Goshuin Ledger

How to collect goshuin in Japan: a before-you-go checklist

Before you leave for Japan, settle seven things: carry one goshuin book, know where it will come from, check each shrine or temple’s own website for where and when goshuin are given, learn the one sentence you will say, carry small change, know what to do if you are handed a pre-written sheet, and decide how you will record each goshuin on the day you receive it. A goshuin (御朱印) is a seal and brush writing received as proof of a visit, so the visit comes first and the request second. The step most easily skipped is the last one, and it is the one that costs later: the writing is brush-written and dated in a Japanese era, so weeks after you are home the page alone often cannot tell you where you were or when.

Published: (last updated: ) by 友田 陽大 (the developer of Goshuin Ledger)

The key points of this article

  • Seven things belong before the trip: one book, where it comes from, each place’s official information, the words to ask, small change, what to do with a loose sheet, and how you record each goshuin.
  • Check each place’s own website for where and when goshuin are given: the goshuin desk can close before the hall or the grounds do.
  • Worship first, then ask: the Miyagi Prefecture Shrine Association puts the visit before the goshuin and asks visitors not to speak to the writer.
  • Whether a goshuin is written in your book, given as a pre-written sheet, or not given at all is decided by each shrine or temple.
  • Photograph each page on the day and note the name of the place: the brush-written name and the Japanese-era date are hard to read back weeks later.

This article is part of “What is a goshuin? What it is, what is written on it, and what you take home”.

This article covers only what you settle before the trip. What a goshuin is, the exact words to use at the desk, and how a book is put together are each covered separately, and linked where they come up.

What do you need to settle before you fly?

Seven things, and none of them takes long. Everything else can be decided on the day, in front of the office, without slowing anyone down.

Settle this By when Why it cannot wait
One goshuin book (goshuincho, 御朱印帳) Packing A book has a fixed number of pages, and a second one started mid-trip splits your record in two
Where the book comes from Before your first day Whether a place offers books is its own decision, so a fallback is worth having
The official information for each place you are going for Before each day Where and when goshuin are given differs from place to place, and the desk can close before the grounds do
The sentence you will say Before your first visit The exchange is short, and easier when you are not composing it in the queue
Small change Every morning The amount is something you learn at the desk, and coins keep the exchange simple
What to do with a pre-written sheet (kakioki, 書き置き) Before your first visit Some places give a sheet instead of writing in your book, and a loose sheet has no page to keep it in order
How you will record each goshuin Your first goshuin The brush-written name and the Japanese-era date are hard to read back weeks later

The last two are the ones that turn a book you were proud of into pages you cannot caption. If you have not met the object yet, what a goshuin is and what it is not is the place to start.

Check the official information for the places you are going for

For any shrine or temple you are visiting specifically for a goshuin, read its own website first: where goshuin are given, during which hours, and under what conditions. Treat a guide, including this one, as a pointer to that page rather than a substitute for it.

Three kinds of facts differ from place to place, and official pages are where they are stated.

  • The hours for goshuin are not the hours of the place. Senso-ji in Tokyo publishes goshuin hours that end half an hour before its main hall closes, and gives no closing time for its grounds at all. A day planned around “the temple is open until five” misses the desk.
  • The place within the grounds. At a large temple, goshuin may be given at a hall of their own. Todai-ji in Nara gives a different goshuin at each of several halls, with hours listed hall by hall.
  • The conditions. Sengaku-ji in Tokyo gives goshuin to visitors who have copied a sutra, and says it has no pre-written version. Todai-ji notes that one of its halls has stopped giving goshuin during building work. Asakusa Shrine says its hours and handling can change with how crowded the day is.

So the rule for planning is the earliest closing time on your list, not the latest. And note the date you checked: these pages change, and most of them carry no date of their own. A worked example for one temple, with each fact tied to its source, is in the Senso-ji goshuin guide.

Where a place has no website, or the website says nothing about goshuin, there is nothing to plan around. Go, ask at the office, and accept the answer.

One book, and where it comes from

Carry one book. Only if you already know you will fill it, decide where the second one will come from. A goshuin book holds a fixed number of pages and each goshuin takes one, or two when it is written across a spread, so you can count roughly before you go: one page per place you expect to visit, with a few spare.

Carrying two part-used books costs you more than it saves. On the trip you have to remember which one you are filling; after the trip you have two objects whose pages interleave in time, and no page says which book it is in. If you run low, get a second book in Japan and start it cleanly on that day — then the split in your record matches a date you can remember. What to do when a book fills up mid-trip goes through that case.

You can get the first book at the first shrine or temple you visit. The Japan National Tourism Organization’s guide says goshuin books are found at shrine and temple offices alongside the goshuin themselves, and Senso-ji’s own page says books are available at the hall where its goshuin are given. Whether a particular place offers them is that place’s decision, so have a second place in mind for your first day. What you should not do is spend the first morning of the trip looking for a book instead of visiting anywhere.

The mechanics of the object — the common sizes, the accordion fold, how many pages a book actually gives you — are in goshuincho sizes and how many pages a book gives you. Read that before you buy one at home.

Worship first, then ask at the office

A goshuin is received as proof that you visited, so the visit comes first. The Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja Honcho) describes a goshuin as something received as proof of having visited and worshipped at a shrine, and says its origin is thought to lie in the receipt given for a hand-copied sutra offered at a shrine or temple.

The Miyagi Prefecture Shrine Association’s etiquette page puts the order plainly — the visit comes before the goshuin — and adds practical notes: open the book to the page you would like written before you hand it over, have small change ready, and do not speak to the writer or photograph the writing without permission. The tourism organization’s guide for visitors says the same thing in one line: pray before lining up.

What you say, and what you do if you share no language with the person at the desk, is in how to ask for a goshuin in Japanese. Reading it once before you fly is enough.

If you are handed a sheet of paper

Sometimes the goshuin comes on a separate sheet rather than being written in your book. That is a normal form, not a lesser one. The sheet is called kakioki (書き置き), “written in advance”, and whether it is used is the place’s decision.

Official pages show how varied the rule is. Hinomisaki Shrine in Shimane gives only pre-written sheets during set periods of the year, and to anyone asking for three or more books. Namiyoke Shrine in Tokyo gives its festival goshuin as sheets only. Sengaku-ji has no pre-written version at all. You will not know which you are getting until you ask, so prepare for both.

Three things to do with a sheet, all on the day:

  1. Keep it flat, inside the back cover of your book or in a folder, rather than folded in a pocket.
  2. Photograph it and note the name of the place, exactly as you would a page — a sheet has no neighbouring pages to tell you later where it belongs.
  3. Look at whether a date is written on it. Some sheets carry the date; some leave it blank. If it is blank, the date in your own note is the only one you will have.

Whether to paste it in, and where, can wait until you are home. What a goshuin on separate paper is, and what to do with it covers the rest.

Record each goshuin on the day you receive it

Photograph each page on the day, and write the name of the shrine or temple in the same place. This is the one item on the list that costs seconds on the trip and cannot be recovered afterwards.

Here is what goes wrong, and it is not a matter of being careless. A goshuin is brush-written, often in a flowing hand, and what is written large is not always the name of the place. Todai-ji’s own explanation says the writing may be the name of the shrine or temple or the name of a Buddhist image, and on the sample Senso-ji shows, the large central writing is the name of its principal image, with the temple’s name written smaller at the lower left. Sitting at the office you know exactly where you are, so the page seems self-explanatory. Three weeks later, at home, with eleven pages in the book and four of them from one day in one city, the page is a beautiful object that will not tell you its own name.

Two habits, both of them seconds long:

  • One photograph of each page, on the day. Your phone records when it was taken, so the photograph carries the day even if you write nothing.
  • The name, in text, the same day. A note in your phone, the caption on the photograph, wherever you will look. Romanised is fine — you are writing it for yourself.

The date needs one decision too. The date on the page is usually written in a Japanese era — Reiwa for anything written now — and not in the calendar your phone uses. Keep the Western date in your note, because it sorts; the era form is what lets you match a record to the page later. How a Japanese-era date is written on a goshuin explains the reading.

A notes app is enough for all of this. If you would rather keep the photograph, the name and the visit date together, Goshuin Ledger is built for that: add the photo, choose the shrine or temple from the list bundled with the app or type its name, and the visit date starts from the date the photo was taken. It can also suggest shrines and temples from the text and location of the photo, but checking and choosing is up to you. Recording in your first book needs no purchase and has no limit on entries.

Small change, and a day built around the earliest closing time

Carry coins every day, and plan each day around the goshuin desk that closes first. These are the two things that stop a visit going the way you planned, and neither is about etiquette.

On money: the amount differs by shrine and temple, and the right way to find it is to ask at the desk. What you prepare is a form, not an amount — coins, daily, before you set out.

On hours: goshuin are written by a person, and that person is not always there. The Miyagi Prefecture Shrine Association notes that hours for goshuin differ from shrine to shrine and that a priest or member of staff is not always present. If a goshuin is the reason you are making a particular journey, check the hours the way you would check a museum’s, and put that place early in the day.

What this is not

Treating the checklist as a schedule is the failure mode. A goshuin marks a visit that happened; it is not a target, and the number in your book is not a score. If the desk is closed, or the place does not give them, you have still been there, and that was the point of going.

It is also worth deciding, before you leave, what you are not going to photograph. Where photography is permitted differs from place to place, and a page being written is not a photograph to take without asking. Where the line falls when photographing a goshuin goes through it.

The checklist, in one place

Read it once, and you can stop thinking about it for the rest of the trip.

  1. One book, with a rough count of pages against places.
  2. Where it comes from, with a fallback for your first day.
  3. Each place’s own website checked for where and when goshuin are given, with the date you checked.
  4. The sentence you will say, read once.
  5. Coins, restocked each morning.
  6. A flat place for a loose sheet, and the habit of noting its date.
  7. One photograph of each page on the day, and the name in text the same day. This is the one that cannot be done later.

Then the trip is the trip. What to do with the book afterwards — working out which place a page came from, or turning a phone full of photos into a record — is a separate job, done at home, and it goes quickly if the seventh item on that list happened.

Sources, and when they were checked

All checked on 4 October 2026. Hours and conditions on these pages change; read the place’s own page again before you travel.

Frequently asked questions

How many goshuin books should I bring to Japan?
One is enough for most trips. A book holds a fixed number of pages, and each goshuin takes one page, sometimes two when it is written across a spread, so the question is really how many you expect to receive. Carry one book and get a second in Japan if you run low, rather than carrying two half-used books and losing track of which one a page is in.
Should I buy a goshuincho at home before I travel, or in Japan?
You can get it in Japan, at the first shrine or temple you visit: the Japan National Tourism Organization’s guide says goshuin books are found at shrine and temple offices, and Senso-ji, for one, offers them at the hall where it gives goshuin. Whether a particular place offers books is its own decision, so have a second option in mind. A book bought at home works too; check its size first.
What happens if a shrine or temple does not give goshuin, or the desk is closed?
Nothing goes wrong; there is simply no goshuin from that visit. Whether to give one, in what form and at what hours is decided by each shrine or temple. The Miyagi Prefecture Shrine Association notes that hours differ and that a priest or member of staff is not always present, and some temples set conditions of their own — Sengaku-ji in Tokyo gives goshuin to visitors who have copied a sutra. Check the place’s own website before you go, ask when you arrive, and treat the visit itself as the point of going.
Do I have to pay in cash?
Plan on cash, in coins. The amount differs by shrine and temple, and the desk is where you learn it, so what you prepare is not an amount but a form. The Miyagi Prefecture Shrine Association’s etiquette page reminds visitors to have small change ready before they hand over their book.
Can I sort the whole thing out after I get home instead?
You can order the pages afterwards, but you cannot recover what you never wrote down. Two things fade fastest: which shrine or temple a brush-written page belongs to, and, for a day when you visited several places, which page came from which. Photograph each page on the day and note the name, and the rest — ordering, dates, which book a page is in — can wait until you are home.