The short answer
Install your eSIM at home, keep your passport and, if you filed one, the Visit Japan Web QR code ready, and walk out with data already running. Fukuoka Airport, IATA code FUK, is 3 km east of Hakata Station in Hakata-ku, which makes it one of the closest big-city airports in Japan. It is the principal airport of Kyushu and the fourth busiest in the country, with 25 million passengers in 2018, and its second runway opened on 20 March 2025. One thing shapes every arrival here: a mandatory curfew from 22:00 to 07:00, at the request of the neighbours.
Immigration comes first
EU and Turkish passports enter visa-free for stays of up to 90 days as temporary visitors. Immigration photographs and fingerprints every foreign visitor, so the queue moves steadily rather than fast. Visit Japan Web, the Digital Agency's service, lets you do the immigration and customs steps online before you land and gives you a QR code to show at the desk; it also covers tax-free shopping during your stay.
Two rules from the UK Foreign Office are worth knowing before you land: you must carry your passport at all times, and some common prescription and over-the-counter medicines are illegal to bring in, so check yours before you pack.
Two terminals, one runway between them
The catch at Fukuoka is the layout. The international terminal is on the far side of the runway from the domestic one and is reachable only by road: there is a scheduled inter-terminal bus to the domestic terminal and the subway station, and scheduled buses to Hakata Station and the Tenjin area. If you land internationally and continue on a domestic flight, or the other way round, build that transfer into your timings rather than discovering it. The domestic terminal is connected to the city by the Fukuoka City Subway, and the ride from the airport to the business district takes about ten minutes.
Getting online the moment you land
An eSIM is a profile, not a card: scan it at home on Wi-Fi, leave it off for the flight, and switch it on when the plane door opens. That matters more here than at a 24-hour airport, because the 22:00 to 07:00 curfew means a delayed inbound flight can be diverted or rescheduled while you are in the air, and the messages about it land on a phone that is already connected. Goodbars sells a Japan eSIM you install at home and switch on when you land; it runs on NTT docomo, Japan's largest mobile network by mobile contracts, and our Japan coverage page shows where it reaches and what independent speed tests measure. Your phone has to support eSIM and must not be network-locked.
SIM cards and pocket Wi-Fi
Renting a pocket Wi-Fi is a real habit for visitors to Japan: you book online, collect the router, share it across your group and hand it back before you fly home. Fukuoka adds a wrinkle, because the terminal you land in is not the terminal you may fly out of, and we have not documented the rental or SIM counters here ourselves. Confirm with the rental company which terminal you collect and return at, and do the same for a local prepaid SIM. With the curfew closing the airport at 22:00, a counter you were counting on may simply be shut by the time you reach it.
