Its duties included local administration, elections, police, monitoring people, social policy and public works.

Within months after Emperor Meiji's Charter Oath, the ancient ritsuryō structure from the late Heian period was revived in a modified form with an express focus on the separation of legislative, administrative, and judicial functions within a new Daijō-kan system.

In addition to controlling the police administration, the new department was also responsible for the Family register, civil engineering, topographic surveys, censorship, and promotion of agriculture.

On the other hand, with the establishment of State Shinto, a Department of Religious Affairs was added to the Home Ministry in 1900.

[4] In February 1941 it distributed among editors a black list of writers whose articles they were advised not to print anymore.

One of the first actions of the post-war Home Ministry was the creation of an officially sanctioned brothel system under the aegis of the "Recreation and Amusement Association", which was created on August 28, 1945.

The American authorities felt that the concentration of power into a single ministry was both a cause and a symptom of Japan's pre-war totalitarian mentality, and also felt that the centralization of police authority into a massive centrally controlled ministry was dangerous for the democratic development of post-war Japan.

The Home Ministry was formally abolished on 31 December 1947 under the Removal of Restrictions on Political, Civil, and Religious Liberties.