Wagyu grades, A1 to A5

The grade is two independent judgments printed together, and confusing them is the root of most of the misunderstanding.

• The letter is yield, A to C

  How much saleable meat the carcass gave up relative to its weight, calculated from rib eye area, rib thickness, subcutaneous fat thickness and chilled carcass weight. A is 72 percent and above, B is 69 and above, C is below 69.This is a butcher’s number. It says nothing about how the steak eats.

• The number is quality, 5 to 1

  Judged on marbling, meat brightness, meat firmness and texture, and fat brightness and quality. 5 is the top. This is the number that describes the eating, and it is the one worth reading.

So a B5 carcass yielded less meat than an A5 but was judged the same on quality, which is why B5 Wagyu is not a downgrade in any sense a diner would notice. Kobe beef, which has the strictest brand rules of any Japanese Wagyu, accepts A4, A5, B4 and B5 precisely because the letter is not about quality.

Four separate factors go into it, and the grade is limited by the weakest one. A carcass with spectacular marbling and slightly off fat colour does not get a 5. That single rule explains most of the apparent unfairness in the system, and it is why a heavily marbled steak can carry a grade lower than its appearance suggests.

It also means the number alone hides which factor was the limiting one. Two A4 carcasses can be A4 for entirely different reasons: one held back by marbling, another by texture, with the marbling as good as many A5s.

The Beef Marbling Standard runs from No.1 to No.12 and maps into the quality grade in fixed bands. This is the most useful table on the page, because BMS is the number that moves within a grade.

• Grade 5, BMS 8 to 12

  Described in the standard as very abundant. Five steps of marbling inside a single grade, which is why an A5 BMS 12 Wagyu and a BMS 8 steak are both sold as A5. Wagyu BMS 12 is the ceiling of the scale, not a separate grade above A5.

• Grade 4, BMS 5 to 7

  Somewhat abundant. The band that most A4 Wagyu sits in.

• Grade 3, BMS 3 to 4

  Standard. Ordinary good beef by Japanese measure.

• Grade 2, BMS 2

  Somewhat scarce.

• Grade 1, BMS 1

  Very scarce. The bottom of the scale.

A seller quoting Wagyu BMS is giving you more information than one quoting the grade, and a menu naming both plus a prefecture is doing everything the standard used on this site asks for.

A4 Wagyu is the most searched grade after A5, and the assumption behind the search is usually that it is the compromise option. That is not quite right in either direction.

A4 means at least one of the four quality factors scored 4, and that factor is not necessarily marbling. A4 Wagyu beef can be marbled at BMS 7, one step below the A5 threshold and well above what most people have eaten. On price, an A4 Wagyu steak costs meaningfully less than the same cut at A5 from the same prefecture, and the A4 Wagyu price gap is usually wider than the difference on the plate.

There is also a practical argument that has nothing to do with grading. A5 at the top of its range is extraordinarily rich, which is why it is so often sold in three and four ounce portions, on a hot stone, or sliced for shabu-shabu. If you want a full-sized steak you can finish, A4 is frequently the more enjoyable plate, and plenty of Japanese kitchens would tell you the same.

These three account for a surprising share of the searching and almost none of the market, which is itself the answer.

• A3 Wagyu

  Quality grade 3, BMS 3 to 4, which the standard simply calls standard. Genuinely good beef and common in Japan for everyday eating. Rarely exported, because shipping refrigerated beef around the world favours the grades that command a premium. An A3 Wagyu price in the United States, where you can find one, still reflects the cost of getting it here rather than the grade.

• A2 Wagyu

  Quality grade 2, BMS 2, somewhat scarce marbling. Sold in Japan, effectively absent from export menus.

• A1 Wagyu

  Quality grade 1, BMS No.1, very scarce marbling, and the bottom of the entire scale. This is the one worth being clear about, because the search volume suggests a lot of people believe A1 Wagyu is the top grade, probably reading the 1 as first place. It is last place. A Japanese A1 Wagyu steak is not a luxury product and is not what anyone imports.

If you are being offered A1 Wagyu at a price that implies a premium, the grade is not supporting that price and it is fair to ask what is.

B5 Wagyu turns up on menus and confuses people, because the letter looks like a school report. It is not. A B5 carcass simply yielded proportionally less meat, which matters to the person breaking it down and not at all to the person eating it. On the quality axis, the axis that describes the beef, a B5 and an A5 scored identically.

C grades exist and complete the fifteen, but a C-grade carcass is not what a Wagyu programme is aiming to produce and you are very unlikely to be offered one.

This is the limit of the whole system, and it is why this directory does not treat a grade as provenance. The Japanese scale grades beef, not Wagyu specifically, and it says nothing about:

• Breed

  The scale is applied to carcasses generally. A grade does not establish that an animal was Wagyu at all, let alone which of the four Japanese breeds it came from.

• Prefecture or brand

  A5 is not Miyazaki, Kagoshima or Kobe. Those are origins and brands with their own rules, and each is tracked separately here.

• Cut

  An A5 chuck and an A5 striploin came off the same graded carcass and are not remotely the same eating. The grade travels with the animal, not the cut.

Which is the short version of this site’s whole position: a grade plus a country is a weaker claim than a grade plus a named prefecture, and A5 on its own tells you less than the person quoting it usually implies.

Is A1 Wagyu good?

A1 is the lowest grade on the Japanese scale, not the highest. The number is quality and it runs 1 to 5, so A1 means quality grade 1, which the grading authority describes as very scarce marbling at BMS No.1. It is the opposite of what most people searching for A1 Wagyu expect. You will almost never see it sold as a premium product, because a carcass that grades 1 is not what anyone imports or puts on a tasting menu. If a seller is advertising A1 Wagyu at a premium price, that is worth a question.

What is A4 Wagyu, and is it worse than A5?

A4 Wagyu is quality grade 4, one step below A5, with marbling in the BMS 5 to 7 band against A5's 8 to 12. It is not simply a lesser steak. The quality number is set by the lowest of four separate factors, so an A4 carcass can be limited by meat colour or fat quality while still being heavily marbled. Many people prefer A4 for a full-sized steak, because A5 at the top of its range is extremely rich and is often served in small portions for that reason.

What is the difference between A3 Wagyu and A5?

Two quality grades, and a large gap in marbling. A3 sits in the BMS 3 to 4 band, which the grading standard calls standard marbling, while A5 requires BMS 8 to 12. A3 is genuinely good beef and is common in Japan for everyday eating. It is rarely exported as a premium product, because the economics of shipping refrigerated beef across the world favour the top grades.

What does BMS mean in Wagyu?

BMS is the Beef Marbling Standard, a scale from No.1 to No.12 measuring how much intramuscular fat the ribeye shows. It maps into the quality grade in fixed bands: BMS 8 to 12 is grade 5, BMS 5 to 7 is grade 4, BMS 3 to 4 is grade 3, BMS 2 is grade 2 and BMS 1 is grade 1. This is why BMS 12 Wagyu and BMS 8 Wagyu are both sold as A5 while sitting four steps apart on marbling, and why a seller quoting BMS is telling you more than one quoting the grade alone.

What does the letter in A5 or B5 mean?

The letter is yield grade, which measures how much saleable meat the carcass produced relative to its weight, calculated from rib eye area, rib thickness, subcutaneous fat thickness and chilled carcass weight. A is 72 percent and above, B is 69 and above, C is below 69. It is a measure of butchery efficiency rather than eating quality, which is why B5 Wagyu can be excellent: the 5 is the part describing the meat. Kobe beef qualifies at A4, A5, B4 or B5.

How many Wagyu grades are there?

Fifteen. Three yield grades from A to C multiplied by five quality grades from 5 to 1 gives A5 through C1. Almost all of the conversation in the United States is about one of those fifteen, which is part of why the scale is so widely misunderstood.

Does a Japanese grade apply to American or Australian Wagyu?

No. The A-to-C and 1-to-5 system is issued to carcasses graded in Japan under Japan's standard. American Wagyu is graded by the USDA and described by breed documentation, and Australian beef uses its own marbling scales. A domestic seller using A5 as a comparison is speaking loosely, not quoting a grade anyone issued.

Every figure on this page, the yield thresholds, the four yield inputs, the five marbling bands and their BMS ranges, and the count of fifteen stages, is taken from the grading standard published by the body that sets it.

• Japan Meat Information Service Center, beef grading , describing the Dressed Carcass Transaction Standards set by the Japan Meat Grading Association.
• Agriculture and Livestock Industries Corporation , on yield, quality and BMS.