Suica, Pasmo and Welcome Suica: Japan's IC cards explained

Get one IC card on day one and stop thinking about tickets. Suica and Pasmo do the same job: you tap in, you tap out, and the fare comes off the balance. A regular Suica's price includes a 500 yen deposit you get back. The visitor versions, Welcome Suica and Tourist Pasmo, skip the deposit but work for 28 days only, and value left on a Tourist Pasmo is not refunded. On an iPhone the card can live in Apple Wallet instead of your pocket. Tapping a foreign credit card directly at the gate works on many lines, but GO TOKYO is clear that it does not work on JR lines, the Keisei Line or the Tokyo Monorail, which is exactly where a visitor starts.

Suica is JR East's stored-value card and has been running since 18 November 2001. By October 2023 there were 95.64 million cards issued and 1.63 million shops taking them. Pasmo is the parallel card from the private railways and subways, and the two are interchangeable for a traveller. The card pays for trains and buses nationwide, and then keeps going: convenience stores, chain restaurants, station shops, vending machines. That second half is the part visitors underuse. If you are standing at a counter working out which coins make 380 yen, you are doing the thing the card exists to stop.

There are two ways in. A regular Suica or Pasmo costs a little more than the credit on it, because a 500 yen deposit is included, and you get that back when you return the card. The visitor cards, Welcome Suica and Tourist Pasmo, require no deposit at all, but GO TOKYO is blunt about the catch: they can only be used for 28 days. PASMO adds that value loaded onto a Tourist Pasmo is not refunded, so top up in small amounts near the end of a trip. One older name has gone: PASMO has published the abolition of the rules for using PASMO PASSPORT, so ignore any guide that still sends you looking for one.

The phone version is the better version, because topping up stops being an errand. Suica works on iPhone through Apple Wallet, and PASMO lists Apple Pay on its own visitor page. There is also a Welcome Suica Mobile app, released in March 2025, which GO TOKYO describes as letting you make and charge a Suica without going to a station ticket office or ticket machine. That matters because plastic has run short before: JR East suspended sales of unregistered cards on 8 June 2023. If you want the physical card, buy it when you see one rather than assuming the next station will have stock.

Contactless open loop has arrived on many Japanese lines, so you can tap a credit card at the gate and skip the IC card entirely. The problem is where it does not work. GO TOKYO states plainly that the service is not available on JR lines, the Keisei Line or the Tokyo Monorail. Those are the lines from the airport and the loop around central Tokyo, so a credit card alone leaves you buying paper tickets on your first morning. Paper is still there if you want it: Tokyo Metro sells single tickets at 180, 210, 260, 300 and 330 yen by distance, against an IC fare of 178 yen for 1 to 6 km, and day passes at 1,000 yen for 24 hours, 1,500 for 48 and 2,000 for 72.

With 1.63 million shops taking the card, the IC card is a small wallet as much as a ticket. That sits inside a bigger shift: Japan's trade ministry reported the cashless payment ratio reaching 58.0 per cent by value in 2025, with code payments at 10.2 per cent. The UK FCDO still calls Japan a predominantly cash-based society, and both are true depending on where you stand, a Tokyo chain or a rural counter. Carry notes and treat the card as the default. One thing the card cannot do is get you online. 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.