Checked against the National Police Agency’s official pages and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s own guidance for foreign visitors on 15 September 2026. Which languages a given prefecture’s interpretation service covers can vary, so the one thing worth remembering is the mechanism itself — stay on the line and an interpreter will join.

Japan is a country where you’re very unlikely to ever need to dial an emergency number at all. If you do, though, one detail trips up visitors from countries with a single all-purpose number like 911 or 112: Japan uses two, and calling the wrong one wastes time you don’t want to lose. Knowing the split, and knowing that a language barrier doesn’t leave you stuck, means you can act immediately instead of hesitating.

110 is police. 119 is fire and ambulance. They aren’t interchangeable

Dial 110 for a crime, an accident, or anything that needs a police officer. Dial 119 for a fire or a medical emergency requiring an ambulance. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s own page for foreign visitors is explicit that if you’re the victim of or witness to an incident, “call 110 without hesitating” — but it separately points people with an injury or fire toward 119. If you call 110 for a medical emergency, the operator will redirect you rather than dispatch police, which costs you time you wouldn’t lose by dialing 119 directly. Both numbers are free and work from any phone, including a mobile with no local SIM registered, 24 hours a day.

If you don’t speak Japanese, an interpreter joins the call — but it isn’t instant

This is the part that matters most for a traveler. According to Japan’s National Police Agency, communication centers place officers with foreign-language ability on duty, and when a 110 caller can’t be understood in Japanese, staff bring in an interpretation center or a designated interpreter through a three-way call. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department confirms English specifically works on 110. Coverage of other languages varies somewhat by prefecture — Yamaguchi Prefectural Police, for instance, publishes its own calling guidance in English, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese — but the three-way interpretation mechanism itself is standard nationwide policing practice, not a Tokyo-only feature.

The practical catch: connecting a third party to the call isn’t instant. Give your location and the nature of the emergency as clearly as you can in whatever language you have, then stay on the line even if the operator doesn’t immediately seem to follow you — the interpreter is being brought in, not refusing to help. Hanging up and calling back starts the process over.

Don’t rely on the 110 text-reporting app as a foreign-language workaround

Japan’s police also run a text-based 110 reporting app, originally built for people who are deaf or have a speech impairment. It’s a real option if you happen to already have it — but it requires downloading the app and pre-registering your name, phone number, and a password in advance, which makes it useless in the moment for a tourist who’s never heard of it before an incident happens. For a traveler, the voice call plus interpreter is the actual path, not this app.

How Travel AI Rescue helps

Travel AI Rescue keeps Japan’s 110 and 119 lines, correctly separated, one tap away in the app, with no need to remember which one applies in the moment. It can generate a Japanese-language card stating what’s happening — a theft, an injury, a fire — so the first few seconds of the call are unambiguous even before an interpreter joins. And it drafts a timestamped summary of the situation from your own account, useful to have ready once you’re through to a person. Passport details and emergency contacts saved on the device stay readable with no signal at all, and offline diagnosis is built in for when the eSIM itself won’t connect. It doesn’t replace the call or the interpreter — it makes sure you reach the right number, in the right words, on the first try. (Dispatch itself and interpretation are handled entirely by Japan’s police and fire authorities.)

Sources

• National Police Agency, White Paper on Police (Reiwa 6 edition), Section on responding to 110 calls from non-Japanese speakers. https://www.npa.go.jp/hakusyo/r06/honbun/html/aa2232000.html (accessed 2026-09-15).
• Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, “To Foreign Visitors” (crime-prevention and emergency-contact guidance). https://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/multilingual/japanese/safe_society/avoid_victim/ninpo.html (accessed 2026-09-15).
• Yamaguchi Prefectural Police, “Reporting to 110 in a Foreign Language.” https://www.pref.yamaguchi.lg.jp/site/police/233137.html (accessed 2026-09-15).
• Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, “110 App System.” https://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/jiken_jiko/110/110site.html (accessed 2026-09-15).