Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications

The  is a member of the Cabinet of Japan and is the leader and chief executive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The minister is nominated by the Prime Minister of Japan.

The current minister is Yoshimasa Hayashi, who took office on October 21, 2025.

## List of ministers for internal affairs and communications (2001–)

|colspan=4|Internal Affairs Minister|colspan=3|Term of office|style="width:160px;" rowspan=2 colspan=2|Prime Minister|||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|rowspan=2|1|||||||||
|rowspan=2||rowspan=2|Toranosuke Katayama|rowspan=2|January 6, 2001|rowspan=2|September 22, 2003|rowspan=2||
|Yoshirō Mori||||||||||
|rowspan=3|Junichiro Koizumi|||||||||
|2||||||||||
||Taro Aso|September 22, 2003|October 31, 2005|||||||
|3||||||||||
||Heizō Takenaka|October 31, 2005|September 26, 2006|||||||
|4||||||||||
||Yoshihide Suga|September 26, 2006|August 27, 2007|||||||
|rowspan=2|Shinzō Abe|||||||||
|rowspan=2|5|||||||||
|rowspan=2||rowspan=2|Hiroya Masuda|rowspan=2|August 27, 2007|rowspan=2|September 24, 2008|rowspan=2||
|Yasuo Fukuda||||||||||
|6||||||||||
||Kunio Hatoyama|September 24, 2008|June 12, 2009|||||||
|rowspan=2|Taro Aso|||||||||
|7||||||||||
||Tsutomu Sato|June 12, 2009|September 16, 2009|||||||
|rowspan=2|8|||||||||
|rowspan=2||rowspan=2|Kazuhiro Haraguchi|rowspan=2|September 16, 2009|rowspan=2|September 17, 2010|rowspan=2||
|Yukio Hatoyama||||||||||
|rowspan=2|Naoto Kan|||||||||
|9||||||||||
||Yoshihiro Katayama|September 17, 2010|September 2, 2011|||||||
|10||||||||||
||Tatsuo Kawabata|September 2, 2011|October 1, 2012|||||||
|rowspan=2|Yoshihiko Noda|||||||||
|11||||||||||
||Shinji Tarutoko|October 1, 2012|December 26, 2012|||||||
|12||||||||||
||Yoshitaka Shindō|December 26, 2012|September 3, 2014|||||||
|rowspan=5|Shinzō Abe|||||||||
|14||||||||||
||Sanae Takaichi|September 3, 2014|August 3, 2017|||||||
|15||||||||||
||Seiko Noda|August 3, 2017|October 2, 2018|||||||
|16||||||||||
||Masatoshi Ishida|October 2, 2018|September 11, 2019|||||||
||Sanae Takaichi|September 11, 2019|September 16, 2020|||||||
||Ryota Takeda|September 16, 2020|October 4, 2021|||||||
|rowspan=1|Yoshihide Suga|||||||||
||Yasushi Kaneko|October 4, 2021|August 10, 2022|||||||
|rowspan=5|Fumio Kishida|||||||||
||Minoru Terada|August 10, 2022|November 20, 2022|||||||
||Takeaki Matsumoto|November 21, 2022|September 13, 2023|||||||
||Junji Suzuki|September 13, 2023|December 14, 2023|||||||
||Takeaki Matsumoto|December 14, 2023|October 1, 2024|||||||
||Seiichiro Murakami|October 1, 2024|October 21, 2025|||||||
|Shigeru Ishiba||||||||||
||Yoshimasa Hayashi|October 21, 2025|Incumbent|||||||
|Sanae Takaichi||||||||||
|colspan="9"|Reference: soumu.go.jp|||||||||

## Infobox (official post)

- **post**: Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications
- **insignia**: Goshichi no kiri.svg
- **insigniasize**: 80px
- **insigniacaption**: Emblem of the Government of Japan
- **image**: Hayashi yoshimasa.jpg
- **incumbent**: Yoshimasa Hayashi
- **incumbentsince**: 21 October 2025
- **department**: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
- **style**: His Excellency
- **member of**: Cabinet of Japan
National Security Council (Japan), National Security Council
- **reports to**: Prime Minister of Japan
- **nominator**: Prime Minister of Japan
- **appointer**: Emperor of Japan
- **appointer qualified**: <small>attested to by the Emperor of Japan, Emperor</small>
- **precursor**: Minister of Posts and Telecommunications
Minister of Home Affairs
Director-General of the Internal Affairs and Communications Bureau
- **deputy**: State Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications
- **salary**: ¥20,916,000