Getting Sick in Tokyo: Which Numbers Work in English, and Which Ones Nobody Will Say

Start here

Find your situation. Each one is explained below.

• You cannot tell if it is an emergency. The Tokyo Fire Department's own triage tool, the Tokyo EMS Guide, has an English version on the web. There is also #7119, a 24-hour medical team — but read that section before you dial it.
• You want to talk to someone in your language about where to go. Tokyo runs a free line, 03-5285-8181, from 9am to 8pm.
• It is the middle of the night and it is not an emergency. 050-3816-2787 — 24 hours, English, Chinese, Korean.
• You would rather search yourself, at any hour. The national database has an English version and a filter for clinics open right now.

There is an odd shape to this list, and it is worth naming up front. The emergency number is the one with documented language support. The "should I go in?" number is the one where nobody will commit to an answer. Most advice written in English has it the other way round.

If it is an emergency: 119 works in English

Call 119. The same number covers fire and ambulance.

The Tokyo Fire Department states that its dispatch centres — the Disaster and Emergency Information Centre and the Tama Disaster and Emergency Information Centre — have an English speaker on duty at all times.

On top of that, they run three-way simultaneous interpretation through a telephone interpreting centre, covering:

English, Chinese (Mandarin), Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. For other languages, the page says the interpreting contractor handles it as far as possible.

This has been in operation since 1 July 2017. It is not a pilot.

The first question is which service you need

The Tokyo Fire Department publishes the call as a script, and it opens with the operator asking:

The answer for an ambulance is 救急です — kyūkyū desu. With an English speaker on duty, you should not need the Japanese, but that is the shape of the opening exchange, and it catches people who expect to launch straight into the problem.

You do not need to know the address

This is the part that matters most and appears almost nowhere in English.

The fire department's page says plainly that if you cannot give an address, you give it a landmark instead, and the operator finds you on a map. The examples it prints are:

• A building or shop name — "in front of the ◯◯ building in ✕✕ ward"
• A road or intersection — "the ✕✕ crossing on ◯◯ street"
• A station or bus stop — "◯◯ line, ✕✕ station, platform 2"
• A park, bridge or other public place
• The block-number plate fixed to poles and walls

There is one instruction attached to this, and it is easy to get wrong as a visitor:

The reason is printed alongside it. Tokyo has the same place names in several different wards and cities — the page gives Fujimi-chō in Itabashi ward and Fujimi-chō in Hachiōji as its example. Starting with "Shibuya ward" or "Shinjuku ward" removes an ambiguity the operator would otherwise have to unpick.

Two more from the same page:

• Have your phone number ready. The crew may call you back.
• Do not switch your phone off until the ambulance arrives, for the same reason.
• Mobile signal is poor in underground shopping streets and tunnels.

Why to read this now rather than then: the address is the item that stalls the call. Knowing you can say "Ginza line, Asakusa station, platform 1" instead of an address you have never learned is the difference between an ambulance moving and a conversation going in circles.

What else they will ask

After the address, the fire department's script has the operator ask what has happened — who, and what is wrong with them — and then your name, with your phone number in some cases.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government's own page for foreign visitors gives a slightly longer list: that it is an emergency, the address, the symptoms, the person's age, and your name and contact number.

The two official lists do not match exactly — age appears on one and not the other. Neither is wrong; they are written by different bodies. Expect the four that both agree on, and have the age ready in case.

After the ambulance arrives

Every ambulance crew in Tokyo carries a multilingual voice translation app called Kyukyu VoiceTra, which covers 31 languages. It has been on every crew since July 2022.

Crews also carry a communication support board (6 languages) and a communication manual (11 languages), plus access to the same telephone interpreting service (5 languages).

Why this changes the calculation: the common worry — I can't call an ambulance, I don't speak Japanese — is not supported by what the fire department publishes. The language support is documented at both ends, the call and the crew.

One thing I cannot tell you

Whether the ambulance costs anything. None of the official pages I checked says — not the page explaining how 119 works, not the page on appropriate use of ambulances. I am not going to write "ambulances are free in Japan" on the strength of pages that do not say it.

What those pages do say is that private patient-transport services are chargeable, and that they are a different thing from the ambulance you get by dialling 119. That is not the same as a statement about 119, and I am not going to treat it as one.

If you are not sure: #7119

The Tokyo Fire Department is explicit about the split:

• Dial #7119 from a mobile, PHS or touch-tone line
• If short dialling does not work: 03-3212-2323 for the 23 wards, 042-521-2323 for the Tama area
• 24 hours, every day of the year
• Answered by a medical team — the page names doctors, nurses, and staff with ambulance-crew experience

And here is the gap. Across the pages for this service, there is no statement about what languages the operators handle — not that English is available, not that it isn't.

There is one piece of evidence pointing one way. The Tokyo Fire Department publishes an English page which tells English-speaking readers:

So the fire department is, in English, pointing English readers at this number. But read that sentence closely: it says operators are available around the clock. It does not say what language they answer in.

So: I will not tell you #7119 works in English, and I will not tell you it doesn't. If you are alone at 2am with no Japanese and you are genuinely unsure how bad this is, the section below is the better first move.

The English tool that answers the same question

The Tokyo Fire Department also runs the Tokyo EMS Guide, and there is an English version on the web.

It is built for exactly the situation #7119 exists for. In the fire department's own words, it is:

You enter what is going on, it assesses the level of urgency, and if you do need to be seen, it will search for medical institutions near you.

Why this may be the single most useful link here: it is the fire department's own triage logic, in English, on a web page. No phone call, no language gamble, no opening hours. If you are awake at 3am trying to decide whether this is an ambulance situation, this is the thing to open first.

The line that speaks your language — until 8pm

For everything short of an emergency, Tokyo runs a medical information service for foreign patients.

• Phone: 03-5285-8181
• Every day, 9am to 8pm, 365 days a year
• English, Chinese, Korean, Thai and Spanish
• Free. You pay only for the call

Tokyo's page lists what it is for: which medical institutions can see you in your language, roughly what treatment costs if you have no insurance, and how the Japanese medical system works.

Why this is the best of the non-emergency options: five languages, and the answers come from the body that licenses the hospitals.

And why the closing time matters: at 8pm that ends, and the next two sections exist because of it.

There is also a 24-hour medical institution guidance line, Himawari, on 03-5272-0303. Note it is a different number from the multilingual one — Tokyo lists the two as separate services, and the pages do not state which languages the 24-hour line handles. Tokyo's own page adds a warning worth repeating: clinic information changes, so call the clinic itself before you set off.

After 8pm, and not an emergency

Japan Visitor Hotline: 050-3816-2787

• 24 hours a day, every day
• English, Chinese and Korean
• Covers emergencies including illness, and it will refer you to medical institutions that work in foreign languages

It is run by JNTO, the national tourism organisation — which is exactly why someone searching for a medical number never finds it.

Why to save it now: between 8pm and 9am, for something that is not an ambulance call, this is the number where the official pages state in writing that you will get English, Chinese or Korean.

Searching it yourself: Navi-i

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare runs a national database of hospitals, clinics, dental clinics and pharmacies: Medical Information Net (Navi-i).

• There is an English version, plus Chinese (simplified and traditional) and Korean
• You can filter by foreign language — it is a standard search category
• You can filter for "open now" and for holiday and night-time care
• Phone line: 0570-000692

Since April 2024, Tokyo's own web search folded into this national system, so this is where the Tokyo listings live now.

Why to open it before you need it: learning a government database interface for the first time, on a phone, while you feel terrible, is not the plan.

Buying medicine at a drugstore

Japanese over-the-counter medicine is sorted into classes, and the class decides who has to serve you. This is why the box you want is sometimes behind a counter and sometimes not.

For guidance-required and Class 1 medicines, giving you the information is mandatory — the pharmacist has to explain, whether or not you ask. For Class 2 it is a duty to make the effort. For Class 3 there is no such requirement.

The part worth knowing: for every class, if you ask a question, answering it is mandatory. Asking is not an imposition. It is the one thing the rules guarantee you.

Designated Class 2 medicines also have to be shelved within 7 metres of the information point, which is why some boxes sit oddly close to the counter.

A caveat on this section: the document I took this from is a Ministry reference paper attached to a 2025 revision of the pharmaceutical law. The table is labelled "current", but a revision is in progress, so some of this may move.

What it costs

JNTO's own page is blunt. It gives an example of ¥7.5 to ¥10 million for surgery with a hospital stay, and recommends travel insurance covering up to ¥10 million.

It also states this:

That is on a government tourism page, not in an insurer's small print.

One caution about all of this

Official services existing is not the same as being seen.

Travellers do report being turned away, or told a clinic no longer takes foreign patients. The lines and databases here help you find somewhere that will see you. They are not a promise that the first place says yes. I have no way to check individual refusals against an official source, so I am not going to pretend the system runs more smoothly than the people using it say it does.

Line up more than one option, and start with the services built for foreign patients rather than calling the nearest hospital cold.

Quick version

Facts, dates and sources