List of Japanese football champions

Japanese League (1st tier)
Japan Soccer League (1965–1971); Japan Soccer League Division 1 (1972–1992); J.League (1993–1998); J.League Division 1 (1999–2014); J1 League (2015–present)
	Country
	Japan
	Founded
	1965
	Number of teams
	20 (2024)
	Current champions
	Vissel Kobe (2023)
	Most successful club
	Kashima Antlers; Sanfrecce Hiroshima; (8 titles each)

The Japanese football champions are the winners of the top league in Japan, the Japan Soccer League from 1965 to 1992 and the J.League since then.

Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Tokyo Verdy are the only teams that have won the title four times in a row (in 1965–1968 as Toyo Industries and in 1991–1994 as Yomiuri S.C./Verdy Kawasaki, respectively). Notice that from 1985 to 1992 Japanese football adjusted to the "fall-spring" season schedule (common in most of Europe) but after establishment of J.League switched back to "spring-fall" scheme (common in North America, East Asia, and Nordic European latitudes).

List of champions

Teams in bold have completed the double of the title and the Emperor's Cup in the same season. In 1985 no double was possible due to the season's timeframe change; thus, the doubles completed between then and 1992 are won in the middle of the season.

Numbers in parentheses indicate number of wins at the date. Leading goalscorer's nationality is at the time of award and does not necessarily indicate the national team played for.

Japan Soccer League (1965–1971)

Year	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	Third place	Leading goalscorer	Goals
1965	Toyo Industries	Yawata Steel	Furukawa Electric	Mutsuhiko Nomura (Hitachi)	15
1966	Toyo Industries (2)	Yawata Steel	Furukawa Electric	Aritatsu Ogi (Toyo Industries)	14
1967	Toyo Industries (3)	Furukawa Electric	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Takeo Kimura (Furukawa Electric)	15
1968	Toyo Industries (4)	Yanmar Diesel	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Kunishige Kamamoto (Yanmar Diesel)	14
1969	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Toyo Industries	Yawata Steel	Hiroshi Ochiai (Mitsubishi Motors)	12
1970	Toyo Industries (5)	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Hitachi SC	Kunishige Kamamoto (Yanmar Diesel)	16
1971	Yanmar Diesel	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Nippon Steel	Kunishige Kamamoto (Yanmar Diesel)	11

Japan Soccer League Division 1 (1972–1992)

Year	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	Third place	Leading goalscorer	Goals
1972	Hitachi SC	Yanmar Diesel	Toyo Industries	Akira Matsunaga (Hitachi)	12
1973	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (2)	Hitachi SC	Yanmar Diesel	Akira Matsunaga (Hitachi)	11
1974	Yanmar Diesel (2)	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Hitachi SC	Kunishige Kamamoto (Yanmar Diesel)	21
1975	Yanmar Diesel (3)	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Hitachi SC	Kunishige Kamamoto (Yanmar Diesel)	17
1976	Furukawa Electric	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Fujita Industries	Kunishige Kamamoto (Yanmar Diesel)	15
1977	Fujita Industries	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Hitachi SC	Carvalho (Fujita Industries)	23
1978	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (3)^†	Yanmar Diesel	Fujita Industries	Carvalho (Fujita Industries)	15
1979	Fujita Industries (2)	Yomiuri SC	Hitachi SC	Ruy Ramos (Yomiuri)	14
1980	Yanmar Diesel (4)	Fujita Industries	Furukawa Electric	Hiroyuki Usui (Hitachi)	14
1981	Fujita Industries (3)	Yomiuri SC	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Hiroshi Yoshida (Furukawa Electric)	14
1982	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (4)	Yanmar Diesel	Furukawa Electric	Hiroyuki Usui (Hitachi)	13
1983	Yomiuri SC	Nissan Motors	Fujita Industries	Ruy Ramos (Yomiuri)	10
1984	Yomiuri SC (2)	Nissan Motors	Yamaha Motors	Tetsuya Totsuka (Yomiuri)	14
1985–86	Furukawa Electric (2)	NKK SC	Honda Motors	Hiroshi Yoshida (Furukawa Electric)	16
1986–87	Yomiuri SC (3)	NKK SC	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Toshio Matsuura (NKK)	17
1987–88	Yamaha Motors	NKK SC	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	Toshio Matsuura (NKK)	11
1988–89	Nissan Motors^†	ANA SC	Yamaha Motors	Adílson (Yamaha Motors)	11
1989–90	Nissan Motors (2)^†	Yomiuri SC	ANA SC	Renato (Nissan Motors)	17
1990–91	Yomiuri SC (4)	Nissan Motors	Honda Motors	Renato (Nissan Motors)	10
1991–92	Yomiuri SC (5)	Nissan Motors	Yamaha Motors	Toninho (Yomiuri)	18

^† Treble with the JSL Cup

J.League (1993–1998)

In 1992, professional

corporate identities and adopted their own names. From 1993 to 2005 (except for the 1996 season), and in 2015 and 2016, the league was contested in an Apertura and Clausura manner, thus the "runners-up" for these seasons are actually the winners of one of these tournaments which lost to the winners of the playoff

. The "third places" are the highest-scoring teams in the aggregate table which were not involved in the playoff. If there was no playoff due to the champions winning both stages, the third place is the second-best points earning team who are not the champions.

Year	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	Third place	Leading goalscorer	Goals
1992	Transition period; top flight clubs only play the J.League Cup, but Japan Football League plays inaugural season
1993	Verdy Kawasaki (6)	Kashima Antlers	Shimizu S-Pulse	Ramón Díaz (Yokohama Marinos)	28
1994	Verdy Kawasaki (7)	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	Kashima Antlers	Frank Ordenewitz (JEF United Ichihara)	30
1995	Yokohama Marinos (3)	Verdy Kawasaki	Nagoya Grampus Eight	Masahiro Fukuda (Urawa Red Diamonds)	32
1996	Kashima Antlers	Nagoya Grampus Eight	Yokohama Flügels	Kazuyoshi Miura (Verdy Kawasaki)	23
1997	Júbilo Iwata (2)	Kashima Antlers	Yokohama Marinos	Patrick M'Boma (Gamba Osaka)	25
1998	Kashima Antlers (2)	Júbilo Iwata	Shimizu S-Pulse	Masashi Nakayama (Júbilo Iwata)	36

J.League Division 1 (1999–2014)

Top flight becomes

J.League Division 1

in 1999.

Year	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	Third place	Leading goalscorer	Goals
1999	Júbilo Iwata (3)	Shimizu S-Pulse	Kashiwa Reysol	Hwang Sun-hong (Cerezo Osaka)	24
2000	Kashima Antlers (3)^†	Yokohama F. Marinos	Kashiwa Reysol	Masashi Nakayama (Júbilo Iwata)	20
2001	Kashima Antlers (4)	Júbilo Iwata	JEF United Ichihara	Consadole Sapporo )	20
2002	Júbilo Iwata (4)	Yokohama F. Marinos	Gamba Osaka	Naohiro Takahara (Júbilo Iwata)	26
2003	Yokohama F. Marinos (4)	Júbilo Iwata	JEF United Chiba	Ueslei (Nagoya Grampus Eight)	22
2004	Yokohama F. Marinos (5)	Urawa Red Diamonds	Gamba Osaka	Emerson (Urawa Red Diamonds)	27
2005	Gamba Osaka	Urawa Red Diamonds	Kashima Antlers	Araújo (Gamba Osaka)	33
2006	Urawa Red Diamonds (5)	Kawasaki Frontale	Gamba Osaka	Washington (Urawa Red Diamonds) Magno Alves (Gamba Osaka)	26
2007	Kashima Antlers (5)	Urawa Red Diamonds	Gamba Osaka	Juninho (Kawasaki Frontale)	22
2008	Kashima Antlers (6)	Kawasaki Frontale	Nagoya Grampus	Marquinhos (Kashima Antlers)	21
2009	Kashima Antlers (7)	Kawasaki Frontale	Gamba Osaka	Ryoichi Maeda (Júbilo Iwata)	20
2010	Nagoya Grampus	Gamba Osaka	Cerezo Osaka	Joshua Kennedy (Nagoya Grampus) Ryoichi Maeda (Júbilo Iwata)	17
2011	Kashiwa Reysol (2)	Nagoya Grampus	Gamba Osaka	Joshua Kennedy (Nagoya Grampus)	19
2012	Sanfrecce Hiroshima (6)	Vegalta Sendai	Urawa Red Diamonds	Hisato Satō (Sanfrecce Hiroshima)	22
2013	Sanfrecce Hiroshima (7)	Yokohama F. Marinos	Kawasaki Frontale	Yoshito Ōkubo (Kawasaki Frontale)	26
2014	Gamba Osaka (2)^†	Urawa Red Diamonds	Kashima Antlers	Yoshito Ōkubo (Kawasaki Frontale)	18

^† Treble with the J.League Cup

J1 League (2015–present)

The league was renamed to J1 League in 2015.

Year	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	Third place	Leading goalscorer	Goals
2015	Sanfrecce Hiroshima (8)	Gamba Osaka	Urawa Red Diamonds	Yoshito Ōkubo (Kawasaki Frontale)	23
2016	Kashima Antlers (8)	Urawa Red Diamonds	Kawasaki Frontale	Leandro (Vissel Kobe) Peter Utaka (Sanfrecce Hiroshima)	19
2017	Kawasaki Frontale	Kashima Antlers	Cerezo Osaka	Yū Kobayashi (Kawasaki Frontale)	23
2018	Kawasaki Frontale (2)	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	Kashima Antlers	Jô (Nagoya Grampus)	24
2019	Yokohama F. Marinos (6)	FC Tokyo	Kashima Antlers	Teruhito Nakagawa (Yokohama F. Marinos) Marcos Júnior (Yokohama F. Marinos)	15
2020	Kawasaki Frontale (3)	Gamba Osaka	Nagoya Grampus	Michael Olunga (Kashiwa Reysol)	28
2021	Kawasaki Frontale (4)	Yokohama F. Marinos	Vissel Kobe	Leandro Damião (Kawasaki Frontale) Daizen Maeda (Yokohama F. Marinos)	23
2022	Yokohama F. Marinos (7)	Kawasaki Frontale	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	Thiago Santana (Shimizu S-Pulse)	14
2023	Vissel Kobe	Yokohama F. Marinos	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	Anderson Lopes (Yokohama F. Marinos) Yuya Osako (Vissel Kobe)	22

Total titles won

JEF United Ichihara Chiba

‡ Keihanshin teams

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Location of Japanese football champions

Club	Champions	Runners-up	Winning seasons	Runners-up seasons
Sanfrecce Hiroshima	8	3	1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, 2012, 2013, 2015	1969, 1994, 2018
Kashima Antlers	8	3	1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2016	1993, 1997, 2017
Yokohama F. Marinos	7	9	1988–89, 1989–90, 1995, 2003, 2004, 2019, 2022	1983, 1984, 1990–91, 1991–92, 2000, 2002, 2013, 2021, 2023
Tokyo Verdy	7	4	1983, 1984, 1986–87, 1990–91, 1991–92, 1993, 1994	1979, 1981, 1989–90, 1995
Urawa Red Diamonds	5	11	1969, 1973, 1978, 1982, 2006	1970, 1971, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2014, 2016
Cerezo Osaka	4	4	1971, 1974, 1975, 1980	1968, 1972, 1978, 1982
Kawasaki Frontale	4	4	2017, 2018, 2020, 2021	2006, 2008, 2009, 2022
Júbilo Iwata	4	3	1987–88, 1997, 1999, 2002	1998, 2001, 2003
Shonan Bellmare	3	1	1977, 1979, 1981	1980
Gamba Osaka	2	3	2005, 2014	2010, 2015, 2020
JEF United Chiba	2	1	1976, 1985	1967
Kashiwa Reysol	2	1	1972, 2011	1973
Nagoya Grampus	1	2	2010	1996, 2011
Vissel Kobe	1	0	2023
NKK SC	0	3		1985, 1986–87, 1987–88
Nippon Steel Yawata	0	2		1965, 1966
Yokohama Flügels	0	1		1988–89
Shimizu S-Pulse	0	1		1999
Vegalta Sendai	0	1		2012
FC Tokyo	0	1		2019

Region	Number of titles	Clubs
Kantō	38	Kashima Antlers (8), Tokyo Verdy (7), Yokohama F. Marinos (7), Urawa Red Diamonds (5), Kawasaki Frontale (4), Shonan Bellmare (3), JEF United Chiba (2), Kashiwa Reysol (2)
Chūgoku	8	Sanfrecce Hiroshima (8)
Kansai	7	Cerezo Osaka (4), Gamba Osaka (2), Vissel Kobe (1)
Tōkai	5	Júbilo Iwata (4), Nagoya Grampus (1)