What You Can Claim During Pregnancy in Japan: The Order Matters Far More Than the List

Search "妊婦 無料プレゼント" (pregnancy freebies) after you find out you're expecting, and you'll get roughly thirty roundup articles. Two nappies. Four sticks of formula. A sachet of lotion.

Collect all of it and you have, perhaps, a few thousand yen.

Meanwhile, in the same window, there is a programme that pays 100,000 yen if you file for it. And depending on your municipality, another 50,000 or 100,000 on top of that.

This is only a question of order. But get the order wrong and you spend your time on hundred-yen samples while the tens of thousands quietly go unclaimed. What surprised me while researching this is that the real risk isn't forgetting to claim things — it's leaving the few short-window items until later.

I went back to the official pages for 33 of these, so here they are in the order I'd claim them.

The large money is municipal, not commercial

Since April 2025, the Support Benefit for Expectant Mothers (ninpu no tame no shien kyūfu) has operated nationwide as a programme grounded in law — the former "childbirth and childcare support grant" given a proper statutory footing.

The structure is simple.

  • 50,000 yen once your expectant-mother benefit certification comes through
  • 50,000 yen per baby you're carrying

So 100,000 yen for a single pregnancy; for twins the second payment is 100,000, making 150,000 in total.

What matters is that this is not something only well-organised municipalities offer. Wherever you live in Japan, you qualify. The people who lose most are the ones who assume "our city doesn't do baby handouts."

That said, the process and the deadlines differ by municipality. In Nagoya, it works like this:

  • First payment: the city posts you an application form 1–2 months after you file your pregnancy notification. You have two years from the date a medical institution confirmed the pregnancy.
  • Second payment: a form arrives 1–2 months after you pass the equivalent of 32 weeks. As a rule you have two years from the point eight weeks before your due date.

Two years is a generous window, and I take it as deliberate — nobody should be chasing a deadline with a post-birth brain. But the system waits for a form to reach you, so if you've moved, or you're staying at your parents' home to give birth and the post isn't following you, you need to go to the municipal website yourself.

Yokohama takes applications through an online service; Osaka does both online and by post. The mechanics differ, the programme doesn't.

→ Children and Families Agency: Pregnancy, Childbirth and Childcare Support (in Japanese)

Where you live changes this enormously

Separately from the national benefit, municipalities add their own. This is where the spread is widest.

Municipality Programme What it is
Tokyo Akachan First 100,000 yen in value. Born on or after 1 April 2025, resident in Tokyo at birth
Tokyo Akachan First Plus 30,000 yen in value, added for births between 1 Jan 2026 and 31 Mar 2027. Same application, nothing extra to file
Tokyo Childcare package 10,000 yen in value, for expectant mothers who attend an interview with a public health nurse. Items vary by ward or city
Nagoya BABY YELL! Up to 50,000 yen in value. Choose from nappies, formula, pushchairs, car seats, household and childcare services
Kobe Kobecco Welcome Subscription Pick one item from around 120 to start, then two items a month, up to ten times
Fukuoka Nappies and Reassurance Subscription Birth to the month of the third birthday. Eligible households are sent details in turn. Using facilities and services earns digital stamps you exchange for supplies
Chiba Chiba TV "Hajimete-bako" Registered residents of Chiba, born between 2 April 2026 and 1 April 2027

Tokyo's Akachan First is applied for alongside the "018 Support" scheme; after review, a gift card with an ID arrives and you choose from a dedicated site — nappies, formula, pushchairs, appliances, household and childcare services. The real danger is receiving that card and letting it sit, which I'll come back to in the next section.

Kobe publishes no total value, which makes it hard to price, but nappies and formula arriving monthly, up to ten times, is substantial for a household's consumables budget. To get all ten you need to apply by seven months old.

Fukuoka is designed differently: not one celebratory gift but digital stamps earned by using kodomo plaza facilities, postnatal care and postnatal helpers, exchanged for baby supplies. It gets you out of the house to collect them, which in that period may be a feature rather than a bug.

I'm in Kita Ward, Nagoya, so I can write this part as someone who actually received it.

BABY YELL! is not a benefit you apply for yourself. As a rule, the city sends you an ID and password. Ours arrived.

What it turned out to be was a catalogue-gift format. You log into a dedicated site and allocate a 50,000-yen allowance across whatever you want. You can put all of it into consumables like nappies and formula, or spend it on a pushchair, a car seat, or household and childcare help. The design isn't "here is your box" — it's "here is your allowance, choose."

Because it sits outside the national benefit, a single pregnancy in Nagoya means 100,000 yen from the state plus 50,000 in value from BABY YELL!.

There is one thing I want to flag firmly.

Municipal programmes end.

Iwaki City ran its own childbirth support payment — 50,000 yen for a first child, 65,000 for a second, 80,000 for a third or later. Partly because the national programme was put on a statutory footing, it closed with babies born on 31 March 2026.

Which is why you shouldn't lean too hard on roundup articles, this one included. Check your own municipality's official page at the point you're actually due. That's the only reliable answer.

Only a handful of things have deadlines

This is the part that surprised me.

Most free samples run monthly or weekly, so missing one just means catching the next. The things that are genuinely gone if you miss them are few enough to count.

  • Tamahiyo's Oiwai Hiyoko Club — birth to one month old. A magazine for newborns, plus a "Hiyo-chan" bodysuit made with Kodomo Beams and other items. You apply through the Mainichi no Tamahiyo app. The shortest window of the lot opens exactly when parents are least able to move — a fairly mean piece of scheduling.
  • Kobe's subscription — apply by seven months old to get all ten deliveries. The final cut-off is generally the end of the month in which the child turns one year four months.
  • Tokyo's Akachan First — the initial registration after the card arrives, then six months to order. For babies born in FY2026, the stated application deadline is 15 September 2027 and initial registration closes 31 January 2028.
  • Pigeon's commemorative tree planting — babies born in 2026 have until 28 February 2027.
  • Chiba TV's Hajimete-bako — you cannot apply before the birth. You apply once the baby is here.

That last one is less a deadline than a trap. If you're trying to get everything done during pregnancy, this is the one you can't.

Turn it around, though, and that's the whole list to remember. Benesse's name stickers run to 31 March 2028, GOO.N's nappy samples are monthly, Wakodo's formula weekly. There's no reason to rush any of them.

I've written separately about the deadlines that come after the birth:

→ Only Two Pieces of Post-Birth Paperwork in Japan Are Genuinely Urgent (there's also a timeline that lays out the dates from a birthday — the tool is in Japanese)

Take the non-lotteries first

From here on it's the commercial side. And commercially, there's a world of difference between things everyone gets if they qualify and things that are a lottery.

Roundup articles list the two together. So everything starts to look equally weighty and you end up worn out from applying. Sort them properly and the list you should act on first is short.

Baby Calendar, for instance, lets you choose an ultrasound photo album or a maternal health handbook case during pregnancy — not a draw, but everyone who meets the conditions. No purchase, done entirely online. Rakuten Mama-wari's sample box, by contrast, is a monthly draw for 400 people, and belongs on your list as something you probably won't win.

They sit on the same shelf labelled "free gifts". They are different animals.

The other thing not to mix in is "effectively free". The coupon from Babies R Us's free store tour changed on 1 July 2026, from 5,000 yen off a 50,000-yen spend to 3,000 off 30,000. If you weren't going to spend 30,000 yen, it's worth nothing.

にじパパTRANSMISSION

I say that from a position of no authority whatsoever — I did exactly this recently. Lured in by cashback, I bought an Apple Gift Card, then realised I had nothing I actually wanted to buy from Apple. What I'm left with is a balance I didn't need. That's what happens when "free" and "effectively free" go in the same column.

Putting each item's conditions, deadline and application page into the article made it unreadable, so they live on their own page instead. You can filter by certainty (everyone / lottery / in-store / purchase-dependent) and by timing.

→ The list of what you can claim (25 items, each linked to its official page — the list is in Japanese)

What can wait, and what to skip

This section is about what not to collect.

The ones where your personal data is the price. Campaign sites like Karada Note and mamanoko may pass you on to partner companies depending on how you answer their survey. Sometimes English-language teaching samples or co-op trial products are built into the flow.

That isn't a criticism — it's simply that what you're paying with is not money but your phone number, your address, and the sales contact that follows. Whether a few hundred yen of samples is worth that is a personal call. I'd just rather people noticed they were paying.

Insurance consultations, credit cards, electricity contracts. Keep these three in a separate category entirely.

A new Rakuten Card gives 5,000 points in total; Mitsui Sumitomo offers up to 6,000 yen in value on qualifying campaigns (23 July – 30 September 2026). Insurance consultations come with beef, or a tumbler. It all looks appealing.

But premiums, revolving-credit fees and electricity bills are an order of magnitude larger than the gift. If you were reviewing these anyway, take the perk as a bonus. Signing up for something in order to get a present is the wrong way round. Electricity especially: the monthly difference outweighs the campaign, so compare annual totals rather than first-year sweeteners.

And then, the ones that are already over.

Zexy Baby, still recommended everywhere as a staple, shut down on 17 December 2025. The Happy Maternity Box — ten products, free including postage, genuinely attractive — still displayed "new applications temporarily suspended" as of 14 August 2026.

Which means a fair proportion of the "30 free pregnancy gifts" articles currently ranking are recommending things that no longer exist.

There's one defence. Look at the update date before you follow the link. Then check the acceptance status on the official page before you apply. On the list page, suspended items are still there, marked as unavailable. I left them in rather than deleting them because they're a useful way to spot a stale roundup.

The three things people miss

Three things came up in the research that roundups never mention, despite being worth more than anything they do mention.

One. Your employer's own rules.

Most Japanese companies have congratulatory and condolence payments (keichō mimaikin) or a childbirth allowance. This is not a nationally standardised entitlement, so the variation between employers is extreme. Some add substantially for a third child onward.

And you don't get it without reading your employment regulations. At some companies you have to apply. Asking HR is faster. The time you'd spend hunting a few thousand yen of samples is better spent here, and reliably worth more.

Two. What your maternity hospital already includes.

Hospital "gifts" vary wildly. Some serve a full French dinner; others provide postpartum underwear, nappies, wipes, an umbilical cord case, footprints, baby clothes and a celebratory meal.

The thing to understand is that this isn't a free gift — it's part of the delivery and inpatient service you're paying for. So the question isn't how lavish the keepsake is. It's this:

How much of the nappies, wipes, postpartum supplies and baby clothes is included in the inpatient fee?

Ask, and you find out what you don't need to buy. There are thousands to tens of thousands of yen hidden in the difference. Ask before you start filling in a baby-prep shopping list, not after.

Three. If you're struggling, the door is a different one.

Save the Children's "Hello! Baby Box" contains nappies, detergent, baby soap, clothing, gauze, a thermometer and more. But this is not a free sample anyone can request. There are eligibility criteria — young parents, students, larger families, single parents, disability or illness, financial hardship — and an income check. Recruitment runs for limited periods.

There are also organisations supplying bodysuits for low-birthweight babies. Sizes for 30cm and 40cm aren't something you'll find in an ordinary shop.

I think it's wrong to fold these into a "free gifts" list, because they exist to reach the people who need them. But someone who needs them might be reading this, so I'm leaving the names here.

So, in what order?

Pulling it together:

Order When What to do
1 As soon as you know File your pregnancy notification. Check the Support Benefit for Expectant Mothers and your municipality's own support on the same day
2 That same week Register with Baby Calendar (everyone qualifies; 1–2 months to ship), Akachan Honpo, Nishimatsuya
3 Mid to late pregnancy Ask the hospital what the inpatient fee covers. If you're spending 30,000+ anyway, do the Babies R Us tour. Check the second national payment
4 Late pregnancy Check your employment regulations for a childbirth allowance. Note Chiba's Hajimete-bako for later — it's post-birth only
5 Right after the birth Alongside the birth registration, your municipality's top-up. Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe and Fukuoka are especially large
6 Within the first month Oiwai Hiyoko Club first. Then Milpoche, then Pigeon's tree planting
7 Once things settle Nappy and formula samples, name stickers, picture books. Nothing here is urgent

Samples come last. Don't run it the other way round.

The commercial items in rows 2 through 7 are laid out one by one, with conditions, deadlines and where to apply:

→ The list of what you can claim (in Japanese)

The Takeaway

  • The large money is municipal. The national benefit alone is 100,000 yen for a single pregnancy. Start at your own municipality's page.
  • Where you live is worth tens of thousands. Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe and Fukuoka are especially generous — and municipal programmes do end.
  • The short windows are Oiwai Hiyoko Club (birth to one month) and the initial registration on municipal gift cards. Nothing else needs rushing.
  • Take the things that aren't a lottery first. Baby Calendar is open to everyone and done online.
  • Insurance, cards and electricity: only if you needed them anyway. The long-run cost dwarfs the gift.
  • These campaigns change fast. Check the date and the acceptance status on the official page immediately before applying.

Everything here reflects 14 August 2026. Details differ by municipality, and in the end the guidance from your own city or ward office is the authoritative version.

Primary sources

These are the sources for the public programmes this post covers. Where to apply for the commercial items is on the list page, one by one.