Category: Practical Japan

The short answer: skip the airport souvenir shops. A Japanese drugstore is the best one-stop souvenir and self-care shop in the country — and if you spend ¥5,000+ in one visit, it’s tax-free.

Matsumoto Kiyoshi, Welcia, Sugi, Daikoku — the glowing signs are everywhere, and inside is a very specific kind of paradise: products engineered with the full obsessiveness of Japanese consumer culture, at everyday prices. This is a category we know unreasonably well (our Japanese sister site reviews household goods for a living), so here’s the local’s shopping list.

⚠️ Big change coming: tax-free rules switch on November 1, 2026

Right now (through October 31, 2026): show your passport, spend ¥5,000+ tax-free at the register, consumables get sealed in a bag you’re not supposed to open in Japan.

We wrote up exactly what changes on 1 November and what to do at the airport.

From November 1, 2026: Japan switches to a refund system. You’ll pay the 10% tax at the register, then claim it back at customs when you leave (within 90 days). Upside: no more sealed bags — you can use your sheet masks the same night. Downside: one more airport queue, so leave time for it. If you’re traveling around the switch date, don’t panic when your favorite blogger’s instructions don’t match the register.

The list: what’s actually worth your suitcase space

The universally loved

• Steam eye masks (MegRhythm/めぐりズム) — self-warming masks that make a 13-hour flight home survivable. The #1 “why don’t we have these” product
• Biore UV Aqua Rich sunscreen — the watery-light texture that made Japanese sunscreen a global cult. Cheaper here than anywhere online
• Rohto eye drops — the cooling-level scale (mild to “wasabi for your eyeballs”) is an experience in itself
• Salonpas patches — the pain-relief patches that outsell everything, in sizes from fingertip to shoulder blade
• Kyusoku Jikan (休足時間) cooling leg sheets — stick on your calves after a 25,000-step Kyoto day. Travelers’ legal doping

The connoisseur picks

• Ryukakusan throat drops (龍角散) — herbal, oddly addictive, in every local’s winter pocket
• ROIHI-TSUBOKO (ロイヒつぼ膏) — the little round warming patches your grandmother would love; a top gift for older relatives
• CANMAKE / CEZANNE cosmetics — ¥600–1,500 makeup with quality that embarrasses brands charging five times more
• Quick washes & sheet masks by the box (Lululun, Kose Clear Turn) — hotel-night ritual, suitcase-friendly gifts

Approach with knowledge

• Medicines (painkillers, cold tablets) — beloved locally, but check your home country’s import rules; some common Japanese ingredients are restricted abroad. When in doubt, stick to patches and drops
• KALDI-style snack aisles — drugstores sell snacks and drinks at prices konbini can’t touch. Matcha KitKats here, not at the airport (roughly half price)

How to shop it like a local

1. Consolidate: tax-free needs ¥5,000+ (pre-tax) at one store, same day. One big Welcia run beats four small ones
2. Look for the tax-free counter sign — big urban branches have dedicated counters (and often multilingual staff); tiny neighborhood shops may not offer it at all
3. Prices vary more than you think — the same eye mask box can differ ¥300 between chains on the same street. Locals comparison-shop; feel free to be one of us
4. Pay smart: cards and IC cards work fine at all major chains (more on money here)
5. Read the label with your phone: Google Lens or the Translate app’s camera mode handles Japanese packaging surprisingly well — that’s how you tell the “cooling” eye mask from the “warming” one. It needs data, which is one more reason to have an eSIM sorted before you shop
6. Don’t do this with a suitcase: drugstore aisles are narrow and the good branches are busy. If it’s checkout day, park the bag first — booked storage runs about ¥600 a day
7. Go at night: many urban drugstores run late (some 24h) — perfect jet-lag activity

FAQ

Drugstore vs Don Quijote?
Donki is the theme park (chaotic, fun, everything); drugstores are the supermarket (calmer, often cheaper for health/beauty staples). Do Donki once for the experience, drugstores for the actual haul.

Can I open the sealed tax-free bag?
Until Oct 31, 2026: not in Japan (customs can charge you the tax if the seal’s broken). From Nov 1, 2026: no more bags — use freely, refund at departure.

Are these products available at home online?
Often yes at 2–3× the price, sometimes as questionable parallel imports. Buying at source is the whole point.

The bottom line

Budget one empty duffel and one hour in a big-city drugstore near the end of your trip. Hit the ¥5,000 tax-free line without trying, fill it with eye masks and sunscreen and patches, and you’ll be the most popular person home — for about the price of two airport gift boxes.

Going deeper: which skincare is actually worth the suitcase space · the medicine guide, including what you cannot legally take home · Don Quijote, and the free coupon · what is worth buying at the airport.

---

Tax-free rules verified August 2026; the November 2026 refund transition is legislated but operational details may evolve — check signage in store. Nothing here is medical advice; check your country’s import rules for medicines. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.

The short answer: bring your cards, plan to pay 80% of your trip with them, and carry about ¥10,000 (~$67) a day in cash for everything else — topping up from 7-Eleven ATMs as you go.

“Is Japan still a cash country?” is the wrong question in 2026. Japan is now a card country with cash pockets — over half of consumer spending is cashless — and the trick is simply knowing where those pockets are, because they happen to include some of the best parts of your trip.

Where your card just works

Convenience stores, chain restaurants, department stores, hotels, city taxis, drugstores: tap and go, including Apple Pay and Google Pay. Trains take your Suica (we settled the IC card question here) — and that same Suica balance pays at konbini and vending machines too. In central Tokyo you could genuinely go days without touching a coin.

Cash is not a limitation here. It is an admission ticket

Most guides treat Japan’s remaining cash pockets as an inconvenience to be routed around. That is the wrong way to think about it, and it will cost you the better half of the trip.

There is a correlation that every resident knows and no guidebook states plainly: the better the ramen, the less likely the card reader. The same is true of yakitori. A counter with six stools, one man, forty years of the same sauce, and a ticket machine by the door that takes coins and nothing else — that is not a shop that has failed to modernise. That is a shop that has decided its energy goes somewhere else. The card reader is often the tell that a place is aimed at you rather than at the neighbourhood.

So the cash in your pocket is not a workaround. It is what gets you through those doors.

And then there is the part that only works with coins

Japan still runs on a layer of small analogue machines that no app has replaced, and the physical act is the whole appeal.

Gachapon. The capsule toy machines that fill an entire wall in Akihabara, and sit in threes outside supermarkets everywhere else. You put the coin in. You turn the handle with your hand, and it resists slightly. Something falls, heavily, into the tray. You open a plastic capsule to find out which of twelve tiny animals you got, and it is the wrong one.

None of that survives being a tap on a screen. The coin is not the payment method — it is the mechanism. That is why the machines have not gone cashless and why nobody wants them to.

UFO catchers. Same principle, more expensive lesson. The claw is loose on purpose. You knew that and you played anyway.

Then the rest of it: festival stalls where a man is grilling squid and does not want to discuss payment technology. Rural buses where you drop coins into a box beside the driver. The tiny standing bar under the railway arches. Old-format ticket machines. Coin lockers in stations that have not been upgraded.

Running out of cash on a Saturday in a market town is a self-inflicted wound, and the injury is not financial. It is that you walked past the good place because you could not pay in it.

Practical version: keep ¥10,000 in notes and a genuine handful of ¥100 coins. Not for emergencies. For the machines.

Shrines and temples are more mixed than most guides admit. The large ones have quietly gone cashless in places: Shimogamo Jinja in Kyoto has taken cards and e-money at its amulet counter since 2019 — Visa, Mastercard, nanaco, Rakuten Edy, even PASMO — and Kanda Myojin in Tokyo accepts a phone payment for the offering box itself. Visitors arriving without coins were a large part of the reason.

But adoption is far slower here than in ordinary shops, and it is unpredictable: a famous shrine may take your card for an omamori while the small one on the hill behind it takes nothing. Carry coins anyway. Having a ¥500 coin in your pocket also means you can put something in the offering box without hunting for a terminal, which is rather the point of the gesture.

The ATM playbook (this is the important part)

Here is the fact that surprises people, and it is the reverse of what you would expect: in Japan, the bank will not give you money and the convenience store will.

Walk into a branch of one of the big Japanese banks — MUFG, SMBC, Mizuho — put a foreign card into the machine, and it will most likely decline it. Those ATMs are built for domestic cards. Meanwhile the cash machine tucked between the magazines and the hot food counter at 7-Eleven accepts practically every card on earth, in twelve languages, at four in the morning.

So: do not look for a bank. Look for a convenience store. There is one closer than the bank anyway.

Where	Cards accepted	Their fee	Per withdrawal
7-Eleven (Seven Bank) Your default	Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Cirrus, PLUS, Amex, JCB, UnionPay and most international debit networks	Mastercard, Maestro, Cirrus: none. Visa: ¥110 under ¥10,000, ¥220 above. Amex: ¥220	Up to ¥100,000 with a chip card; ¥30,000 if your card is magnetic stripe only
Lawson (Lawson Bank)	Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Cirrus, PLUS, UnionPay	Flat ¥75 — the cheapest counter fee in the country	Around ¥50,000
Japan Post Bank	Major networks	¥220 on some foreign cards	Around ¥50,000
Japanese bank branches	Often none	—	Do not rely on these

Two practical notes. If your card is a Mastercard, 7-Eleven charges you nothing at all, which makes the decision easy. And if you are carrying a card with no chip — still common on some older US accounts — your ceiling drops to ¥30,000 a go, so plan more trips.

The fee that actually costs you money is not the Japanese one. It is your own bank’s overseas withdrawal charge, which is frequently a percentage rather than a flat amount. Check it before you fly, and then withdraw in large chunks rather than small ones — ¥50,000 at a time rather than ¥10,000 five times. Seven Bank’s ATMs are open 24 hours, so there is no reason to run to empty.

Skip the airport currency counters beyond a few thousand yen of survival money, and do not bring a brick of cash from home to exchange. The rate at a convenience store ATM is the interbank rate your card issuer uses; the rate at a bureau de change is not.

So how much cash, actually?

• Baseline: ¥10,000 per person per day covers ramen lunches, shrine visits, snacks, a market splurge, and the odd cash-only izakaya — most days you’ll spend less and roll it over
• Budget travelers paying big items by card get away with ¥5,000–8,000/day
• Keep a ¥10,000–20,000 reserve note folded somewhere separate — for the rural day, the festival night, or the taxi where the card reader is “broken” (it happens)
• Coins matter: Japan will bury you in them. Feed ¥100s to lockers and vending machines, and dump the rest on your Suica or a konbini payment before flying home

FAQ

Should I exchange money before arriving?
Only pocket money for the first hours. The 7-Eleven ATM at your arrival airport gives a better effective rate than nearly any exchange counter.

Is tipping a thing?
No. Not taxis, not restaurants, not hotels. Excellent service is included; leaving coins mostly causes someone to chase you down the street to return them.

Card got declined at a small shop?
Not personal — minimum amounts and cash-only policies survive at small businesses. That’s what your ¥10,000 is for.

Can I rely on just my phone?
In Tokyo, mostly yes. Nationwide, no. Phone + physical card + daily cash is the redundancy that never fails.

What about traveler’s checks?
It’s 2026. No.

The bottom line

Cards for the predictable, cash for the memorable. ¥10,000 a day in your pocket, ¥50,000+ per ATM visit, always in yen, never tipping — that’s the entire system. The goal isn’t to avoid cash; it’s to never let a ticket machine stand between you and the best bowl of your trip.

Related: how tax-free shopping changes on 1 November 2026 (you’ll pay full price at the till and be refunded later, which affects how much card headroom you need), and what’s worth buying at a drugstore.

---

Cashless share based on METI’s 2026 release (58% of consumer payments in 2025, under the revised domestic metric). ATM specs from Seven Bank / Japan Post official pages, August 2026. Corrections via the contact page.

The short answer: hand your suitcase to your hotel’s front desk tonight, and it will be waiting at your next hotel tomorrow evening — for about ¥3,160 ($21) per big bag. This is the single most underrated travel system in Japan, locals use it constantly, and most visitors discover it on their last day. Let’s fix that.

Why this beats dragging your bag onto the Shinkansen

Japanese trains are luggage-hostile in a very polite way: oversized-baggage seats on the Tokaido Shinkansen must be reserved, station staircases appear out of nowhere, and rush-hour trains have no space for a 28-inch suitcase and your dignity. Meanwhile, the delivery network (takkyubin — you’ll see the Yamato black cat logo everywhere) moves boxes overnight with near-mythical reliability. Locals send suitcases ahead to airports, hotels, even ski resorts. The Local Test doesn’t get clearer than this.

What it costs (as of Aug 2026)

Prices below are Yamato’s standard Tokyo→Kyoto rates — the route most of you will use. Size = height + width + depth in cm.

Size	Fits	Price	approx USD
100	Carry-on suitcase	¥1,650	~$11
120	Medium suitcase	¥2,170	~$14.50
140	Large suitcase	¥2,780	~$18.50
160	Big check-in suitcase	¥3,160	~$21

The rule nobody tells you: an unboxed suitcase is charged as size 160 even if it technically measures more — up to 200cm/30kg total. In practice, ¥3,160 is the ceiling for almost any suitcase you’d fly with. (Drop it at a Yamato counter or convenience store yourself and it’s ¥100 less, but the hotel desk is the easy way.)

How to actually do it, step by step

1. Ask your front desk: “Takkyubin to my next hotel, please.” Every hotel in Japan knows this drill
2. Fill the slip with the next hotel’s name, address, phone, your name as booked, and your check-in date — hotels hold bags for arriving guests as a matter of routine
3. Pay (cash is safest; many desks take cards) and keep the tracking slip
4. Pack a one-night daypack: your bag leaves tonight and arrives tomorrow evening, so keep a change of clothes, chargers, and valuables with you

Nobody tells you this: you can do it from a convenience store

Every English guide sends you to the hotel front desk or a courier office. Both work. But the thing residents actually do, and that visitors almost never hear about, is walk into a 7-Eleven or FamilyMart and hand the bag over the counter.

That is the whole trick. Those two chains are Yamato agents. The counter that sold you an onigiri at 2am will also send your suitcase to Kyoto.

Why it matters more than it sounds:

• They are open when nothing else is. Hotel desks close, courier offices shut at 19:00. A konbini does not. If you realise at 11pm that tomorrow involves three trains with a large case, you can fix it tonight
• There is one on the way. You do not need to find the Yamato office. You need to find the shop you were already walking past
• You can send a bag to the airport from one. Airport takkyubin is accepted at convenience stores, so your case can go to Narita or Haneda while you spend the last day unencumbered

The limits, which are real

• 160cm total (all three sides added) at FamilyMart. Some 7-Elevens go higher, but not all take over 180cm or 30kg. A standard large suitcase is fine; a bike box is not
• 30kg maximum
• Outbound only. You can send from a convenience store. You cannot collect there — that is a common and expensive misunderstanding
• No chilled deliveries from konbini. If you bought something that needs Cool Takkyubin, you need a proper Yamato counter
• Lawson is a different carrier, so the slip and the prices differ. Use 7-Eleven or FamilyMart if you want the Yamato service described here

Doing it without Japanese

The slip is in Japanese and the staff member may not speak English, but this is a very well-worn transaction and it survives having no shared language. What makes it work:

1. Have the destination address in Japanese on your phone. This is the one thing that actually matters. Screenshot it from the hotel’s Japanese-language site, or ask your current hotel to write it out before you check out. An address in romaji will slow everything down
2. Write your own name exactly as the booking, plus your check-in date. Hotels routinely hold bags for guests arriving later
3. Point at the bag, say “takkyubin”. That word does all the work
4. Pay at the register and keep the slip. It has the tracking number

If the queue behind you is growing and the form is defeating you, the hotel front desk is still the easier option in daylight hours. The konbini is the answer for the other sixteen hours of the day.

Timing rules that matter

• Next-day is the standard, almost everywhere in Japan (Hokkaido, Okinawa and some regions take 2 days)
• There is no same-day Tokyo→Kyoto. Same-day exists only within a city (Kyoto same-city: ¥2,860) and from airports
• Airport shortcut: landing at Haneda? Drop bags at the Yamato counter before 11:00 and they reach central-Tokyo hotels the same evening (roughly ¥4,600 all-in for a big bag, including the airport counter fee). Narita’s cutoff is ~10:30. Landing later? It arrives next day — still better than hauling it through rush hour
• Don’t send: passports, cash, valuables, or loose lithium batteries (power banks stay with you — same rule as flying)

When NOT to bother

Skip forwarding if you’re only moving between two hotels in the same city (just taxi it), if your bag is a carry-on you can genuinely carry, or if you check out tomorrow morning and land at your next city by noon — the bag won’t beat you there. This system shines on the classic multi-city route: Tokyo → Hakone/Kyoto → Osaka, where each transfer day becomes a free sightseeing day.

FAQ

Will the next hotel accept my bag before I check in?
Yes — standard practice nationwide. Write your booking name and check-in date on the slip and it’ll be in your room or behind the desk when you arrive.

When do I hand it over for next-day delivery?
The evening before, or by early morning pickup (ask the desk for their cutoff — usually before ~9:00).

Does my suitcase need a box?
No. Suitcases travel naked with a tag. That’s normal here.

Can I send bags to the airport for my flight home?
Yes — allow an extra day, and Yamato/JAL ABC counters at the terminal hold them for pickup. Locals do this routinely.

Is it safe?
This is Japan’s everyday logistics backbone, with liability coverage up to ¥300,000 per item. Losing a bag is national-news rare.

The bottom line

¥3,160 to turn a sweaty luggage-hauling day into a hands-free one is the best money-for-misery trade in Japanese travel. Book nothing, download nothing — just talk to your front desk tonight.

Station-specific storage: Tokyo, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Asakusa & Ueno.

If the bag just needs to disappear for the day rather than travel somewhere, that’s storage, not forwarding — we covered lockers, counters and booked storage in Tokyo separately.

---

Rates are Yamato’s standard cash rates as of August 2026 (last revised Oct 2025) and vary slightly by route; verify at the desk. Corrections welcome via the contact page.

The short answer: iPhone users don’t need a plastic card at all. Android users (with phones bought outside Japan) do — and 2026 finally gave them two good options.

The IC card situation changed more in the last three years than in the previous twenty: sales suspended during the chip shortage (2023), resumed (March 2025), a new app for tourists, a brand-new tourist Pasmo (May 2026), and Tokyo’s private railways opening up to credit-card tap-to-ride (March 2026). Most guides online still describe a world that no longer exists. Here’s the current one.

If you have an iPhone: go digital, skip the queue

Any iPhone 8 or newer can hold a Suica in Apple Wallet — no Japanese phone, no deposit, balance never expires. Add card, top up, tap through the gate with your phone (or Apple Watch). For most travelers this is strictly better than plastic: you can’t lose it, and you top up from the sofa.

One dependency: adding and topping up Mobile Suica needs a data connection at the moment you do it, so sort your eSIM first and set the card up while you’re still at the gate.

The one catch is Visa. Foreign-issued Visa cards still fail Apple Wallet top-ups often enough in 2026 that you shouldn’t rely on them. Two clean workarounds:

• Welcome Suica Mobile app (JR East’s official tourist app, iPhone-only): in-app top-ups succeed with more cards, valid 180 days, and it can even book Shinkansen/Narita Express seats. This is the route for Visa-only travelers
• Cash top-up: even a mobile Suica can be topped up with cash at 7-Eleven ATMs and convenience stores — the universal fallback

If you have an Android bought outside Japan: it’s plastic, and that’s fine

Here’s the blunt truth most sites bury: Google Wallet Suica does not work on phones sold outside Japan — they lack the FeliCa secure element, and no app or setting fixes that. Don’t waste an evening trying. Get a physical card:

Card	Deposit	Valid	Where	Good to know
Welcome Suica	None	28 days	Narita/Haneda machines, JR East Travel Service Centers	Cash top-up only. No refunds — spend it down
TOURIST PASMO (new, May 2026)	None	28 days	Haneda (Keikyu) & Narita (Keisei) counters/machines	Can be purchased by credit card — the only one
Regular Suica/Pasmo	¥500	No expiry	Any station machine (sales resumed Mar 2025)	Refundable at JR East stations (¥220 fee) — best for 28+ day stays and repeaters

“Can’t I just tap my credit card like in London?”

Almost — and 2026 made real progress. Since March, 729 stations across Tokyo’s subways and private railways accept contactless credit cards at the gate (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, JCB). But the big asterisk: JR East never joined. The Yamanote line, Chuo line, the trains you’ll ride most — no card tap. Same story in Kansai: private rail yes, JR no.

So the honest 2026 status: tap-to-ride is a useful backup, not a replacement. You still want a Suica-family card in your pocket or phone.

Everything else worth knowing

• One card works everywhere: Suica bought in Tokyo works on Osaka/Kyoto trains, buses, konbini, vending machines — the 10 major IC cards are interoperable nationwide
• Top-ups are cash-first: station machines and convenience stores. Physical tourist cards can’t be topped up by credit card
• Refunds are a trap: Welcome Suica, TOURIST PASMO, and the mobile tourist app are all no-refund. The move: run your balance down at a konbini on the last day (it pays for snacks perfectly)
• Kids under 12: get child versions of the physical tourist cards (passport needed) — mobile apps require 13+, and credit-card tap gates can’t charge child fares
• Kansai-only trip? Just buy an ICOCA locally (¥500 deposit, refundable at JR West stations) — same interoperability, refund where you actually are

FAQ

Can I still buy a regular Suica in 2026?
Yes. Unrestricted sales resumed March 1, 2025 after the chip-shortage suspension. Any guide saying otherwise is outdated.

Why won’t my Visa top up Suica in Apple Wallet?
A long-running issue with foreign-issued Visa cards. Use the Welcome Suica Mobile app (in-app top-ups behave better) or cash. It’s not your phone’s fault.

Does a Tokyo-bought card work in Osaka and Kyoto?
Yes, everywhere — trains, buses, shops. Just don’t ride a single journey across IC regions; buy a paper ticket for that leg.

Can I get my leftover balance back?
Only on regular (non-tourist) cards, at the operator’s own stations. Tourist cards: no refunds by design — spend it down.

How much should I load?
Start with ¥3,000–5,000. Tokyo train rides run ¥150–300; a heavy sightseeing day burns about ¥1,000–1,500 on transport.

The bottom line

iPhone: Suica in Apple Wallet (Mastercard/Amex) or the Welcome Suica Mobile app (Visa). Android from abroad: TOURIST PASMO if you want to pay by card at the airport counter, Welcome Suica otherwise, regular Suica if you’ll stay 28+ days or come back. And your contactless credit card? A nice-to-have for the subway — never the whole answer.

---

Verified against JR East, PASMO and operator sources, August 2026. This landscape changes fast (it changed twice this year already) — spot something outdated? Tell us.