Japan tax-free shopping: the new refund system
From 1 November 2026 you pay Japan's 10% consumption tax at the till and get it back after departure. Scan your passport at a customs kiosk in the departure lobby before you check in any bags, within 90 days of purchase, and the shop refunds you by card, app or cash. No customs check, no refund.
Contents
- What changes on 1 November 2026
- Your purchase date decides which system applies
- Before you shop: the passport stamp that automated gates skip
- At the till: what you pay and what the shop records
- Can you eat the snacks before you fly?
- At the airport: the kiosk comes before check-in
- How, when and how much you get back
- Where your phone comes in
- What happens if you miss the check or the 90 days
- Posting goods home: the option that closed early
- Why Japan changed the rules
- The ¥3,000 departure tax, and the other costs that rose in 2026
- Will JESTA change any of this?
For more than a decade, tax-free shopping in Japan meant showing your passport at the till and paying about 9% less on the spot. That ends on 1 November 2026. You will pay the full, tax-inclusive price like everyone else, and the tax comes back only once Japan Customs has seen your goods leave.
The change is simple on paper and easy to get wrong in practice, mostly at the airport. Everything here comes from the National Tax Agency, the Japan Tourism Agency, Japan Customs and the amended law itself, checked on 28 September 2026.
What changes on 1 November 2026
The legal switch sits in Article 8 of the Consumption Tax Act, rewritten by Act No. 13 of 2025, promulgated on 31 March 2025 and effective on 1 November 2026. The Ministry of Finance's tax reform outline describes the new model in one sentence.
In practice, goods will be sold at a price including the consumption tax, and when export is confirmed at departure, the tax-free shop will refund the amount equivalent to the consumption tax to the purchaser (the 'refund method').
| Until 31 October 2026 | From 1 November 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay at the till | The price without tax | The full price, tax included |
| When the tax comes off | Immediately | After customs confirms export |
| Minimum spend | ¥5,000 before tax, per store per day, general goods and consumables often counted separately | ¥5,000 before tax, per store per day, all goods counted together |
| Food, drink and cosmetics | Sealed bag, ¥500,000 cap, not to be opened in Japan | No sealed bag, no cap, but still not to be used in Japan |
| Deadline to take goods out | By the day you leave Japan | Customs check within 90 days of purchase |
| Where customs checks you | Usually after security | Departure lobby, before bag check-in |
| Posting goods home yourself | Ended on 31 March 2025 | Still not allowed; shop-arranged shipping only |
Three things go away entirely: the split between general goods and consumables, the ¥500,000 cap on consumables, and the special sealed packaging. The National Tax Agency's English leaflet lists all three.
A myth worth ignoring: several travel sites say the export window was "extended from 30 days to 90 days". The law being replaced had no day count at all; goods simply had to leave by the day you did. The 90-day window from purchase is new, not a longer version of an old rule.
Your purchase date decides which system applies
This is the question most people planning an autumn trip actually have, and the answer is clean. The new system applies to goods handed over from 1 November 2026, whatever day you fly home, and there is no overlap period in which shops can choose.
So a camera bought tax-free on 30 October stays under the old rules, even if you leave in mid-November. You carry it out and show your passport at customs as before. A purchase on 1 November is under the new system from midnight, although a shop whose trading day runs past midnight may book a sale made between 00:00 and 01:00 as 31 October.
The Tax Agency's own example is the one to remember. Goods bought by 31 October and then posted home separately are taxed at customs on the spot, because under the old system the goods had to leave with you.
Before you shop: the passport stamp that automated gates skip
Tax-free sales need proof that you are a visitor, and that proof is the landing permission stamp in your passport. The Tax Agency's detailed Q&A is blunt: if the stamp is missing and your status cannot be confirmed, the shop cannot sell to you tax-free.
That catches people who entered through the automated or face-recognition gates, which do not stamp. The fix is at the airport you arrive at: after the gate and before customs, ask the staff at the immigration office for a stamp, and they will add one. Do it on arrival, because you cannot get one later at a shop.
Visit Japan Web offers an alternative, and it carries over into the new system. Since April 2023 a shop may accept its tax-free QR code, shown live on your own phone, in place of the physical passport, for visitors on Temporary Visitor, Diplomat or Official status. Screenshots are not accepted, and shops are free not to take it, so carry the passport anyway.
- Foreign visitors qualify if they are non-residents who can show they have been in Japan for less than six months.
- Temporary Visitor, Diplomat and Official status count, as do transit, cruise, crew and similar landing permits, under a list in force since 1 April 2023.
- Japanese nationals qualify after living abroad for two years or more, within six months of a temporary return, with a passport plus a family register attachment, a residence certificate or, from November, a My Number Card showing the move abroad.
At the till: what you pay and what the shop records
You pay the full price, tax included, and show your passport or the Visit Japan Web code. The shop sends a purchase record, keyed to your passport number, to the Tax Agency's system without delay. The shop must also tell you about the 90-day deadline, that customs may ask to see the goods, and that the check cannot be done after your bags are checked in.
The ¥5,000 minimum still applies, before tax, per store per day, now with every item counted together. Gold and platinum bullion and coins are excluded, but jewellery made from them qualifies. The only quantity limit is what you can personally carry out of Japan.
Anything priced at ¥1 million or more before tax is now recorded with identifying details such as its brand, model and, where there is one, its serial number. The government's January 2025 briefing names the reason: stopping luxury watches from being swapped for cheaper ones before export. Customs may also ask for the certificate of authenticity or warranty.
Can you eat the snacks before you fly?
Not if you want the tax back on them. The sealed bags are gone, but the rule behind them is not. The Japan Tourism Agency's traveller FAQ says that if food, drinks or cosmetics are consumed in Japan, you are not eligible for the refund on them, and you should declare it at the customs counter instead of the kiosk.
The catch is how receipts are judged. If even one item from a single purchase is missing at the check, none of the goods on that receipt qualify. Separate receipts and separate shops are judged separately, so the practical move is to ask for gifts and your own snacks to go through as different purchases.
Non-consumables are different. A camera or a jacket can be used in Japan and still qualify, as long as it leaves with you. Keep boxes that carry model numbers, because throwing them away can stop Customs identifying the item.
At the airport: the kiosk comes before check-in
This is the step that will cost people their refunds. The customs check now happens landside, in the international departure lobby, before you hand over any luggage. Under the old system most travellers dealt with customs after security, so habits will be wrong.
Checked baggage cannot be retrieved once it has been checked in. To complete the tax-free procedures, you must use the tax-free procedure terminal before checking in your baggage with the airline.
The kiosk takes a few seconds: scan your passport, and the screen shows a result. Green means the check is complete. Red means you take the goods to the customs inspection area nearby, so they have to be with you, not in a suitcase already on the belt.
Liquids and cosmetics that cannot go in the cabin are handled in the right order: scan and, if asked, show them first, then check them in. If you have a domestic connection, do the check at the last Japanese airport before you leave the country. On a cruise that starts and ends abroad, it is the last Japanese port.
Build in time. The Japan Tourism Agency warns that if you give up on an inspection because you are late, it counts as not completed, and that neither the airline nor Customs will compensate you if you miss your flight doing tax-free procedures. Arrive early, and keep every tax-free item in one bag you do not check until the kiosk says green.
How, when and how much you get back
The refund comes from the shop, or a refund company it has hired, not from the government. The Tourism Agency lists bank transfer, card refund, app-based refunds and cash at the departure port as possible methods, and the law itself does not prescribe any: each shop chooses.
Nobody official gives a timeframe. The refund is processed after customs confirms the export, and for details you are told to ask the shop. Customs sends each result through the Tax Agency's system as either confirmed or not exempt, and a not-exempt result never changes back.
Fees are where the fine print will bite. There is no rule on whether the traveller or the shop pays the refund handling fee, and no cap on it. The Tourism Agency notes that abroad the traveller usually pays, and that the government itself charges nothing.
For a sense of scale, department stores already charge a fee today: Takashimaya and Daimaru both take 1.55% of the pre-tax price as a handling fee under the current system. Expect something similar, and read each shop's terms before you rely on the full 10%.
- Shops may refund in coupons or points usable only at their own stores, or refund more than the tax as a promotion.
- Shops may set their own deadline for claiming, such as no refund if you have not applied within a set number of days.
- A refund that fails through your own mistake, such as a wrong card or account number, is your loss: the shop still keeps its exemption.
- The national tax-free shop association listed eleven companies preparing to handle refunds as of March 2026, Global Blue among them.
Where your phone comes in
The basic route needs no phone at all: passport at the till, passport at the kiosk. But the phone becomes genuinely useful at three points, and at the big airports it shows you something the kiosk cannot.
- At the shop, a live Visit Japan Web tax-free code can stand in for the passport, where the shop accepts it.
- At seven airports, Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Chubu, New Chitose, Fukuoka and Naha, you can do the customs check online through Visit Japan Web, on a dedicated Wi-Fi network in the departure lobby before security. You need to be registered with Visit Japan Web beforehand.
- After the check, many refunds are claimed through the refund company's app or website, and paid to a card or a QR-code wallet.
The online route matters for one reason. The Tax Agency's July 2026 Q&A says it lets you see your purchase history and exactly which receipts turned green and qualify for a refund, details the kiosk terminal does not show. The official texts describe a dedicated airport Wi-Fi for this, not mobile data, so connect to that network in the lobby.
Where mobile data helps is everything around it: loading the refund app, receiving the card-refund notice, and sorting out a problem with a shop's support before you board. How much data you really need in Japan puts numbers on a two-week trip, and why your phone can't call or text in Japan explains why a bank's SMS code may not reach you there at all.
What happens if you miss the check or the 90 days
The Tax Agency's notice to travellers puts it plainly: "No Customs procedure, No Refund." After 90 days without a check, the system marks the purchase not exempt, and the tax you paid at the till stays paid.
The 90 days run from the day after purchase. The Tax Agency's own example: buy on 1 November, and the deadline for the customs check is 30 January of the following year. That comfortably covers a long trip, but not a resident who leaves Japan months later.
Getting confirmed and then not exporting is the serious case. Under the new Article 8(6), Customs collects the tax from you immediately, and Article 65 sets a penalty of up to one year's imprisonment or a fine of up to ¥500,000 for failing to export confirmed goods without good reason.
Lost or renewed your passport mid-trip? Scan the new one at the kiosk and tell a customs officer at the counter that you also bought goods on the old one.
Posting goods home: the option that closed early
Sending tax-free purchases home by EMS and showing the postal receipt at the airport stopped working on 31 March 2025, well before the refund method arrived. Goods posted separately cannot get a customs confirmation, so under the new system they simply get no refund.
Shipping arranged by the shop is still allowed, and suits anything too big or too liquid to carry. If you sign a delivery contract in the store and the shop hands the goods to the carrier, it counts as an ordinary export: no ¥5,000 minimum, no customs check at departure, and the shop can sell at the price without tax. Not every shop offers it.
Why Japan changed the rules
Because the old system was being used as a wholesale channel. The government's January 2025 briefing counted 690 departing buyers between April 2022 and March 2024 who had each spent ¥100 million or more tax-free, worth ¥233.2 billion between them.
Nearly 90% of those big buyers were never caught, and almost all who were assessed never paid, the briefing says, because most had left the country without the money to settle. The customs check was voluntary, and nobody could be stopped from leaving for refusing it.
The Board of Audit found the same leak from another side. In an October 2024 finding it estimated about ¥340 million in tax lost at Narita and Haneda, including buyers who reached the check-in desk just before it closed. Nikkei reported one visitor who had bought about ¥1.3 billion of goods.
Honest travellers paid for it too. Some shops capped tax-free sales or stopped offering them. The Tourism Agency's count of tax-free shops fell for the first time since 2022, to 64,127 at 31 March 2026, down 372 in six months.
The stakes are large. Visitors spent a record ¥9.45 trillion in Japan in 2025, about ¥61,000 of each visitor's ¥229,000 on shopping, and JNTO counted a record 42.68 million arrivals. Europe has long run a similar model: the EU gives visitors a VAT refund when goods are shown to customs within three months of purchase.
The ¥3,000 departure tax, and the other costs that rose in 2026
Tax-free shopping is not the only thing that changed at the border this year. The International Tourist Tax, Japan's departure tax, tripled from ¥1,000 to ¥3,000 on 1 July 2026.
The rate of the International Tourist Tax shall be 3,000 yen per departure from Japan.
You do not pay it at the airport. Airlines and shipping lines add it to the ticket price. Children under two are exempt, as are transit passengers who leave within 24 hours on a through ticket, and crew fall outside the tax. Tickets bought before 1 July 2026 with the departure date already fixed keep the old ¥1,000 rate; changing that date on or after 1 July brings in the new one.
Where you sleep costs more too. Kyoto raised its accommodation tax on 1 March 2026 to between ¥200 and ¥10,000 per person per night, depending on the room rate, and Okinawa Prefecture adds a 2% lodging tax, capped at ¥2,000, from 1 February 2027.
Will JESTA change any of this?
Not yet. JESTA, Japan's electronic travel authorisation, was enacted on 29 May 2026, and it must start by 31 March 2029 on a date still to be set. Until then there is nothing to apply for.
One detail to watch: the new law lets immigration skip the landing stamp for travellers holding a JESTA authorisation, and tax-free sales currently depend on that stamp. No official guidance yet explains how the two will fit together, so this is a rule to recheck before a trip in 2028 or later.
For everything else about the trip, networks, SIM rules and data sizes, see Best eSIM for Japan. Travelling on by rail? Two weeks in Japan by train runs Tokyo to Hiroshima. Plans are on the Japan destination page, and a regional Asia plan covers onward legs to South Korea or Taiwan.
Browse Japan eSIM plans →Is tax-free shopping ending in Japan?
No. From 1 November 2026 it becomes a refund: you pay the price including consumption tax, then get the tax back from the shop after a customs check at departure. The ¥5,000 minimum per store per day still applies.
When do I get my tax refund in Japan?
After Japan Customs confirms at departure that the goods are leaving. The refund comes from the shop or its refund company, by card, bank transfer, app or cash at the airport, depending on the shop. No official timeframe is set, so check each shop's terms.
Do I need to do the customs check before checking in my luggage?
Yes. The kiosks and inspection areas are in the departure lobby before bag check-in, and checked baggage cannot be retrieved. Keep tax-free goods with you until the kiosk shows a green result, then check in.
I bought something in October and fly home in November. Which rules apply?
The old ones. The purchase date decides, so goods bought tax-free up to 31 October follow the previous system even if you leave later. Carry them out with you and show your passport at customs, and do not post them home separately.
Can I eat or use my tax-free purchases in Japan?
Not food, drink or cosmetics, if you want the tax back on them, and one missing item voids the whole receipt. Other goods, like electronics or clothes, can be used in Japan as long as they leave with you.
Is there a fee for the tax refund?
Possibly. There is no legal cap and no rule on who pays the handling fee, and the Japan Tourism Agency notes that travellers usually pay it abroad. Department stores already charge 1.55% under the current system.
I entered Japan through an automated gate. Can I still shop tax-free?
Yes, but you need a landing stamp in your passport. Ask the immigration staff after the automated gate and before customs on arrival. Some shops also accept a live Visit Japan Web tax-free code instead of the passport.
Do I pay Japan's ¥3,000 departure tax at the airport?
No. Since 1 July 2026 it is ¥3,000 per departure, added to your air or sea ticket by the airline or shipping line. Children under two and transit passengers leaving within 24 hours on a through ticket are exempt, and tickets bought before 1 July 2026 for a fixed departure date keep the old ¥1,000 rate.
Popular Japan eSIM plans
Tap a size to see live Japan prices and buy in a couple of taps.
