JLPT N4 kanji list
166 kanji - the full N4 character set as reconstructed from the pre-2010 official syllabus.
The kanji list roughly doubles between N5 and N4, from 79 characters to 166. Passing N4 means handling basic daily-life conversations and reading simple paragraphs about familiar topics.
N4 characters cover the vocabulary of daily life. Family terms - mother, father, older brother, younger sister - sit alongside weather and seasons, adjectives as basic as new, old, fast, and slow, and a wider set of conversational verbs: use, work, think, send, study. This is also the level where compound kanji words start to dominate over single-character readings; knowing a kanji on its own stops being enough, because the words it combines into matter more. Beginners often find N4 the most rewarding tier to study, since it produces the biggest visible jump in reading comfort: short manga and picture books open up, and so do casual social media posts. The list is again community-maintained from the pre-2010 official syllabus.
WaniKani coverage
The whole N4 list is on WaniKani. Level 20 accounts for 99% of it and level 27 closes the gap, which makes N4 the last tier you finish anywhere near the start of the syllabus. Some characters arrive earlier than their tier suggests, pulled in as components of N5 vocabulary.
Want to see exactly which of these you have already learned? The JLPT coverage tool ties your live WaniKani progress to the lists on this site, with per-level percentages and the missing characters highlighted.