Shift-JIS

Variable-width encoding for Japanese. Single-byte for ASCII and half-width kana, double-byte for kanji and full-width characters. The dominant encoding for Japanese on Windows and in legacy Japanese software.

IANA Name

Shift_JIS

Width

Variable (1–2 bytes)

Introduced

1982

Byte Structure

Shift-JIS uses variable-width encoding (1–2 bytes per character). Characters not in this encoding cannot be represented and must be replaced or transliterated.

When to Use Shift-JIS

Shift-JIS is the encoding for Japanese text in legacy Windows applications, older Japanese websites, and many Japanese file formats. If you're processing Japanese data from a source that pre-dates widespread UTF-8 adoption — or working with Japanese game ROMs and legacy software — you'll need Shift-JIS support. New Japanese systems should use UTF-8.

Sample Characters in Shift-JIS

The table below shows how a selection of characters are represented in Shift-JIS. Bytes are shown in hexadecimal. Characters marked "not supported" cannot be encoded in Shift-JIS and would need to be replaced or transliterated when converting from Unicode.

Character	Codepoint	Name	Bytes (Hex)	Bytes (Decimal)	Supported
A	U+0041	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A	41	65	Yes
a	U+0061	LATIN SMALL LETTER A	61	97	Yes
0	U+0030	DIGIT ZERO	30	48	Yes
$	U+0024	DOLLAR SIGN	24	36	Yes
£	U+00A3	POUND SIGN	81 92	129 146	Yes
©	U+00A9	COPYRIGHT SIGN	not supported		—
€	U+20AC	EURO SIGN	not supported		—
α	U+03B1	GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA	83 BF	131 191	Yes
А	U+0410	CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER A	84 40	132 64	Yes
中	U+4E2D		92 86	146 134	Yes
あ	U+3042	HIRAGANA LETTER A	82 A0	130 160	Yes
☺	U+263A	WHITE SMILING FACE	not supported		—

Working with Shift-JIS in Code

Every major language has built-in support for encoding conversion. The examples below show how to encode a string to Shift-JIS bytes and decode it back to a Unicode string. Always specify the encoding explicitly — never rely on system defaults, which vary by OS and locale.

Python

# Encode a string to shift-jis bytes
text = "Hello, 世界"
encoded = text.encode("Shift_JIS")

# Decode bytes back to a string
decoded = encoded.decode("Shift_JIS")

PHP

// Convert to shift-jis
$bytes = mb_convert_encoding(
    "Hello, 世界",
    "Shift_JIS",
    "UTF-8"
);

// Convert back to UTF-8
$text = mb_convert_encoding(
    $bytes,
    "UTF-8",
    "Shift_JIS"
);

JavaScript

// Encode to Shift_JIS bytes
const encoder = new TextEncoder(); // UTF-8
const bytes = encoder.encode("Hello, 世界");

// Decode bytes
const decoder = new TextDecoder("Shift_JIS");
const text = decoder.decode(bytes);

SQL (PostgreSQL)

-- Create a database with Shift-JIS
CREATE DATABASE mydb
  ENCODING 'Shift_JIS'
  LC_COLLATE 'en_US.UTF-8';

-- Check database encoding
SELECT pg_encoding_to_char(encoding)
FROM pg_database
WHERE datname = current_database();

Compare with Other Encodings

See how Shift-JIS differs from other encodings — which characters each supports and how the byte representations compare.

Shift-JIS vs UTF-8 → Shift-JIS vs EUC-JP →

Shift-JIS FAQ

What is the difference between Shift-JIS and EUC-JP?

Both encode Japanese (hiragana, katakana, kanji) but use different byte structures. Shift-JIS uses lead bytes 0x81–0x9F and 0xE0–0xFC for double-byte characters, with single-byte katakana in 0xA1–0xDF. EUC-JP uses 0xA1–0xFE for two-byte kanji and 0x8E as a prefix for katakana. Shift-JIS dominated Windows; EUC-JP dominated Unix systems.

Is Shift-JIS still in use?

Shift-JIS is still found in Japanese game ROMs, legacy Windows software, older Japanese websites, and some industrial and point-of-sale systems. Modern Japanese applications use UTF-8. When processing legacy Japanese data, always specify or detect the encoding explicitly — Shift-JIS and UTF-8 byte sequences can be ambiguous without context.

← All Encodings Browse Characters →