Japan airport arrival: what actually happens at Narita, Haneda and Kansai

Fill in Visit Japan Web before you fly, screenshot the 2D code, and the rest of arrival is a queue, a camera and a customs bench. The Digital Agency's Visit Japan Web does your immigration and customs declarations online and turns them into a 2D code you show on a phone or tablet. At the desk you are photographed and fingerprinted, as every foreign visitor is. Customs comes next, and the one rule that catches people is meat: sausages, bacon and ham may not be brought into Japan without permission from the animal quarantine service. Then draw cash at a 7-Eleven or post office machine and find your train. Narita and Kansai are a long way out of town, Haneda is not.

Visit Japan Web is the official service for doing arrival procedures online: immigration, customs, and tax-free shopping once you are in the country. You register, enter your passport and trip details, and it produces a single 2D code covering the immigration clearance and the customs declaration. The official page says you present that code on your smartphone or tablet at immigration. Whether it is compulsory, and whether it costs anything, is not stated on that page, so treat it as the fast route rather than a rule. Do it the evening before you fly and screenshot the code, because airport wi-fi is not something to bet a queue on. The photograph and fingerprints happen at the desk itself and cannot be done in advance.

After the bags comes the customs bench, and with Visit Japan Web the declaration is already filed, so it is a code scan and a short look at your luggage. The rule worth reading twice before you pack is on food. It is illegal to bring meat products into Japan, sausages, bacon and ham included, without permission from the Japanese animal quarantine service. That covers the jamón in your suitcase and the sandwich you did not eat on the plane, so eat it or bin it before you land. The other thing to sort here is your medicine bag, because some ordinary prescription and over-the-counter medicines are illegal to carry into Japan under its law on anti-stimulant drugs. That one is worth its own read before you fly.

Japan is still a predominantly cash-based society, in the UK FCDO's words, so getting yen early saves a scramble later. The machines the FCDO names as taking some foreign cards, during business hours, are at Japanese post offices, 7-Eleven stores and JP Post Bank. It also warns that Cirrus, Maestro, Link and Delta cash cards are not widely accepted, which is the sort of detail you want to know before your only card is refused. We could not confirm from the official airport sites which machines sit in which arrivals hall at Narita, Haneda or Kansai, so ask at the information desk rather than hunting. Take out a larger amount once: the fee is charged per withdrawal, and the screen shows it before you confirm.

Narita sits about 60 km east of Tokyo, and two trains do the work. JR East says the fastest Narita Express takes 53 minutes to Tokyo Station; Keisei says the Skyliner reaches Keisei Ueno in as little as 41 minutes, and Nippori in as little as 36. Pick by where you sleep, not by the clock. Haneda is only 15 km south of Tokyo Station, and its Terminal 3 and the international flight area of Terminal 2 are open 24 hours a day, which is why a late Haneda landing is far less painful than a late Narita one. At Kansai, the JR West Haruka runs to Osaka and Kyoto, and there is a discounted one-way ticket for visitors holding a foreign passport with Temporary Visitor status. Buy it before you travel: it is not sold inside Japan.

You want a connection before the queue, not after it, because the 2D code, the hotel address and the train app all live on the phone. Narita's arrivals have operator counters and vending machines selling tourist SIMs; for Haneda and Kansai we have not documented what is on the floor, so do not plan around finding a counter there. The alternative is to land 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. Install it at home while you still have wi-fi, leave it switched off, and turn it on when the doors open. Check first that your phone supports eSIM and is not locked to a network, because neither is fixable in an arrivals hall.