A coherent receiver performing coherent detection on polarization multiplex light into which first polarization light and second polarization light are multiplexed, and splitting the polarization multiplex light into the first polarization light and the second polarization light, an adaptive equalizer compensating the waveform distortion of a signal superimposed onto the first polarization light by using a first FIR filter, compensating the waveform distortion of a signal superimposed onto the second polarization light by using a second FIR filter, and by decoding each of the signals whose waveform distortion has been compensated, generating their respective decoded data, an error ratio calculator calculating the bit error ratio of each decoded data generated by the adaptive equalizer, a margin calculator calculating a margin from the bit error ratio of an error correction limit in each bit error ratio calculated by the error ratio calculator, and a tap number controller setting up the numbers of taps of the first and second FIR filters by referring to the respective margins calculated by the margin calculator are included.