Fipronil フィプロニル
Other insecticides: Classes that fit none of the above (phenylpyrazoles, pyridine azomethines and others).
In Japan
- Registration
- Registered as a pesticide (first registered April 25, 1996). 35 formulated products contain it.
- Main registered crops
- rice (paddy), cabbage, broccoli, chrysanthemum, sugarcane, sweet potato and others (7 crop names in the registered uses)
- Toxicity class
- Active ingredient: Deleterious (ordinary at 1% or less, and for 5% microcapsule formulations)Classes of the 35 formulated products (diluted products sold): ordinary substance 33, deleterious substance 2Classes under Japan's Poisonous and Deleterious Substances Control Act.
- ADI (acceptable daily intake)
- 0.00019 mg per kg of body weight per day
- ARfD (acute reference dose)
- 0.02 mg per kg of body weight
- Evaluation
- Food Safety Commission of Japan, August 28, 2025
ADI: the amount considered to have no effect on health even if eaten every day for a lifetime. ARfD: the amount considered to have no effect on health when eaten at one time (within 24 hours). Both are set by the Food Safety Commission of Japan, mainly from animal studies.
In Japan's national residue testing (fiscal 2024)
| Produce | Detected / tested | Detection rate | Over the limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic | 0 / 3,227 | 0.0% | 0 |
| Imported | 0 / 1,751 | 0.0% | 0 |
Tests are counted as pesticide × sample. Any detection counts as “detected” — it does not mean the limit was exceeded. For pesticides outside the top 20, figures are summed from the food-by-food tables of the full report.
Evaluations abroad
- WHO acute toxicity class
- II (Moderately hazardous), LD50 92 mg/kgBased on the toxicity of the undiluted active ingredient given once, mainly to rats by mouth (LD50 = the dose that kills half; the smaller, the stronger the acute toxicity). It is not an assessment of the safety of residues in food.
- EU
- Not approved in the EU (approval ended September 2017)Designated a “candidate for substitution” (to be replaced if safer alternatives exist).EU ADI: 0.0002 mg/kg bw/day; ARfD: 0.009 mg/kg bw
- IARC (carcinogenicity)
- No matching entry in the IARC list (not evaluated or out of scope, including Group 3)
Good to know
- The EU ended its approval in 2017. In 2017 in Europe, it was illegally mixed into a cleaning agent for killing mites in poultry houses, contaminating eggs, which became a problem.
- An experiment with simulated paddies treated with fipronil in nursery boxes found that Akiakane dragonflies did not emerge (Jinguji et al. 2009). In Japan, registration criteria for aquatic organisms, birds and wild bees have been set (Ministry of the Environment, June 2026).
Related explainers
Sources
- FAMIC (Food and Agricultural Materials Inspection Center), pesticide registration information (as of Sept. 30, 2026) (Japanese)
- Food Safety Commission of Japan, risk assessment report on Fipronil (August 28, 2025) (Japanese)
- MHLW, results of pesticide residue testing in foods, fiscal 2024 (Japanese)
- Consumer Affairs Agency, daily intake survey of pesticide residues in foods, fiscal 2024 (Japanese)
- WHO Recommended Classification of Pesticides by Hazard 2019
- EU Pesticides Database (Fipronil)
Last checked 2026-10-01. Registrations and evaluations change over time. This page is a translation of our Japanese page; if they differ, the Japanese page is the reference.