JLPT kanji lists, N5 to N1
The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test grades reading and listening ability across five levels, from N5 (foundational) to N1 (near-native). The official kanji lists were dropped after the 2010 redesign, so the 2,211-character set below is the community-maintained reconstruction widely used by study tools, textbooks, and SRS apps.
Pick a level to see the full grid, a short note on what kind of text it unlocks, and where it sits in a typical WaniKani journey. To see exactly which of these you have already learned, head to the JLPT coverage tool and paste a WaniKani API token.
Pick a level
- JLPT N579 kanji
The starter set. Survival vocabulary: numbers, days of the week, basic verbs and directions.
WaniKani covers around 99% of N5 by around level 10.
- JLPT N4166 kanji
Daily-life kanji. Family, weather, common adjectives, and the verbs that show up in conversation.
WaniKani teaches around 94% of N4, usually finished by level 20.
- JLPT N3367 kanji
The bridge to general reading. News headlines, manga, casual novels start here.
WaniKani covers around 85% of N3, with the bulk reached around level 30.
- JLPT N2367 kanji
Professional and academic territory. Business writing, broadsheet newspapers, university material.
Around 76% of N2 is at Guru by around WaniKani level 40.
- JLPT N11232 kanji
The full set. Legal, medical, literary, and historical readings. Native-aimed material across every domain.
WaniKani has substantial N1 coverage by level 50 and reaches roughly 64% of N1 by level 60.
How the JLPT levels stack up
N5 and N4 form a tight beginner set. The jump to N3 is the largest single step: the list more than doubles, and the characters start covering abstract vocabulary you actually see in printed material. N2 layers on professional and academic language, and N1 sweeps in specialist domains alongside rarer literary and historical readings.
A common misconception is that the JLPT's kanji counts are cumulative in the test itself; they are, but the per-level counts shown across study tools are the new characters introduced at that level. The full N1 set, in practice, means roughly 2,211 unique characters covering essentially the entire Joyo list plus a handful of common non-Joyo additions.
See your personal coverage
The lists here are the same for every visitor. Your personal JLPT coverage, calculated live from your WaniKani SRS data, is on the JLPT coverage tool. Paste a personal access token on the login page to get started. Your token stays in your browser; nothing is sent to a Wanilog server.
Related
- Joyo kanji by grade - the Ministry's essential set, organised by school year.
- Frequency coverage - WaniKani's overlap with the most common kanji in modern text.
- WaniKani FAQ - SRS intervals, level-up rules, and the answer to the "should I level up faster?" question.