TAX-FREE SHOPPING
Japan Tax-Free Shopping From 1 November 2026: What Changes for Visitors
On 1 November 2026 Japan switches tax-free shopping to what the government calls the refund method. Until 31 October the consumption tax simply comes off at the till. From 1 November you pay the full price, carry the goods out of the country, and get the tax back from the shop once customs has confirmed they left with you.
The threshold does not change. What changes is when you get the money, what you can do with the goods before you fly, and one rule at departure that is going to catch a lot of people out.
Before and after, side by side
| Until 31 October 2026 | From 1 November 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| How you get the money | Taken off at the till | You pay it. The shop refunds it once customs confirms you took the goods out |
| Deadline | Take it home when you leave | Carry it out within 90 days of buying it |
| The sealed bag | Consumables sealed. Do not open before you fly | Gone. Open it and use it on the trip |
| At departure | Nothing extra to do | Customs checks you have the goods. Allow extra time |
| One receipt | Not applicable | All or nothing. One item missing and that whole receipt is refused |
| The threshold | 5,000 yen before tax, one shop, one day | Unchanged |
| Passport | The booklet itself, not a photograph | Unchanged |
How it works from 1 November
- Buy at the full price, with your passport. The shop records the purchase against your passport electronically. Nothing is stapled into the passport and there is no paper slip to keep; Japan moved tax-free records onto an electronic system several years ago.
- Carry the goods out within 90 days. The count starts the day after you buy. Buy on 1 November and the last day is 30 January.
- Customs confirms at departure. At the airport or port, customs checks that you are taking the goods out of Japan. Allow extra time for this, especially in the first weeks.
- The shop refunds the tax. Once customs has confirmed, the shop, or a company it uses for refunds, pays the consumption tax back to you.
How you receive the refund depends on the shop. The law does not fix a method. The National Tax Agency lists bank transfer, a refund to your credit card, a refund through an app, and cash at the port of departure after customs has confirmed, as possibilities. Ask at the till how that shop does it, and keep whatever it gives you.
The rule that will catch people
At departure, customs confirms purchases one receipt at a time. If even one item from a receipt is missing, none of the goods on that receipt are confirmed, and none of that tax comes back.
That matters most for exactly the things this site is about. If you buy a box of sweets to give away in Japan and four boxes to take home on the same tax-free receipt, giving the first box away costs you the refund on all five. Eating one bag of snacks from a drugstore haul does the same.
The fix is simple: anything you will use, eat or give away in Japan goes on a separate receipt, or is bought without tax-free. Keep each tax-free receipt's goods together in the same bag until you are through customs.
What stays the same
- 5,000 yen or more before tax, in one shop on one day. About 33 dollars. Two visits to the same shop on two days are counted separately, so buy the list in one go.
- The passport itself. A photograph of it or a photocopy will not do for ordinary visitors.
- Gold and platinum bullion and coins are excluded, as are things that carry no consumption tax in the first place.
What gets easier
- No more sealed bags. Food, cosmetics and medicine used to be sealed in special packaging that you were not supposed to open in Japan. That requirement goes. You can open what you bought and use it, as long as you still carry it out (see the receipt rule above).
- No more two categories. General goods and consumables used to be counted separately, each against its own minimum, and consumables had a 500,000 yen upper limit. Both the split and the upper limit go.
- Shipping straight from the shop still works. Tax-free goods can be sent abroad directly from the shop at the time of purchase, which saves carrying them at all.
If your trip straddles 1 November
What you buy on or before 31 October follows the old rules: tax off at the till, consumables sealed. What you buy from 1 November follows the new ones. Expect staff to still be learning the new process for a few weeks, and allow more time at airport customs than you would have before.
Some smaller shops may stop offering tax-free altogether. Shops that had not moved their tax-free paperwork onto the electronic system by 31 October 2026 lose their tax-free permit on that date.
Planning around it
Because the refund now depends on carrying everything out together, the order you buy in matters even more than it did. Heavy, fragile and tax-free purchases belong in the last few days of the trip. The ten-day shopping itinerary is built that way, and when to go has every public holiday to October 2027 and the weeks to avoid.