This page is written for English-speaking travellers going to Japan.
After you fly home
How the money reaches you, what can be deducted from it, and what we are measuring from the first day the system runs.
Covers: How the money reaches you · what a handling fee can take · currency and your card's exchange rate · what we measure from November 1
Start here
How the money reaches you
The Japan Tax-free Shop Association lists the routes the money can take: cash, a credit card, a smartphone payment app, or a transfer handled by an approved operator. Which of these you get is settled with the shop at the time of purchase, not at the airport.
One caution. Whether cash is actually handed over at departure has not been published, so do not build a plan around walking out of the terminal with yen.
The routes, and what is still open about each of them
What can come off the top
Every amount on this site is the maximum before any handling fee, because the fee has not been published — not the rate, not whether there is one at all on every route. That is the single biggest unknown for anyone working out whether a purchase is worth the trouble.
Currency, if your card is not in yen
The refund is a Japanese consumption tax amount, so it is a figure in yen. What lands in your account is that figure after your card issuer converts it, at a rate we cannot know and do not publish. If you want to compare what you got against what you expected, compare the yen figure on your receipt with the yen figure on your statement, not the converted totals.
What we measure from November 1
From the first day the system runs, this site publishes what it observes: the fee actually deducted, the number of days between the customs step and the money arriving, and how long the step took at Narita, Haneda and Kansai. Measurements, not projections.
Common questions at this stage
How long does the refund take?
Not published. Pages quoting one to two weeks, or two to six weeks, are estimating. We will publish measured figures once there are any.
How much will the fee be?
Not published. Treat every figure here as the ceiling.
Will it come back in my own currency?
The amount is set in yen. The conversion is your card issuer’s, at your card issuer’s rate.
The amount is smaller than I calculated. Why?
The most likely explanations are a handling fee and the exchange rate. Neither is something this site can look up for you, but stage 5 sets out what to check and who to ask.
Articles in this stage
The money 13
The moneyJapan Tax-Free 2026: Is a Fee Taken Out of a Cosmetics Refund?A fee on a cosmetics refund is not published as of August 19, 2026. Settled: the ceiling is one eleventh of the tax-included price, ¥909 on ¥10,000.- The moneyJapan Tax-Free 2026: Do Two Shops Add Up to ¥5,000?Drugstore and department store receipts do not add up: ¥5,000 before tax is per buyer, shop and day. From November 1, 2026, tax returns after customs.
- The moneyJapan Tax Refund 2026: Can You Get It in Cash at the Airport?Cash appears on the published list of refund methods, next to credit card, smartphone payment apps and approved sending and receiving operators. Whether cash remains a method a traveller can actually receive is unannounced as of August 19, 2026, and this page holds the place where that answer will go.
- The moneyJapan Tax-Free 2026: What Comes Back on ¥10,000 of Cosmetics?A cosmetics tag in Japan already holds the tax, and one eleventh of it is the tax inside: ¥909 within ¥10,000, ¥1,000 within ¥11,000.
- The moneyJapan Tax-Free 2026: What Happens If You Pay With a Family Card?From November 1, 2026 a tax-free purchase in Japan is recorded against the passport presented at the register. A supplementary family card carries the name of the person who uses it while the charge lands on the main cardholder, so one purchase can carry two names — and how a mismatch between them is treated is not published as of August 19, 2026.
- The moneyJapan Tax-Free 2026: What If the Card Name Is Not the Passport Name?From November 1, 2026 a tax-free purchase in Japan is paid at the tax-included price and the tax comes back after a customs confirmation at departure. How a payment made in a name other than the passport name is treated is not published as of August 19, 2026, so the useful moves are the ones made at the register.
- The moneyJapan Tax Refund 2026: How Many Days Until the Money Comes Back?The length between the departure confirmation and the refund is not published as of August 19, 2026. What the published material fixes is an order, plus one written length that belongs to the traveller rather than to the money: the 90 days within which departure has to happen.
- The moneyJapan Tax Refund 2026: Whose Card Does the Money Go Back To?The buying side is settled — a purchase attaches to the passport put on the counter — while the receiving side is published as a list of four methods with nothing assigning one of them to a purchase. How a payment name differing from the passport is treated is not published as of August 19, 2026.
- The moneyJapan Tax Refund 2026: Is a Handling Fee Taken Out?The tax inside a Japanese price tag is one eleventh of the tax-included price, and that is the ceiling on what a refund can return. Whether anything is deducted from that ceiling is unannounced as of August 19, 2026, and this page is written to be replaced on the day it is published.
- The moneyHow Much of the Japan Tax-Free Refund Can You Budget in 2026?One eleventh of the tax-included price is a ceiling for a travel budget, not a promise. Here is how much to enter, and the point at which the money can be relied on.
- The moneyJapan Tax Refund 2026: How Much Back From a ¥10,000 Buy?The consumption tax inside a tax-included price is one eleventh of it. Pay ¥10,000 and the tax portion is ¥909. Here is the arithmetic, the ceiling, and what is still unannounced.
- The moneyHow Does the Japan Tax-Free Refund Reach You in 2026The described refund methods are published. Which one actually reaches you at departure is not. This page keeps the two apart instead of merging them into a single promise.
- The moneyFive Shops at 3,000 Yen Each: Why Nothing Comes Back in 2026?Fifteen thousand yen of shopping can return exactly nothing. Receipts from different shops never combine, so five baskets just under the line are five non-qualifying purchases. Here is how to regroup.
