The first refugees started arriving in Japan in 1978 from Indochina, which prompted Japan to sign the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol in 1981 and 1982. It was after this that Japan began to establish a system for recognizing refugee status. Between 1982 and 2014 Japan recognized 633 persons as refugees, out of 22,559 applicants.  

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In 2015, Japan received more that 7,500 applications for refugee status and only 27 people were accepted. People from 69 different nations applied, the largest number of applicants are from Nepal, Indonesia, Turkey, and Myanmar according to The Japan Times. The number of refugee applications is expected to exceed 10,000 in 2016.