In 2007, Japan had the second largest music market in the world. In 1962, Tokushin music reports was founded and became the leading provider of music sales in Japan. However their reports and charts are only available to industry insiders and are not available to the general public. In 1968 Original Confidence was established and began providing music charts to the general public with data collected from various retailers throughout Japan. This is the list of the best-selling singles, based on the data by Oricon. It does not include singles that were released before 1968, and is only from data collected from Oricon's retail partners and not the record companies.

Best-selling physical singles in Japan

Guinness World Records certified that Masato Shimon's "Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun" is the best-selling single in Japan. There were several singles which achieved worldwide success. Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki" sold estimate 13 million copies over worldwide. However, those were worldwide sales. There were many non full-track digital download singles in Japan. Hikaru Utada's "Flavor of Life" sold over 7.7 million combined sales. GReeeeN's "Ai Uta" sold 5 million digital download singles. However, those included the sales of non full-track digital download singles. Guinness World Records certified that Thelma Aoyama's "Soba ni Iru ne" is the best-selling full-track digital download single in Japan with over 8 million copies. Machiko Soga's "Oba-Q Ondo" sold estimate 2 million single and 4 million sonosheet in Japan. However, a sonosheet was not a regular 7-inch single. Yujiro Ishihara & Shunko Makimura's "Ginza No Koi No Monogatari" (1961) sold estimate 3.35 million copies in Japan. Hiroshi Wada & His Mahina Stars's "Ozashiki Kouta" (1964) sold estimate 3 million copies in Japan. Yūzō Kayama's "Kimi to Itsumademo" (1965) sold estimate 3 million copies in Japan. However, those were released before 1968 in Japan.

List of best-selling singles based on physical sales

The following list covers the highest-selling singles in the country based on physical sales compiled by Oricon since its foundation in November 1967. Notes:

List of best-selling singles by Western acts

The following list covers the top-selling singles released by such acts in Japan, based on physical sales only. Notes:

Digital and multi-format sales

Best-selling multi-format singles in Japan

With over 9.2 million combined sales, Thelma Aoyama's "Soba ni Iru ne" is the best-selling multi-format single in Japan.

Over 5 million copies

Over 4 million copies

Over 3 million copies

Note:

Over 2 million copies

Note:

List of most-streamed songs in Japan

The following list covers the most-streamed songs in the country based on data compiled by Billboard Japan, with the data aggregation started since March 12, 2018.

Best-selling singles by year

The following is a table of the yearly best-selling singles in Japan by physical sales (until 2018) and combined sales (including track sale equivalent) (since 2019).