Guide · Akihabara

Part of: Japanese Etiquette: A First-Timer's Guide

Do I Need Cash in Japan? An Honest Answer From a Tokyo Guide Who Still Carries a Coin Purse

Yes, carry some — but much less than the internet tells you. Cards and phone payments now cover most of a normal day in Tokyo, and the government's own figure for 2025 puts cashless payment at 58.0% of consumer spending. Cash still wins in small restaurants, shrines, markets and older machines. Bring a card, a phone, and a few notes.

The advice online is a decade out of date in one direction and naively optimistic in the other. People arrive either clutching an envelope of ¥100,000 they will never spend, or with a single card and no plan for the ramen counter that has a handwritten cash only sign in the window.

I meet both of them on day one. Here is what actually happens.

Is Japan still a cash country?

Not really, and not for a while. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry calculated the cashless share of consumer payments at 58.0% for 2025, up from around 40% only a few years earlier. In central Tokyo, a whole day on card and phone is completely normal. The cash reputation lags behind the reality by roughly ten years.

What changed is not that people stopped liking cash — it is that the small stuff got covered. Convenience stores, chain restaurants, supermarkets, department stores, taxis, vending machines, station ticket machines and most tourist attractions take cards, IC cards or QR payments, and the terminal is usually facing you so you tap it yourself.

What has not changed is the tail. The country runs a very long tail of tiny, old, excellent businesses, and those are exactly the ones you came here to eat in. A twelve-seat counter run by one couple in their seventies has no reason to pay card fees, and they will not.

Where will I actually need cash?

Small independent restaurants and bars, shrine and temple offering boxes, some coin lockers, street markets and festival stalls, some small museums and older ticket machines, some clinics, and much of rural Japan. If a place looks like it has been there since before you were born, assume cash and be pleasantly surprised.

The one that surprises people most is the offering box at a shrine. You cannot tap a saisen-bako. Keep a few coins in a pocket if you are heading somewhere like Asakusa — see shrine and temple etiquette for what to do once you are standing in front of it.

How much cash should I carry?

There is no correct number, only a reasonable habit. I personally keep about ¥10,000–¥20,000 on me and top up at a convenience store when it drops. That is enough for two meals, a temple visit, a locker and a taxi if something goes wrong, and small enough that losing the wallet is annoying rather than catastrophic.

The logic matters more than the amount. Cash in Japan is not your primary payment method any more — it is your fallback for the places that are worth going to. So carry enough to cover a meal plus a way home, and refill it as you go rather than withdrawing a fortnight's budget at the airport.

Two practical notes from watching guests do this:

• You do not need to change money before you fly. Airport exchange rates at home are usually worse than simply withdrawing yen from a machine here.
• Coins accumulate fast. Japan has ¥1, ¥5, ¥10, ¥50, ¥100 and ¥500 coins, and paying with notes all day produces a heavy pocket by evening. A small coin purse is not a quaint affectation here; it is why every convenience store sells them. Spend coins first, especially the ¥500 ones, which are worth more than most visitors register.

Where do I withdraw money with a foreign card?

Not every ATM in Japan accepts foreign cards, which is the trap. The two reliable networks are Seven Bank ATMs, found in 7-Eleven stores, and Japan Post Bank ATMs in post offices. Both have English menus and both are everywhere. Bank-branded ATMs in the street often decline a foreign card without explaining why.

The two that work:

Japan Post Bank states an ATM usage fee of ¥220 including tax for certain overseas-issued cards, and both banks note that your own card issuer may charge on top of that. Check with your bank before you fly rather than discovering it on a receipt.

The practical version: if you need money, walk into a 7-Eleven. There is one within a few minutes' walk of almost anywhere you will be in Tokyo, the machine is inside, it is open when you are, and the menu has an English button on the first screen.

Should I pay in yen or in my own currency?

Always choose yen. When an ATM or a card terminal offers to charge you in your home currency instead — "would you like to be billed in USD?" — that is dynamic currency conversion, and the exchange rate is set by the machine's operator, not by your bank. It is almost always the worse of the two rates. Decline it and let your own bank do the conversion.

This is the single easiest money mistake to avoid in Japan and nobody warns tourists about it, because the screen presents it as a helpful convenience. It appears at ATMs, at hotel checkouts and at department store registers. The wording changes; the answer does not. Yen.

What is an IC card, and should I get one?

An IC card is a rechargeable tap card — Suica and PASMO are the Tokyo ones — used for trains and buses, and also accepted as electronic money at convenience stores, vending machines, coin lockers and many shops. It is the closest thing Japan has to a universal small-payments card, and it removes almost all of your coin problems.

Two honest caveats, because this is the part of the article most likely to age badly:

• The availability of physical, non-personalised IC cards has changed more than once in recent years, including a stretch when they were not sold at all. Rather than trust anything you read online — including this page — plan to ask at the station on arrival, or sidestep the question entirely.
• The way to sidestep it is your phone. On a compatible phone you can add an IC card in the wallet app and top it up with a card, without ever queuing at a machine. If your phone supports it, do this on the plane or at the airport and you have solved trains, convenience stores and vending machines in one move.

Once you have one, you tap it at the gate, you tap it at the register, and you say Suica de (with Suica) when staff ask how you are paying.

What's the catch?

Three things. Cash-only places cluster exactly where the good food is. Splitting a bill is not always possible. And the machine that rejects your note is usually not broken — it is old, and Japan's banknotes were redesigned in 2024, so some older vending and ticket machines still refuse the newest notes.

A few more that come up on tours:

• Card acceptance is not the same as contactless acceptance. Some places take cards but want the chip and a signature. Do not assume a tap will work everywhere.
• Splitting the bill. Many casual restaurants can split (betsu-betsu de onegaishimasu), and some genuinely cannot, especially small counters with one register. Working it out between yourselves afterwards is normal and nobody minds.
• You pay at the register, not at the table. Take the slip with you. Put the money on the little tray — see convenience stores and shops: how to pay for why the tray exists.
• You do not tip, and it is not a rounding question. There is no cash equivalent of a tip here. Why there is no tipping in Japan covers what to do instead.
• Tax-free shopping needs your passport, not a card — bring the physical passport if you are buying anything significant. Where to buy anime figures in Akihabara covers how that counter works.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get by in Tokyo with no cash at all? Probably, for a few days, if you stay on chains and major attractions. But you will end up choosing restaurants by their payment terminal rather than their food, which is a poor way to spend a trip to Japan. Carry a little and stop thinking about it.

Do Japanese ATMs work at night? Seven Bank states its ATMs are available 365 days a year, and the ones inside 7-Eleven stores are as accessible as the store itself. Bank-branch ATMs in the street may close or add fees at night, which is another reason the convenience store is the default answer.

Why did my card get declined at a machine that clearly takes cards? The usual causes are a foreign-card block at that specific ATM network, a daily limit set by your own bank, or a card your bank has flagged because it suddenly appeared in Japan. Tell your bank you are travelling before you go, and carry a second card from a different network.

Are there fees for using my card in shops? Shops in Japan do not normally add a surcharge for card payment. Your own bank's foreign transaction fee still applies, and that is between you and your bank.

Is it rude to pay with a ¥10,000 note for something small? Not at all. Staff will not sigh at you, and there is always change in the drawer. The only place it becomes awkward is a tiny stall or a ticket machine that only takes ¥1,000 notes, which is a machine problem rather than a manners problem.

What do I do with leftover coins at the end of the trip? Spend them at a convenience store on the way to the airport, or put them in one of the donation boxes at the airport. Exchanging coins back into your own currency is generally not possible, which is another argument for spending them as you go.

The first morning is when this gets decided

Money is the thing guests are quietest about and most anxious over. My Tokyo First Day Tour: Japanese Manners & Survival Class is a three-hour walking lesson on your first or second morning in Japan, starting in Asakusa. We use a real convenience store, a real register and a real offering box, so the first time you hand over money in Japan happens with a teacher beside you rather than alone with a queue behind you.

The full map of the rest: Japanese etiquette: a complete guide for first-time visitors.

About the author. I am Yuuki, a Japanese teacher and Akihabara tour guide in Tokyo. I run small-group tours in English most weeks, rated 4.96★ on Airbnb, and I have watched over 1,500 anime series — which is how most of my guests find me. There is a coin purse in my pocket and it is mostly ¥1 coins, like everyone else's.

See the Akihabara anime tour →

Sources: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2025 Ratio of Cashless Payment Among the Total Amount Paid by Consumers Calculated — cashless share 58.0% of consumer payments in 2025; Seven Bank, ATM for withdrawing Japanese yen with foreign-issued cards — over 28,000 ATMs, available 365 days a year, ¥100,000 per-withdrawal limit for overseas-issued cards; Japan Post Bank, International ATM Service — supported card marks, ¥50,000 single-transaction limit, ¥220 (incl. tax) ATM usage fee for certain overseas-issued cards.