Visit Japan Web 2026: Free QR Code for Japan Immigration

What Visit Japan Web Is

Visit Japan Web is a browser-based service published by Japan's Digital Agency. Its own description is precise: it is "a service that allows you to perform arrival procedures (immigration, customs) and tax-free shopping service online." In practice that means three separate jobs are handled in one account. First, the foreign immigration clearance — the electronic version of the Disembarkation Card for Foreigner, commonly called the ED card, that every foreign national must submit on a new entry to Japan. Second, the customs declaration — the Declaration of Accompanied Articles and Unaccompanied Articles that every arriving passenger must file. Third, for foreign visitors only, a tax-free shopping 2D code you show at participating stores after you have been stamped in.

Two things surprise first-time users. It is completely free: the Digital Agency has published a notice stating that it "never request Visit Japan Web users to pay some fees" after spotting third-party sites charging travellers for the registration. And there is no official smartphone app — the service runs in a browser, and the Digital Agency has warned the public about look-alike apps that imitate it. The only official entry points are the login site https://www.vjw.digital.go.jp/ and the Digital Agency's service pages. Anything else asking for a card number or a "processing fee" is not the government.

The service is offered in nine languages — Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, German and French — and the current English instruction manual runs to version 3.16, dated July 22, 2026, which is the document behind every procedural claim on this page. You may type everything in on a desktop computer, but the 2D code itself must be shown from a smartphone or tablet at the airport, so the practical unit of preparation is a phone with the page loaded and battery to spare.

Why It Exists and the 2026 Paper-Card Status

Before Visit Japan Web, everyone arriving in Japan filled two paper forms on the aircraft: the white disembarkation card handed to immigration, and the wider customs declaration. Both asked for overlapping information — passport number, date of birth, nationality, the address of your first hotel, purpose of visit — and both queues moved at the speed of a ballpoint pen. Visit Japan Web digitises both, and since January 25, 2024 a single unified 2D code covers immigration and customs together; the separate Customs Declaration App that used to issue its own code was retired the same day and those older codes stopped working.

The most common claim circulating online is that Japan has abolished the paper cards. As of October 12, 2026 that is not true, and the primary source says so directly. The Immigration Services Agency's own page states that even travellers who are eligible for electronic submission should "submit the paper Foreigner Entry Record" if they are not comfortable operating a smartphone. Japan Customs likewise publishes the paper Declaration of Accompanied Articles and Unaccompanied Articles as a downloadable form and notes that "the existing paper version of the Customs Declaration Form can still be used, and can also be printed out (on A4 sized paper) in advance." What has actually changed is the equipment around the paper form, not its legal existence.

Three changes explain why 2026 feels different. The QR codes for immigration and customs were merged in January 2024. On June 2, 2025 the Digital Agency discontinued the delegate data-entry function, so a person can no longer submit an entry record on someone else's behalf — every traveller, infants included, must be registered individually. And between April 2025 and September 2026 the joint "integrated kiosks" rolled out airport by airport, most recently Narita Terminals 1 and 2 on September 24, 2026, which is what makes the QR route genuinely faster rather than merely tidier.

Step-by-Step Registration

The Digital Agency's published guide breaks the process into four steps before travel plus one step at the airport. Budget about twenty minutes for a first-time traveller and under ten once you have done it before. Nothing needs to be printed.

1. Step 0 — create an account and log in. You need an email address. The login screen also lets you pick your language before you register, and offers multi-factor authentication if you want it.
2. Step 1 — register the user. Choose the entry or return procedure category, then register passport information by pointing your phone camera at the passport data page (the manual calls it an OCR scan) or by typing it in. If your passport expires in less than six months the site displays a warning. Basic information — occupation, home address country and city — is optional but reusable.
3. Step 2 — register the entry or return schedule. Enter the date you plan to arrive, your point of embarkation and your contact details in Japan, typically the hotel name, address and phone number. There is a "connecting multiple flights" option for itineraries with a stopover.
4. Step 3 — fill in the entry procedure. Open your registered schedule and complete two blocks: the health condition questions, then the immigration clearance and customs declaration. Foreign nationals register both; Japanese nationals and residents with a re-entry permit register the customs declaration only. Visa holders can pull their visa details in by entering the visa issue number under "Get visa information".
5. Step 4 — show the 2D code at the airport. Display the QR code from the procedure page. The official guide states the code "can be used at the immigration counter for immigration clearance, and at the electronic declaration terminal or inspection table for customs declaration. After finishing the declaration from the electronic declaration terminal, you can use the electronic declaration gate."

Two details buried in the official manual matter more than they look. The intended length of stay field accepts a maximum of 180 days, so a longer permission has to come from your visa rather than the form. And the codeshare rule: when your flight number is a codeshare, enter the main operating flight, the one that actually flies you to Japan, because that is the number printed on the arrival manifest the officer compares against.

What Details You Need Before You Start

Have these open in a second tab or on paper before you begin. Almost every abandoned registration is caused by someone who started without the hotel's address in Roman letters.

On the customs side you will be asked to quantify your duty-free allowance items directly — bottles of alcohol, cigarettes, heat-not-burn packages, cigars, perfume in ounces — and to list other purchased goods by name, quantity, currency and market value. Items with a market value of 10,000 yen or less each do not need to be listed at all, and the form accepts up to eight "other article names". If you are travelling with family and answer yes to entering their declarations at the same time, some of those screens are skipped for them.

Restricted and prohibited goods get their own yes/no questions, and the honest answer is the only useful one. Meat, fresh plants and soil have repeatedly been the reason travellers are pulled aside, and Japan Customs publishes penalties of up to 3 million yen for individuals and 3 years imprisonment for illegally importing meat, meat products, plants or plant products. Narcotics are the other absolute line: heroin, cocaine, MDMA, opium, cannabis, stimulants and many psychotropic substances are prohibited outright, and several common US prescriptions — certain amphetamine and codeine products among them — are controlled substances in Japan.

The QR Flow at the Airport

Everything up to this point happens on your phone. What follows is what the airport actually does with the code, in order, straight from the official instructions.

At the electronic declaration terminals in the customs area, the procedure is the same in miniature for anyone who skipped the integrated kiosk: hold the 2D code and your IC passport over the scanner, answer nothing twice, and walk to the gate. Japan Customs is explicit that an IC passport is required for the e-Gate — passengers with non-IC passports may still use the kiosks and terminals, but they cannot use the facial-recognition gate afterwards and will be routed to a staffed desk.

Height and group rules apply. Everyone in a family or tour group must complete the terminal procedure one by one; there is no shared scan. Children shorter than 135 cm cannot use the integrated kiosks at all, while at the customs e-Gate a child under 100 cm may pass through with a family member. Wheelchair users can use both.

Kiosks and e-Gates by Airport

Customs e-Gates for electronic declaration operate at seven international airports: New Chitose, Narita, Haneda, Chubu Centrair, Kansai, Fukuoka and Naha. The integrated kiosks — the machines that collapse the customs and immigration submissions into one scan — are a smaller, newer network, and the start dates below are from the Immigration Services Agency's own operations notice, which is worth checking if you are flying somewhere unusual.

Hours follow flight schedules and change without much notice, so treat the table as a planning guide rather than a promise. The strategic point is that the QR route now covers the terminals that American and European arrivals actually use — Narita Terminal 1 and 2 were the last of the big three to switch, and they switched three weeks ago.

At Haneda, Fukuoka and Naha the customs terminals sit in the baggage claim area, so you declare while your bags are still coming round the carousel and then simply walk through the e-Gate. Elsewhere the terminals are in the customs inspection area after you have collected luggage. Either way, the sequence is fixed: immigration first, bags second, customs third.

Visit Japan Web Is Not a Visa

Visit Japan Web collects information; it grants nothing. It does not issue a visa, does not approve entry, and does not alter the rules for any nationality. Passport holders who are visa-exempt — US citizens, for example, entering for up to 90 days as Temporary Visitors — still need the same passport, the same return or onward ticket and the same lawful purpose of visit they always needed; the QR code simply replaces the handwriting. Everyone else needs a visa from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs or a Japanese embassy or consulate before travelling, and no registration on this website substitutes for that.

Visa holders do get one convenience: the form can retrieve your visa record by issue number, which pre-fills the occupation and intended length of stay. That is data import, not approval — the visa itself was issued by a consular officer and its conditions govern your stay. If you are still working out whether you need a visa at all, our US citizens Japan visa guide covers the 90-day exemption, and the broader Japan visa guide explains the categories for everyone else.

Transit follows from the same logic. A passenger who stays airside, keeps the same boarding pass and never presents themselves for immigration submits no entry record and needs no Visit Japan Web account. A passenger who enters Japan — even to leave the airport for a few hours — must submit an entry record and should carry either the QR code or the paper card. And remember that a Japan arrival does not replace the entry rules of your destination; our I-94 record guide covers the US side, and the B1/B2 tourist visa guide covers visitors to the United States.

Customs: Duty-Free Limits, Cash and Prohibited Items

The customs half of the form is not a formality. Japan Customs requires every passenger entering Japan to file a Declaration of Accompanied Articles and Unaccompanied Articles, and the electronic version asks the same questions as the paper one. Below are the published numbers for an adult traveller, all taken from Japan Customs' own passenger guidance.

On cash, the figure to remember is 1 million yen, not the 100,000 yen that circulates in forums. If you carry cash or other means of payment above that threshold you must declare it to Customs on a separate means-of-payment form; the same rule applies to gold bullion of 90 percent purity or higher weighing more than one kilogram. Nothing illegal attaches to a declared cash sum — failing to declare it is the offence.

Prohibited outright: narcotics of every kind including cannabis, firearms and ammunition, explosives, chemical weapon precursors, counterfeit money and cards, obscene and child-pornographic material, and goods that infringe intellectual property. Restricted: plants and animals must clear quarantine before customs examination, medicines are capped at roughly two months of pharmaceuticals and 24 applications of cosmetics, and weapons such as hunting guns, air guns and swords need a possession permit. Meat products and fresh plant material are the items most often seized from holidaymakers, and the penalties are criminal, not administrative.

A word on NOAH. Travellers keep hearing that customs runs "through NOAH", and it is worth being precise. NOAH and NACCS are Japan's cargo clearance networks — the systems importers and freight forwarders use to declare commercial shipments. Nothing in the official passenger documentation for electronic declaration, integrated kiosks or e-Gates routes a traveller's baggage declaration through them: your answers go to Japan Customs from the airport terminal or the kiosk, and your customs record is created there.

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

Wrong passport data. The most common single point of failure. Re-scan the passport page or correct the field under your registered details, then display a new QR code. The code is a snapshot of what you registered; correcting the record does not update an old screenshot.

Hotel or flight changed after you registered. Edit the entry or return plan — the arrival date, the last flight number and the address in Japan — and regenerate the code. If you are connecting through Japan, use the connecting-flights field rather than typing a flight number you are not actually on.

Printing versus screenshot. For the arrival QR code, the Immigration Services Agency states the 2D code may be used as a screenshot, provided you regenerate it whenever the registered information changes. The Digital Agency's official offline mode — installing the site on your device while logged in, then opening it with no connection — is the more reliable backup because it always shows current data. Note the separate tax-free 2D code is the exception: the guide says screenshots cannot be used for that one.

Duplicate registrations. Some travellers create a second account when the first email is unreachable. Two accounts for one trip is a recipe for two different records, and the delegate data-entry function that used to let one person file for another was discontinued on June 2, 2025. Keep one account, and add travelling companions as accompanying family members — up to ten people.

Family and group entries. One account can hold the family, and you can answer the customs questions for everyone at once, but every person — including infants — needs their own 2D code and must present it individually at the kiosk. Send each traveller's code to their own phone, and remember that children under 135 cm cannot use the integrated kiosks at all.

Non-IC passports. If your passport lacks the chip, you can still use the kiosks and terminals, but the facial-recognition e-Gate is closed to you and you will finish at a staffed customs desk. Likewise, if you are turned away from a kiosk for any reason, the paper forms are on the aircraft and at the counters — this is an inconvenience, not a denied entry.

Scam sites and fake apps. Only vjw.digital.go.jp and the Digital Agency's service pages are official. Never enter a passport scan, a card number or a fee into anything else; a passport validity check or a visa document checklist on our site needs no passport upload either.

Departure: What the QR Code Does Not Do

Visit Japan Web handles the arrival side. Its own service description is "arrival procedures (immigration, customs)" plus tax-free shopping, and there is no departure-record screen in the manual — the "entry or return" wording refers to returning to Japan, not leaving it. When you fly out of Japan you present your passport at the departure gate as usual; nothing on your phone replaces that check, and nothing in the service creates a departure record for you.

Where the account does help you leave is tax-free shopping. Foreign visitors with Temporary Visitor status who created a tax-free 2D code can show it at participating stores during the trip, and the rules around it are strict: tax-free goods must be exported unused and untransferred, and Japan Customs can check your purchases at departure, with consumption tax recoverable plus penalties for goods transferred before departure. Keep the purchases together and be ready to show them.

One more departure-adjacent point for US travellers. If you are comparing Japan's digital arrival paperwork with other countries, the systems are not interchangeable — an ESTA covers the United States, an ETA covers the UK, and neither has anything to do with Japan's entry record. Our US visa guide and tourist visa guide cover those, and our visa application tracker and visa eligibility checker help with the paperwork on the rest of the trip.

The Five-Minutes-Before-You-Land Checklist

• Phone charged, brightness up. The code must be shown on a phone or tablet at the airport; a dead battery costs you the paper card and the queue.
• The right code on screen. Open the entry procedure and display the immigration and customs QR code, not the tax-free code and not an old screenshot from a previous trip.
• Offline copy ready. Install the site while you still have connectivity so the code opens without airport Wi-Fi.
• Passport to hand. At the kiosk you scan the 2D code and then the IC passport, and you will be asked to remove masks and sunglasses for the photo.
• Each traveller has their own code. Infants included; nobody shares a scan, and children under 135 cm go to the staffed counters.
• Hotel address matching the form. If you changed hotels, edit the record before you land, not after.
• Cash counted. Over 1,000,000 yen of cash or equivalents, and any gold over one kilogram, needs a separate declaration to Customs.
• No meat, no plants, no controlled medication. These are criminal matters in Japan, and the customs questions ask about them directly.
• Onward ticket saved offline. The QR code does not prove you are leaving; the airline and the officer can both ask.
• Paper form as plan B. Know that the ED card and customs form are still on the aircraft and still accepted — no Visit Japan Web, no problem, just lost time.

Frequently Asked Questions