- no fee at any step, on the official site only
- Free
- per traveler, for immigration and customs together
- 1 QR code
- family members you can add to a single account
- 10
On this page
Visit Japan Web is the Japanese government's free online service for filling in your arrival card and customs declaration before you land. You enter your passport, flight and address in Japan once, and you get one QR code per traveler to scan at immigration and at customs. This guide follows the official manual as revised on 1 November 2026 (version 3.17) and was checked on 14 November 2026.
What is Visit Japan Web, and where is the official site?
Visit Japan Web (often shortened to VJW) is run by Japan's Digital Agency. It covers two arrival procedures, immigration clearance and the customs declaration, plus a tax-free shopping service for tourists. Japanese citizens and foreign residents coming home can use it too, for the customs part.
There are only two addresses to know. The information page is services.digital.go.jp/en/visit-japan-web and the login page is vjw.digital.go.jp. Both end in digital.go.jp, the Japanese government domain. The service is available in English, Japanese, simplified and traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, German and French.
One more thing it is not: a visa. Visit Japan Web replaces two paper forms and nothing else. If you are unsure whether your passport lets you enter visa-free, read our guide to the Japan tourist visa and entry requirements first, and the overview of Japan visas if you plan to work, study or stay long term.
Is Visit Japan Web mandatory in 2026?
No, it is not a condition of entry. Paper forms are still handed out by cabin crew and stocked on the writing desks before immigration: the Disembarkation Card for Foreigner and the yellow customs declaration. Officers accept them as before. We did not find any official text making the online version compulsory, and the Japan Customs passenger page only says that it recommends the electronic declaration.
What the QR code changes is the lane you can use. Seven international airports have electronic customs gates, and joint kiosks that read your passport and your QR code together were reported at Kansai, Haneda and Narita from April 2025. Without the code you queue for a staffed desk with your paper forms.
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| Tourist or business visitor arriving by air | Visit Japan Web recommended, paper accepted |
| Japanese citizen or resident with a re-entry permit | Customs declaration only, through the dedicated section |
| Transit without leaving the airside area | Nothing to fill in |
| Layover where you enter Japan, even for a few hours | Register the trip as a normal arrival |
| Airline asks for proof at online check-in | Show the QR code, or say you will complete the paper forms on board |
Cruise and ferry passengers should expect paper: travelers report that ports still work with printed forms, and we could not confirm the QR code is read at every sea terminal. Ask your cruise line before you rely on it.
When to fill in Visit Japan Web
Do it a few days before you fly, once your flight number and first hotel are fixed. The system accepts arrival dates up to 31 December of the following year, so there is no reason to wait for the departure lounge.
You will read everywhere that the form must be completed at least six hours before landing. That figure comes from press reports published when the joint kiosks opened in April 2025. We did not find it in the current official manual, which lets you edit your answers until the moment you display the code. Treat six hours as a sensible safety margin and not as a deadline: if you forgot, you can still fill it in on the airport Wi-Fi after landing, or take the paper forms.
If your plans move, open the trip and correct the arrival date or the flight number. A new trip is only needed for a new journey. The account keeps up to 100 trips, and a button copies the details of a previous one, which helps frequent visitors and anyone comparing flights to Japan with changing schedules.
How to fill out Visit Japan Web, step by step
Allow 15 to 20 minutes for one traveler, and have three things next to you: your passport, your flight number, and the name, postcode and phone number of your first accommodation. The labels below are those of the English interface.
Step 1: create your account
On the login page choose Create an account, tick the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy, then enter an email address and a password. The password needs at least 10 characters with an upper-case letter, a lower-case letter, a number and a symbol. After the captcha, a confirmation code arrives by email.
Keep the confirmation screen open while you fetch the code. Closing that screen cancels the code and you start again. On a phone, open your mail in another tab or app and come back.
Two-factor login is optional. If you turn it on, the service works with Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator, which is what the search "Visit Japan Web authentication app" refers to. Remember that you will need that authenticator on the phone you carry to Japan.
Step 2: register your passport under Your Details
Two questions come first. To "Japanese government-issued passport confirmation", foreign visitors answer No. To "Re-entry permit confirmation", answer Yes only if you live in Japan and are returning on a re-entry permit or special re-entry permit, which applies to holders of a Japan work visa and other residents.
Then choose Scan with camera. Lay the photo page flat, fit it in the white frame and tap Scan the passport. Glare on the laminate is the usual cause of failure, so move away from overhead lights or switch to "Enter information yourself". Either way, compare every character with the passport: number, name in Latin letters (39 characters at most), nationality and date of birth.
The service flags a passport with less than six months left ("Check remaining length of passport") and refuses an expired one. Japan's own rule is a passport valid for your stay, but your airline or a transit country may ask for more, so take the warning as a prompt to check.
Step 3: add the family members traveling with you
Under "Details of family members traveling with you" you can add up to 10 people who will go through immigration with you. Each one is entered separately, with a passport scan. Skip this step if you travel alone or if every adult prefers a personal account.
Step 4: register your trip
Tap Register new planned entry/return. Enter the arrival date, the airline and the flight number, the point of embarkation, and your address in Japan. Typing the hotel's seven-digit postcode and tapping "Enter automatically using postal code" fills in the prefecture and city for you. Add the hotel name and its phone number.
If your airline is missing from the list, pick ZZ: OTHER AIRLINE and type the full flight number, letters included. For a journey with connections, the flight that counts is the last one, the flight that lands in Japan. On a codeshare, enter the number of the airline actually operating the aircraft.
Step 5: complete the immigration and customs section
Open the trip and choose Immigration clearance and Customs declaration. The first screens repeat the paper arrival card: occupation, country and city of residence, last flight number, purpose of visit and intended length of stay. The stay fields stop at 180 days, more than enough for a visa-free visit.
Next come the Yes/No questions printed on the back of the paper card (deportation history, criminal convictions, drugs or weapons in your possession), then the customs questions. You declare whether you carry prohibited or restricted goods, goods above the duty-free allowance, commercial samples, items carried for someone else, more than ¥1 million in cash, and unaccompanied baggage sent separately. If nothing was shipped ahead, the quantity of unaccompanied articles is 0.
A health questionnaire may also appear in the menu. It is informative only. The quarantine "Fast Track" was withdrawn in April 2023 and Japan no longer asks for a test or a vaccination certificate.
Step 6: display your QR code
Back on the trip page, tap Display QR Code, then "Agree and display the QR Code". The screen is titled "Immigration clearance and Customs declaration" and shows a single code. That is the one you scan at both checkpoints. You can still tap Edit and change an answer before arrival, and the code updates.
If you hold an electronic visa, the optional "Link VISA" step copies its details into your trip. Visa-exempt travelers can ignore it.
Visit Japan Web QR code: how to use it at immigration and customs
Older guides describe two codes, one for immigration and one for customs. That is out of date. The current manual shows one combined QR code per person, plus a separate tax-free code for shoppers who qualify.
On arrival, the order is always the same. First immigration: at a joint kiosk or at the officer's desk you present your passport and the QR code, give fingerprints and a photo, and receive the landing permission sticker in your passport. Then you collect your bags. Last comes customs, where you scan passport and code at an electronic terminal and walk through the gate, or show the code to an officer.
According to press reports from April 2025, joint kiosks opened at Kansai (both terminals), Haneda Terminals 2 and 3 and Narita Terminal 3, with a claimed saving of around 20 minutes. We could not find an official list of terminals for 2026, so do not plan a tight connection around it. Electronic customs gates exist at seven international airports, and the tax-free service lists the seven main ones: Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Chubu, Fukuoka, New Chitose and Naha.
Visit Japan Web for families and children
One adult can handle the whole family from a single account: the account holder plus up to 10 relatives arriving together. Children and babies are entered like adults, each with a passport.
The point that trips families up is this: every person has a separate QR code, children included. On the QR screen a drop-down list called "Persons subject to Immigration clearance and Customs declaration" switches from one traveler to the next. At the kiosk you scan each passport with its matching code, one after the other, from the same phone.
For customs, the form asks whether you want to "enter customs declarations for accompanying family members at the same time". Answering Yes lets you fill in the declaration once for everyone and skip repeated fields. Be aware that it overwrites any declaration already saved for those family members.
Two practical limits. A relative on a different flight should not share your trip, because the flight number would be wrong. The simplest fix is a separate account for that person. And if the phone holding everyone's codes runs out of battery, everyone is back to paper, which is a good reason for the second adult to log in to the same account on another phone before leaving.
Visit Japan Web app, offline use and what to do without a phone
There is no Visit Japan Web app in the App Store or Google Play. What the official manual describes is a web app: the site itself, pinned to your home screen. On an iPhone, open the site in Safari, tap Share, then "Add to Home Screen". On Android, Chrome offers "Install Visit Japan Web" in the address bar or "Add to Home screen" in the menu.
Installing it matters because it unlocks offline use. Log in once while connected, and the following works without any signal:
| Action | Offline | Needs a connection |
|---|---|---|
| Display the immigration and customs QR code | Yes | |
| View and edit details already saved | Yes | |
| Register a new trip | Yes | |
| Add or edit family members | Yes | |
| Display the tax-free QR code | Yes, after one online display, until it expires | First display |
| Tax refund procedure at departure | Yes |
The manual adds a caution: using several devices offline can leave them out of sync. Make your changes on one phone, online, and let the other one refresh.
Arrival halls have free Wi-Fi, but it is crowded when three wide-body flights land together. If you want data from the jet bridge, set up a Japan eSIM before departure, or compare it with a pocket Wi-Fi or Japanese SIM card if you travel as a group.
No smartphone, dead battery or no account: the paper forms
You can register on a computer and print the QR code screen, which many travelers tuck into their passport. Without any of that, take the two paper forms from the crew or from the desks before immigration: one Disembarkation Card for Foreigner per person, and one customs declaration per family traveling together. Fill them in with a pen in block capitals, with the same information as online: flight number, address and phone number in Japan, length of stay. Keeping your hotel's address on paper saves you if the phone is dead.
Japan customs declaration: allowances and what you must declare
The customs questions are quick to answer once you know the thresholds. These are the duty-free allowances per adult published by Japan Customs, checked on 14 November 2026. Dollar amounts use a rate of about ¥160 to US$1.
| Item | Duty-free allowance |
|---|---|
| Alcohol | 3 bottles of about 760 ml each |
| Tobacco | 200 cigarettes, or 50 cigars, or 10 packs of heated tobacco, or 250 g of other tobacco |
| Perfume | 2 ounces (about 56 ml) |
| Other goods | Total overseas market value under ¥200,000 (about $1,250). Items worth less than ¥10,000 (about $63) each are not counted |
| Cash, cheques, securities | Declare above ¥1 million (about $6,260) |
| Gold of 90% purity or more | Declare above 1 kg |
Two examples. Two bottles of whisky and one of wine make three bottles, so you answer No to the allowance question. A single watch bought abroad for ¥250,000 (about $1,565) gets no allowance at all, because one item above ¥200,000 is taxed on its full value, and you answer Yes. Narcotics, firearms, explosives and counterfeit goods are prohibited outright, and some common medicines are restricted, so check before you pack prescription stimulants or strong painkillers.
Visit Japan Web and tax-free shopping since 1 November 2026
Japan changed its tax-free system on 1 November 2026. For purchases made from that date you pay the full price including consumption tax in the shop, and the tax is refunded once your departure with the goods is confirmed. Purchases up to 31 October 2026 followed the old system, with the tax taken off at the till.
What stays: the minimum of ¥5,000 before tax (about $31) per shop, per day. What changed: a single deadline of 90 days between purchase and departure for all goods, and the end of the sealed bags and of the separate rules for consumables. On a ¥30,000 purchase taxed at 10%, you now pay ¥33,000 (about $207) and get ¥3,000 (about $19) back.
At the airport, go to the tax-free procedure terminal in the international departure hall before you check in your bags, because customs may ask to see the goods. A green result ends the procedure. A red one sends you to a customs desk. Refunds work receipt by receipt: one missing item cancels the refund for that whole receipt.
Visit Japan Web comes in at two points. In seven airports (Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Chubu, Fukuoka, New Chitose and Naha) you can start the Tax Refund Procedure from your phone in place of the terminal, in the part of the departure hall covered by a dedicated Wi-Fi network, before security. And the service still generates a Tax-Free QR Code that participating shops scan in place of your passport.
Both are reserved for Temporary Visitor status (plus diplomatic and official passports). Japanese citizens and residents do not see the button. To activate the tax-free code you add the photo from your passport and scan the QR code printed on the landing permission sticker placed in your passport at immigration. The code expires and has to be refreshed online, and few shops accept it yet, so carry your passport when you shop.
Visit Japan Web mistakes that slow you down at the airport
- Wrong flight number. Enter the last flight, the one landing in Japan, and the operating carrier on a codeshare. Not your first leg from home.
- Stopping after the trip is registered. A saved trip produces no code. The QR button only works once the immigration and customs section is complete.
- A name that differs from the passport. Middle names, hyphens and the order of names must match the machine-readable line. Check the camera scan character by character, especially O and 0.
- One code for the whole family. Each traveler has a separate code in the drop-down list. Scan the right one with the right passport.
- Incomplete address in Japan. Hotel name, postcode and phone number are all expected. For a private rental, use the host's address and number.
- Counting on airport Wi-Fi. Install the web app and open the code before boarding, or keep a screenshot.
- Paying a third-party site. The official service is free. A fee means you are on the wrong site.
- Treating it as a visa. A QR code does not give a right of entry. Travelers on a working holiday visa or any other long-stay status still present their visa and receive a residence card at the main airports.
Visit Japan Web and JESTA: nothing to do before 2028
JESTA is the planned Japanese travel authorisation for visa-exempt visitors, comparable to the American ESTA. According to press coverage in March 2026, the cabinet approved the bill and the government is aiming for fiscal year 2028 (April 2028 to March 2029). The fee and the exact start date have not been announced.
In 2026 there is no JESTA to apply for, and any site selling one is a scam. No official source says yet how JESTA will connect with Visit Japan Web, so we will update this page when the Japanese government publishes the details. Until then, the official Visit Japan Web manual and the Japan Customs passenger page are the two references to trust.