I managed to renew the shaken (vehicle inspection) for my motorbike at Shinagawa by myself. Staff were very friendly and accommodating. Total cost in 2025 for a 1250cc motorcycle was ¥14,360.
3 years after purchasing a new vehicle, and then every 2 years after that, every vehicle in Japan has to pass a motor-vehicle inspection, or shaken.
My R1250GSA was up for getting it renewed, and you can either pay someone to do it for a significant markup, or try to do it yourself. I opted to give it a shot.
Note that from 2025 onwards, the shaken can be renewed from 2 months prior to it expiring. Don’t leave it to the last minute as if they find a fault you will need time to get it fixed.
I basically followed the instructions in this very excellent blog post.
First, register an account on www.reserve.naltec.go.jp.
Next apply for an appointment. I chose the Shinagawa Vehicle Inspection Center even though it’s not my closest inspection station since in my experience they deal with a lot of foreigners and many staff can even speak some english. This is also where I go to renew my drivers license.
Finally, gather all the documents you will need – make sure they are the originals, and not copies!
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- JCI Inspection Certificate (自動車検査証) – this is the old one you should have gotten when you registered the vehicle.
- Compulsory Insurance Certificate (自賠責保険証書) – this is the old one you should have gotten when you registered the vehicle.
- Road tax payment receipt (自動車税納税証明書) – this is the receipt for the annual road tax paid to the city you live in.
After making an appointment I got an email with instructions including links to some YouTube videos showing the typical process for both cars and motorbikes.
On the day of the appointment I went to the Inspection Center and there’s a small section where bikes park right next to the stairs of “C” building, which is where I had to go first. Counter 7, to be precise. If you turn up before the time you take a small numbered chip to get your place in the queue. I guess otherwise you just queue up.
So I had managed to get everything right, except that the JCI Inspection Certificate I had was not the correct one. I’m not entirely sure what the difference was since I thought the kanji all matched, but I had an A4 printed sheet whereas the official Inspection Certificate is a smallish blue heavy paper (thin card) thing. Long story short, I had to go back home and look for it.
Note also that you can’t make a new appointment for the same day!
I just went back on the same day trusting good luck and the guy at Counter 7 was very nice and just slotted me right in. I got a record sheet on which I had to write my name, then had to go to “D” building Counter 14 to pay for the inspection (5,600¥) and then counter 15 to pay for the Compulsory Insurance (8,760¥).
Note that they don´t accept card payment – cash only!
After that it was back to C-7 where they had just gone on lunch-break..
“A short while later…”
After checking that I paid for everything and various stamps, I got sent to Lane 2 with my motorbike for the actual inspection. Looks like a BMW dealer was renewing shaken for their customers as a whole line of R1250GSA’s were queuing up behind me – which may have been a benefit as I was holding up the queue by not knowing what to do.
First was an emissions test, basically just stick a probe into the exhaust and stand there for a bit until the display goes green.
Next was a basic check – lights, indicators, horn, etc.
Then I had to ride the bike onto a rolling road to test the brakes and speedo. A nice lady was helping me at this point as they had realised that I was really struggling with the nihongo.. but it all went pretty smoothly and I muddled through.
After each check you have to scan the barcode of the record sheet.
Once all the checks are done you hand in the record sheet to an inspection officer sitting in a little hut who gives a final stamp of approval. Presumably if something failed you get a stamp of disapproval…
Once done, it was back up to “C” block, but this time counter 6. An extremely short while later I got handed my new shaken and sticker for the number plate. Done!
