 1, that is Items 1–15 versus Item 16.

List controls (Items 1–15): sensitive goods and technologies are listed in advance. If the item falls under the list, a METI license is required in principle regardless of destination¹⁰.

Catch-all (Item 16): even off-list goods need a license if there is a risk of WMD or related use. Item 16 is that net. Its middle column has two stories: (i) specified items (machine tools, radar, ICs, aircraft, and so on) with ordinance designations; (ii) a broad HS-based sweep of Customs Tariff Act chapters 25–40, 54–59, 63, 68–93, and 95 (excluding goods under Items 1–15 and certain others)⁷. In plain English, a large share of industrial products can sit inside Item 16's reach. "We are not on the control list, so export control does not apply" is almost never a safe company line.

Item 16 does not demand a license at all times. Triggers include when the exporter knows of a WMD-related risk (objective requirement) and when METI issues an "inform" notice¹⁰. Destination coverage is also unusual: the lower column is all regions excluding Appended Table 3⁷. Appended Table 3 is Group A — formerly "White Countries" — 27 destinations with mature export-control systems, including the United States, the UK, Germany, France, and South Korea¹¹. The design idea: do not impose the same catch-all objective requirement on exports into strong peer systems. Both list and catch-all rest on FEFTA Article 48(1) via Export Order Article 1; the difference is when the license obligation flips on¹.

Item 16 itself was overhauled effective 9 October 2025. It split into Item 16(1) = specified items and Item 16(2) = everything else. Item 16(1) enumerates machine tools; radar, radio navigation, and remote-control apparatus; ICs; aircraft and spacecraft with parts; navigation instruments; and inspection equipment by HS codes. The reform strengthened conventional-weapons catch-all by requiring end-user checks even for general destinations outside Group A (Cabinet Order No. 175 of 2025)¹². For the full pairing of list and catch-all, see list controls and catch-all controls.

Four confusions non-Japanese teams hit first

1. Appended Table 1 vs Appended Table 2. Same Export Order, different worlds. Table 1 is security-related licenses under FEFTA Article 48. Table 2 is export approvals under Export Order Article 2 for other policy aims — CITES goods, and certain controls toward North Korea, Russia, and Belarus, for example¹³. When Japanese colleagues say betsu-1 and betsu-2, they are not synonyms.

2. Appended Table 1 vs Foreign Exchange Order table. Table 1 = physical goods. Technology (drawings, software, technical instruction) sits under FEFTA Article 25 and the Foreign Exchange Order table. That table's items track Appended Table 1 item numbers through Item 16¹⁴. Goods and technology enter through different doors.

3. "Not list-controlled" ≠ "no regulation." Goods outside Items 1–15 often still sit under Item 16. When a customer asks for a non-applicability certificate, naming the items you checked — and how Item 16 was treated — is far more credible than a bare "N/A." See how to write non-applicability certificates.

4. Counting the rows. Item 3-2 means "Items 1–16" is not 16 rows². Internal checklists that drop biological weapons because of a bad count are a real failure mode. Sub-numbered statutory items are normal in Japanese drafting; they still surprise people.

Classification in practice: four stages

Stage 1 — Specs. Collect model numbers, performance figures, materials, and intended uses from engineering. Vague specs produce guesswork downstream.

Stage 2 — Candidate items. Scan Items 1–15 of Appended Table 1. The table above is the entry map.

Stage 3 — Parameter match. Use the Matrix Table and the Goods and Technologies Ministerial Ordinance. Compare controlled thresholds to shipped specs with actual numbers. Multi-item hits are common; search across the table even after one "not controlled" result⁸.

Stage 4 — Record. Write a classification report with result and basis. Only then is one product done.

It sounds clean. Portfolios with hundreds or thousands of SKUs, plus annual amendments (including the 14 February 2026 list change), make it a continuous program, not a project⁹. When the classifier rotates out, undocumented rationale walks out with them. Most of the organizational pain I see is the missing continuous mechanism.

To cut that burden we offer TRAFEED, an AI agent for export control. It supports METI-aligned classification as groundwork, reflects regulatory updates, and surfaces concern signals so reviewers can focus. Japanese Patent No. 7862062 covers classification logic we use; more than 20 organizations run the product today. One line we do not blur: AI accelerates research and evidence packing; the final classification decision stays with your export control officer.

Appended Table 1 is manageable once you hold four ideas: middle column and lower column; 17 item rows; cabinet order vs ministerial ordinance; and Item 16 as catch-all. My next step for a non-Japanese team: pick one flagship Japan-origin or Japan-routed product and run it against the Matrix Table with a bilingual colleague. Hand work makes the map three-dimensional. For process design questions, book a consultation.

If you are reviewing export-control operations or classification workflows, download the TRAFEED product catalog (PDF) or contact us.

References

Footnotes

1. Export Trade Control Order (Cabinet Order No. 378 of 1949), Article 1 — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩ ↩²

2. Export Trade Control Order, Appended Table 1 — e-Gov Legal Database (Digital Agency) — version in force June 5, 2026 (Japanese) ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Goods and Technologies Ministerial Ordinance (MITI Ordinance No. 49 of 1991) — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩ ↩²

4. Export Trade Control Order, Appended Table 1, Item 1 (Arms) — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Export Trade Control Order, Appended Table 1, Items 2–4 — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. Export Trade Control Order, Appended Table 1, Items 5–15 — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

7. Export Trade Control Order, Appended Table 1, Item 16 — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. Classification and the Goods/Technologies Matrix Table — METI — accessed February 18, 2026 (Japanese) ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. Commentary on the FY2025 Regular List Amendments — CISTEC Secretariat — November 18, 2025 (Japanese) ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. Complementary Export Controls (Catch-All) — METI — accessed May 20, 2026 (Japanese) ↩ ↩² ↩³

11. Export Trade Control Order, Appended Table 3 — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩

12. Revision of Complementary Export Controls (Cabinet Order No. 175 of 2025, in force October 9, 2025) — METI (Japanese) ↩

13. Export Trade Control Order, Article 2 and Appended Table 2 — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩

14. Foreign Exchange Order (Cabinet Order No. 260 of 1980), Appended Table — e-Gov (Japanese) ↩