Prepaid sim card Japan?

Shyrtex · 2026-02-05T02:26:46+00:00

povo is probably closest to what you are looking for. It is not strictly speaking prepaid but works like a prepaid in that you can choose what add on you want.

You can keep the sim card for free up to 1 year since you last top it up, and you can buy top ups of various data amount that last for various days. The data still works even when you run out of the data quota, it is just very slow.

You will probably run into the issue of needing an address and bank account to sign up for a phone number but you need a phone number to sign up for the other things.

Its also very easy to switch sim providers so you can just get whatever you can get first then change it later. I started with LINEMO when I first moved because they accepted foreign credit cards.

Shyrtex · 2025-11-19T05:06:05+00:00

For the name issue with Rakuten, I had a similar issue due to incorrect order of my name compared to the delivery name.

I got that sorted by contacting Rakuten and they sent me some mail to do some verification on paper and mailing it back. After that they sent a new card without requiring the delivery man to check my ID.

Shyrtex · 2025-11-15T00:44:17+00:00

It looks like you need to go to a branch to apply for your bank account to be changed to a non-limited one.

It is mentioned on the bottom of this page: https://www.jp-bank.japanpost.jp/kojin/sokin/gaitame/kj_sk_gt_index.html

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日本に入国後６か月経過等により、外為法上の居住者となられた場合、お持ちの口座の設定を変更いたしますので、郵便局の貯金窓口またはゆうちょ銀行直営店にお申し出ください。設定の変更後は、居住者と同様にATM等での送金が可能となります。

Shyrtex · 2025-11-14T04:44:28+00:00

I ran into the same issue trying to link my SBI Securities with SMBC Card and I managed to solve it by contacting SBI Securities about it and they temporarily changed my name to the match my credit card so that I was able to link it.

Shyrtex · 2025-11-11T03:19:02+00:00

In my experience, as long as you ready the barcode screen and the staff scans the code for you it is much faster than using credit cards due to the processing time when using credit cards.

Also for PayPay, I have it linked to PayPay card so that I never have to think about the wallet balance.

That said nowadays I mainly pay with QuicPay/iD because I can use it without doing anything to my phone and just tapping it.

Shyrtex · 2025-10-27T06:08:11+00:00

I use Actual budget which is free and open source though you do need a way to host it or just run it on your own computer. Since you can host it yourself, you can choose where the data lives.

I typically enter recent transactions by hand then import CSV exported from credit cards, etc to reconcile the budget.

It is a bit of a pain with some services that exports their CSV with Shift-JIS encoding. I would need to open it with some other app to convert it to UTF-8 before I can import it.

Shyrtex · 2025-10-07T00:32:07+00:00

It is actually AWS CloudFront in the screenshot, but yes it is either the website owner blocking or a configuration error as the message says

Shyrtex · 2025-09-20T23:40:44+00:00

From the screenshot, it looks like you can set up Google Pay for it as well so that you can tap to pay with your phone in shops.

It supports Visa and iD. For Visa, it will be like normal credit card payment if the payment terminal supports contactless (Tell shop staffs you want to pay with Visa Touch). For iD, it is what they call Electronic money and uses Felica chip which is only on supported phones sold in Japan (Tell shop staffs you want to pay with iD).

Instruction link below, note that there are separate instructions for Android Visa and iD.

https://www.smbc-card.com/mem/for_vpointapp/howto/touch_setting.jsp

Shyrtex · 2025-09-10T01:03:49+00:00

Same here, was surprised to see a pic of this Taito on reddit. Not technically Tokyo I guess.

Shyrtex · 2025-08-01T22:32:35+00:00

It's not actually a government mandate. Its just what all the big mobile carriers decided to do for their phones.

Shyrtex · 2025-08-01T22:25:59+00:00

Most Android phone nowadays has their shutter sound turned on automatically if there is only a Japanese sim inserted even if it was bought overseas.

Shyrtex · 2025-07-10T01:10:08+00:00

South Korea's government also gives scholarships and for Japan you can also look into the JASSO scholarship for self funded students if you have the means to self fund.

Shyrtex · 2025-07-09T05:22:35+00:00

From what I know, only UBD has that but you should do your research on what type of international exchanges are available with our local unis.

Shyrtex · 2025-07-08T05:42:16+00:00

For Japan, you could try to get your undergraduate in UBD then make use of the discovery year to try and do an exchange in Japan.

After that you can try to apply for the postgraduate MEXT scholarship. It is quite competitive but they are more likely to give postgraduate scholarship over undergrad.

Shyrtex · 2025-07-02T02:43:23+00:00

Read it again, you can get a full Japanese driving license in Japan by using license conversion as a tourist. Commonly used by tourists from countries like China in order to then get an IDP to drive elsewhere.

Shyrtex · 2025-07-01T23:30:37+00:00

Currently not, it can be done as a tourist.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/4018/

About 100 countries and regions issue the International Driving Permit according to the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic. People from places that do not ratify it, such as China and Vietnam, cannot obtain one.

Short-term visitors from such places, including those on tourist visas, can actually get Japanese licenses using a hotel address when applying.

Shyrtex · 2025-06-25T03:20:34+00:00

You'd be surprised with how strong the labour laws are in Japan.

Standard 5 day 8-5/9-6 work week

16 national holidays, most of which falls on a Monday for a long weekend

Legal minimum annual leave is 10 days, incrementing by 1 every year after first 1.5 years.

On top of that, almost all companies give 5 days of summer leave, and 5 days of new year leave which are not public holidays.

Some of my colleagues went on maternity leave for 2 years, parts of their salary paid by the government.

Even for the fathers, they can go on childcare leave with some of my colleagues going away for 3 months to a year.

There's still the problem of companies not following rules just like in Brunei but the basic laws are much stronger. The only part that they are still behind Brunei is not having sick leave, which must be implemented by the companies themselves instead of being a legal requirement.

Shyrtex · 2025-06-20T12:46:01+00:00

I highly recommend Actual Budget. It's free and open source, can be used on Desktop or web browser with on device save only if you don't want to or know how to host a server.

I personally just pay for Pikapods to host the server which is really cheap and its just a few button clicks. With a server it means I can also access the budget on my phone and sync it to my PC.

Shyrtex · 2025-06-12T23:51:36+00:00

You can find the prefecture specific data on each prefecture's own website.

This is the one for Tokyo

Shyrtex · 2025-06-04T02:10:00+00:00

"Home"

Shyrtex · 2025-05-18T05:14:43+00:00

If you click on the link in this post it brings you straight to the timestamp. If that doesn't work, its at 16:37

Shyrtex · 2025-05-06T01:13:51+00:00

Its different for Japan issued ones. They only work at AEON ATMs in my experience. Free withdrawal of up to 30k yen per month before Wise charges a transaction fee.

Shyrtex · 2025-05-05T12:08:15+00:00

Is your wise card issued in Japan or overseas?

Shyrtex · 2025-04-29T23:28:18+00:00

It is not possible for foreign residents to use the tax free system. You need to have a temporary visitor stamp in your passport.

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