Japan Proxy Prohibited Items 2026: The Rules Aren't Theirs

Open the prohibited-item pages of five Japan proxy services and read them in one sitting. Buyee names disposable body warmers and hair dye. FromJapan names diamonds, postage stamps and meal vouchers. Neokyo names airsoft replicas and adds that the batteries for the electric ones are prohibited too. ZenMarket names inflatable balls, and says they must be deflated before shipping.

Five lists, five vocabularies, little overlap outside a shared core of about five categories.

The natural reading is that each company drew its own line, and that a longer list means a stricter service. Neither holds up. Where these lists carry numbers, the numbers belong to the carriers.

That matters if you are still choosing between services. Fees, inspection and storage genuinely are company decisions, and our comparison of Japan proxy shopping services treats them that way. Prohibited items are the one column where the differences you can see are mostly not the company’s doing.

The 24% line is the postal limit

Two companies publish the same threshold.

ZenMarket lists beverages with alcoholic content above 24% in its table of products with shipping conditions. The condition is not a ban. It is a route: only DHL is available, with a note telling you to check with your local DHL whether you can import the product at all.

Japan Rabbit lists alcohol content above 24% among its prohibited items, with a parenthetical that changes the answer by destination: except for USA/Canada where ALL alcohol is banned.

One says DHL only. The other says no. It reads like a difference in risk appetite.

Japan Post’s own FAQ answers the question directly: you can send alcoholic beverages with an alcoholic content of up to 24 percent by volume as international mail. The same page adds that mailability varies from country to country.

So 24% is the postal limit, and both companies are quoting it. Whether Japan Post set that number or inherited it from air-cargo dangerous-goods rules, it is not a house rule invented by a proxy service. What each company decided is narrower, and more useful to know: whether to offer you a courier once the mail route closes.

ZenMarket offers DHL. Japan Rabbit does not, and its blanket ban for the US and Canada is its own reading of the destination rules rather than something we traced to a Japan Post country page.

For a bottle you actually intend to buy, the destination rules matter more than either company’s list. Our guide to shipping alcohol from Japan follows one bottle through the whole route.

The battery limits match the same source

ZenMarket publishes two figures for lithium batteries. If shipping with EMS or airmail, no more than 2 li-ion batteries per parcel in some countries. If shipping with UPS, FedEx or DHL, no more than 5kg of li-ion batteries per box.

Japan Post’s conditions for sending lithium batteries by international mail require all of the following: the battery installed in or built into the equipment, the capacity within stated limits, the destination free of import restrictions on lithium batteries, and the quantity within a prescribed limit of four units for an electric cell or two units for an assembled battery. The full conditions, including the watt-hour thresholds per cell and per pack, are set out in whether Japanese gadgets work abroad.

ZenMarket’s “no more than 2” matches the assembled-battery figure. Its “in some countries” matches the shape of the destination condition, though the page does not say which countries or cite the source.

Japan Post also carves out an exception worth knowing before you assume every battery is a problem. Button type lithium batteries installed in equipment do not fall under the category of dangerous goods by air, and the document names wristwatches, rice cookers and desktop computers as examples of equipment using them.

What ZenMarket adds on its own account is a list of things it will not ship at all: separate lithium batteries not inserted or built into a device, spelled out as spare battery packs, power banks, the charging case for Bluetooth earphones, and e-cigarettes. Devices rated above 100Wh are out entirely, with e-bicycles, chainsaws and portable refrigerators given as examples.

Neokyo lists lithium batteries flatly, without conditions. Japan Rabbit lists stand-alone batteries or mobile battery chargers. Buyee keeps lithium batteries on a separate page we did not read for this article. Four companies, four levels of detail, one underlying regulation.

If the device itself is the question rather than the battery, whether Japanese gadgets work abroad covers voltage and plugs.

The same rule, two answers

Coins show the pattern most plainly.

ZenMarket lists cash, coins and bills, including commemorative coins, with the condition that only air mail and sea mail are available. FromJapan lists money and gift certificates flatly among its prohibited items. Japan Post explains both: valuable goods cannot be sent by EMS, and can travel as parcels or ordinary mail other than EMS only as registered or insured items. Coins, banknotes, securities payable to the bearer and precious metals are all named.

The rule is a route restriction. One company walks you down the remaining route; the other declines the category. The same split appears in ZenMarket’s size limits, where items longer than 150cm or heavier than 30kg can only ship with FedEx, DHL or UPS, and the page tells you not to buy them if those carriers are unavailable for your country.

What each company actually names

Every entry below was read from that company’s own prohibited-item page on 2 September 2026.

Named = the page names the item. Not named = we read the page and the item does not appear on it. Not confirmed = we could not read the relevant part of that page. None of the three means the item is allowed.

Two things stand out in the table.

The upper rows are the shared core: perfume, aerosols, lighters, flammable liquids, loose batteries. These recur because the mail network refuses them and the couriers treat them as dangerous goods. DHL’s own guidance opens by asking whether you knew that food flavouring, perfumes, chemicals and electronic equipment can be classified as dangerous goods, and notes that lithium battery regulations are rigorous because of aviation safety and IATA compliance.

The lower rows are the interesting ones, and they are the reason to read more than one page.

Put the two halves together and the division of labour is clear. The carrier rules set most of the boundary, and every service inherits the same one. Each proxy then decides three things for itself: whether to refuse the order outright, whether to alter the parcel and send what is left, and whether to offer a carrier the mail network cannot match. Buyee adds a fourth variable by publishing prohibited items country by country, on a page separate from the one compared here.

What only one company names

Buyee’s page is the most specific document of the five, and several entries appear nowhere else: disposable body warmers, hair dye, printer ink cartridges, charcoal, matches, polish and wax, nail polish remover, rodenticide, mercury compounds and lead-acid batteries. It also carries a note that reads like an operational complaint: the amount of arriving aerosol spray cans has increased in recent times, and these items cannot be shipped overseas.

FromJapan’s page runs in a different direction, listing what Japanese law restricts for export: category 1 pharmaceuticals and medical devices including contact lenses and fashion colour contact lenses, diamonds both rough and fabricated, postage and fiscal stamps, official documents, national treasures, important cultural properties, pirated media, lottery tickets, money, gift certificates and meal vouchers.

Neokyo is alone in naming airsoft replicas, both gas and electric, and adds that airsoft batteries are prohibited as well.

None of this means Buyee permits diamonds or that FromJapan is relaxed about hair dye. It most likely means the pages were written by different people solving different problems. An item’s absence from one list is not clearance. If what you want to buy is unusual, the safe reading is the union of all five lists, not the intersection.

The second layer: they may open the box

The prohibited list is the part everyone reads. ZenMarket publishes a second table that matters once your order is already placed, headed as products with shipping conditions, with an explicit warning that proceeding to buy an item listed in it counts as accepting those conditions.

Two of its conditions describe things done to your purchase. The third is what they cost.

Opening. To verify contents, ZenMarket states it may need to open items on arrival at its warehouse. The page adds a caution that sits oddly against the rest of the industry’s marketing: be careful if you are purchasing items intended as gifts or collectibles and are concerned about the factory packaging condition. Mystery bags, unopened model guns, unopened plastic models and unopened watches all appear in the table as requiring opening.

Partial disposal. For products that include parts which cannot be shipped overseas, ZenMarket states it will dispose of just that part. For a model gun sold with cartridges, the page says the bullets cannot be shipped overseas and will be disposed of on arrival at the warehouse. The grease in a fishing reel, the adhesive in a plastic model and the polishing agent packed with a wristwatch are listed the same way.

Charges. Disposal is priced at 300 yen per kilogram, or 300 yen per battery, as a starting figure, and where work is required a handling fee starts at 1,000 yen per 15 minutes.

That pricing needs the qualification the page attaches to it. ZenMarket states that disposal meeting two conditions is performed for free: it requires no special knowledge or equipment and takes under five minutes, and it involves small maintenance attachments included in the product in small amounts. The examples given are the common ones: grease in reels, oil and rosin in musical instruments, adhesive in puzzles and plastic models, polishing agents in watches.

So the accurate version is narrower than “they bill you to throw your things away”. For those cases the accessory goes and nothing is charged. The charge attaches to batteries, to weight, and to anything needing real handling.

We did not find an equivalent published table at the other four services. That is a limit of what we could read, not evidence that the others never open parcels.

One consequence is easy to miss. If a warehouse opens a boxed appliance to check its contents, the factory seal is gone before the parcel leaves Japan, and what Japanese gadget warranties actually cover is already a narrow list without that complication.

Before you buy: three checks

These take a minute and catch most of what the lists are trying to tell you.

Is the battery inside the device, or loose in the box? A camera with its battery installed is a different shipment from the same camera with a spare pack beside it. Japan Post requires lithium batteries to be installed in or built into the equipment. ZenMarket refuses loose ones outright, including the charging case sold with wireless earphones.

Can anyone see what is inside? ZenMarket lists products with unknown contents such as mystery bags as requiring opening, because the contents have to be checked for restricted items and declared correctly. A sealed lucky bag may not stay sealed once it reaches the warehouse.

Is there a liquid, a gel or a propellant travelling as an accessory? This is the one people miss. The item is fine; the small tube packed with it is not.

Where you live can disqualify you

One restriction on FromJapan’s page has nothing to do with the item. Residents of countries subject to United States Treasury economic sanctions cannot use the service. The page names 17 countries and territories, including Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Syria.

If you are reading from one of those places, the prohibited-item list is not your first problem, and it is worth checking each service’s terms rather than assuming the industry moves together.

How we checked

Every figure above was read from the company’s or carrier’s own page on 2 September 2026, fetched directly rather than through a search summary.

Proxy services (prohibited-item pages): ZenMarket · Buyee · Neokyo · Japan Rabbit · FromJapan

Japan Post (postal regulator, official guidance): nonmailable articles in international mail · FAQ on sending alcoholic beverages · conditions for sending lithium batteries, PDF

Carriers (published restricted-commodity guidance): DHL · UPS

Three limits are worth stating plainly.

Doorzo is absent from this comparison. We could not retrieve a public prohibited-items page from Doorzo on 2 September 2026 using the methods that worked for the other five. That is a failure to read, not a finding that no such page exists.

FromJapan’s page truncates behind a “show more” control our retrieval did not expand, which is why most of its column reads as not confirmed rather than not named.

Buyee keeps lithium batteries on a separate page, and it publishes prohibited items by country as well. Neither was read for this article.

These lists are also revised without notice. Treat every entry here as accurate on the date read, and open the company’s own page before buying something borderline.

FAQ

Is perfume really impossible to send? On the pages we read, three of the five companies name it directly, and ZenMarket frames it as perfume containing alcohol rather than perfume as a category. DHL’s guidance names perfumes among goods that can be classified as dangerous. We found no service on these five pages offering a route for it.

Do the battery rules apply if the battery is already inside the device? That is the case the rules are written for. Japan Post requires lithium batteries to be installed in or built into the equipment, with limits of four cells or two assembled batteries, addressed to a country without import restrictions. Loose batteries, power banks and the charging case for wireless earphones are what ZenMarket refuses.

If part of my order is disposed of, is that part refunded? We could not find a refund policy for disposed parts on any of the five prohibited-item pages, so we cannot answer this from published sources. ZenMarket’s page addresses the fee for disposal, not the value of what is destroyed. Ask before buying anything whose accessory is a meaningful share of the price.

All company and carrier pages cited here were read on 2 September 2026.