--- title: "Japan Tax-Free 2026: What Does the Shop Keep After the Counter?" description: "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. The purchase is recorded against the passport shown at the register, and what a shop holds of that record, in what form and for how long, is not published as of August 19, 2026." lang: en canonical: https://refund-japan.com/articles/what-the-store-keeps published: 2026-09-13 updated: 2026-09-13 publisher: "Refund Japan" --- # Japan Tax-Free 2026: What Does the Shop Keep After the Counter? > 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. The purchase is recorded against the passport shown at the register, and what a shop holds of that record, in what form and for how long, is not published as of August 19, 2026. Last checked: 2026-09-13 From November 1, 2026 a tax-free purchase in Japan is paid for at the tax-included price, and the tax comes back after a customs confirmation at departure — [Japan Tourism Agency](https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/tax-free/page01_000001_00019.html) (checked August 19, 2026). The refund methods are published as a list of four, and what a shop holds of the record behind them — in what form, and for how long — is not published as of August 19, 2026 — [the Japan Tax-free Shop Association](https://zenmenkyo.jp/refund/) (checked August 19, 2026). ## What does the shop keep after the counter? The honest shape of the answer has two halves, and only one of them can be filled in from published material. The half that can be filled in is that a record exists and that it is tied to the passport: the purchase is recorded against the passport presented at the register, which is why the departure step can find it later without anyone carrying a file across the city. The half that cannot be filled in is the inside of that record. What a particular shop holds, whether it sits on paper in a drawer or inside a till system, and for how long it stays there, is not published as of August 19, 2026. Those two halves sound like one question, and treating them as one is where travellers lose an evening. A record existing is a rule. A record's storage is an operational matter that belongs to each business, and a page that named a format would be describing one counter it had never stood at. So this article does not say the shop keeps a copy of your passport, and does not say it keeps nothing. It says what the sources say, and then turns to the part a traveller can actually act on: what you can hold yourself, and what you can answer if anyone asks. - **The record is tied to the passport, not to a slip of paper in your bag.** The purchase is recorded against the passport shown at the register, so the identifying object is the one you are carrying anyway. - **The published description of the departure step names the passport.** A terminal reads it, and a result decides whether the goods themselves are shown — [Japan Customs](https://www.customs.go.jp/) (checked August 19, 2026). - **Nothing in the published material tells you what a shop hands you to carry.** That is why a receipt in your own pocket is worth more than a theory about the shop's filing. - **Your own note costs nothing to make.** The shop, the date and the total are the three things any question at a counter tends to start from. - **Four refund methods are published** — cash, credit card, smartphone payment apps, and routing through an approved sending and receiving operator — [the Japan Tax-free Shop Association](https://zenmenkyo.jp/refund/) (checked August 19, 2026). What you keep in your own hands, and whether paper or a screen serves you better between the till and the gate, is set out on [our page about the paper and digital copy](https://refund-japan.com/articles/paper-vs-digital-receipt). ## What does one purchase carry from the till to the gate? The chain is short, and most of the anxiety around it comes from imagining links that are not in the published description. - **The passport shown at the register.** The purchase is recorded against it, and that record is what the departure step reads. - **The tax-included price paid in the shop**, with the tax returning after the departure step rather than coming off at the till. - **A confirmation at departure**, where a terminal reads the passport and the result decides whether the goods are shown — [Japan Customs](https://www.customs.go.jp/) (checked August 19, 2026). - **Four published refund methods**, described as a list rather than as one route assigned to one purchase — [the Japan Tax-free Shop Association](https://zenmenkyo.jp/refund/) (checked August 19, 2026). - **Ninety days from the purchase date**, inside which the goods leave Japan with the buyer. - **A non-resident buyer**, a foreign traveller staying under six months. Read that chain looking for a document that travels with you and none appears by name. What travels is the passport, which is why the practical advice here is unglamorous: keep the passport safe, keep your own copy of the purchase, and stop trying to picture the shop's cabinet. The order of the steps at the counter itself is set out on [our page about the steps at the register](https://refund-japan.com/articles/register-steps). ## What changes on November 1, 2026? - **The tax comes back after the customs confirmation** rather than at the register, so the tax-included price is what is handed over in the shop. - **The general goods and consumables split is abolished**, so everything bought at one shop on one day becomes a single total for each buyer. - **The sealed bag is gone**, so goods can be opened and used during the trip. - **The refund is handed over as cash, by card, through a smartphone payment app or via an approved sending and receiving operator**, which is the published list of methods — [the Japan Tax-free Shop Association](https://zenmenkyo.jp/refund/) (checked August 19, 2026). - **The former daily ceiling on consumables is abolished.** Not one of those lines describes a filing cabinet, a retention period or a screen behind the counter, which is why the question in the title survives the change instead of being closed by it. Purchases up to October 31, 2026 stay under the older arrangement and purchases from November 1, 2026 fall under the new one, with no transition period between the two dates. The shape of the choice between the listed methods is set out on [our page about the refund methods](https://refund-japan.com/articles/refund-methods). ## How much is riding on the record? Consumption tax runs at 10%, so a tax-included price holds one eleventh of itself as tax. A price of ¥10,000 including tax holds ¥909. A price of ¥11,000 including tax holds ¥1,000. That fraction is the size of what the record is standing in for, and it is worth naming because it sets how much effort the record deserves from you. It is enough money to justify a photograph of a receipt and a line in a notes app. It is not enough money to justify a theory about how a till system is built, which is fortunate, because no such theory can be checked against published material as of August 19, 2026. ## What does not change? - **The passport is presented at the register**, and the purchase is recorded against it there. - **The purchase is counted per buyer, per shop, per day**, and receipts from different shops do not combine. - **The goods leave Japan with the buyer**, within 90 days of the purchase date. - **The system is for non-residents**, foreign travellers staying under six months. - **Separate shipment was abolished** at the end of March 2025. - **The buyer and the passport stay the same person** from the till to the departure gate. The last two lines are the ones that make your own note useful. A purchase belongs to a shop, a day and a passport, so the three things worth writing down are exactly the three things that identify it. ## What does a purchase have to reach to qualify? A purchase qualifies at ¥5,000 before tax, counted for one buyer at one shop on one day, and receipts from different shops do not combine — [Japan Tourism Agency](https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/tax-free/page01_000001_00019.html) (checked August 19, 2026). Shelf tags usually carry the tax-included figure, and a tag of ¥5,500 including tax sits on that line rather than under it. The line explains why the shop and the day matter enough to write down. Two baskets bought at two counters stay two purchases however similar they look, and a traveller who noted where and when will answer any question about them in a sentence. Which page of the passport is presented at that counter is set out on [our page about the passport page](https://refund-japan.com/articles/passport-page-to-show). ## When does this come up? ### The staff hold your passport and type for a while This is the moment that starts the worry, and almost all of it is misread. Typing at a counter tells you that a record is being made against the passport, which is the part that is published. It tells you nothing about where that record goes afterwards, and nothing about how long it stays, because neither is published as of August 19, 2026. Watching the keyboard will not turn one into the other. ### A screen at the counter asks you to confirm something Reading before confirming is good practice in any country, and it is the one moment where you see the shop's own wording rather than a summary of it. What a particular screen displays is that business's own arrangement, so no page can tell you in advance what will be on it. If a line puzzles you, asking at the counter costs one sentence and gets an answer from the only people who can give it. ### You want your own record of what you bought Make it before you leave the shop, because that is when everything is in front of you. The shop, the date and the total are enough to identify a purchase, and a photograph of the receipt captures all three without any typing. Doing this does not depend on what the shop keeps, which is the whole point of doing it. ### You buy at more than one shop on the same day Each counter makes its own record against the same passport, and receipts from different shops do not combine. A short note per shop keeps them apart in your own head, which matters more than it sounds when several bags come home on the same evening and none of them look distinct. ### The bag is handed over with a receipt and nothing else That may well be the whole of it, and it is not evidence that something went wrong. What a shop hands over is that business's own arrangement, and it is not published as of August 19, 2026 that any particular document has to come back across the counter with your bag. Keep what you were given and move on with the day. ### You want to know how long the shop holds your details This is the question the page exists for, and the answer is that it is not published as of August 19, 2026 and would in any case belong to each business rather than to a single rule. A shop can describe what it does at its own counters. Anything presented as a nationwide retention period, told confidently by someone who is not the shop, is a guess wearing a uniform. ### You expect the departure terminal to ask for a document The published description of that step names the passport and, on a result that calls for it, the goods themselves. Where the terminals stand in each airport, how many there are and what their screens show is not published as of August 19, 2026, so allowing time rather than rehearsing a script is the sensible preparation. The step itself is set out on [our page about the customs terminal](https://refund-japan.com/articles/customs-terminal). ### You want to return an item before leaving Japan Whether a completed sale can be undone, and what a shop does about a purchase that was rung up tax-free, is decided by that shop, and no page can state it for a particular store. The useful move is to carry your own copy of the purchase to that conversation, since the shop, the date and the total are what any counter will ask for first. ### You are buying something priced at ¥1,000,000 or more A purchase at that level needs a serial number or something similar registered at the shop, so the paperwork takes longer than a normal sale by design. That is a good moment to note the details for yourself, because they are being read out at the counter anyway and writing them down costs nothing while you wait. ### Your basket is close to the qualifying line A basket sitting near ¥5,000 before tax is one where the shop and the day decide whether the purchase counts at all, since the line is counted for one buyer at one shop on one day. Noting which counter it happened at is therefore worth more on that basket than on a large one, where nothing about the line is in doubt. ### Everyone in the family buys their own things The count follows each passport, so a family ends up with one record per traveller rather than one shared record with several people behind it. Keeping the receipts separate on the way home mirrors the way the purchases were counted, and saves an argument about whose bag held what. ### Someone tells you the shop sends your data somewhere That sentence is not in the published material, and neither is a detailed denial of it. As of August 19, 2026 the sources describe a record made against the passport, a confirmation at departure and a list of refund methods, and everything past that point is somebody's guess in a confident voice. Treat a confident voice at a counter and a confident voice on a forum with the same care. ### You are shopping on the morning of your flight Time is shortest on the day the record matters most, and a receipt pushed into a coat pocket at speed is the one that goes missing. Photographing it before you leave the shop takes a second and removes the need to find the paper again in a queue. ## What is not published as of August 19, 2026? Four items, and the first of them is the subject of this page. - **Records.** What a shop holds of a tax-free purchase, in what form and for how long, is not published as of August 19, 2026, and it would belong to each business rather than to one rule. - **Terminals.** Where the terminals stand in each airport, how many there are and what their screens show is not published as of August 19, 2026. - **Fees.** Whether a handling fee is deducted from the refund at all is not published as of August 19, 2026. - **Days.** How long the refund takes to arrive after the confirmation is not published as of August 19, 2026. Answers would appear through [the Japan Tourism Agency](https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/tax-free/page01_000001_00019.html) (checked August 19, 2026) or [the Japan Tax-free Shop Association](https://zenmenkyo.jp/refund/) (checked August 19, 2026), and a shop can always describe what happens at its own tills. Since what the shop holds is not published as of August 19, 2026, the plan that does not depend on it is the one above: let the passport carry the record, keep your own copy of the shop, the date and the total, and leave the filing to the people whose counter it is. ## Questions people ask ### Does the shop keep a copy of my passport? What a shop holds, in what form and for how long, is not published as of August 19, 2026, and it would belong to each business rather than to one rule. ### What is the purchase recorded against? The passport presented at the register, which is what the departure step reads. ### Do I have to carry a document from the shop to the airport? The published description of the departure step names the passport and, on a result that calls for it, the goods themselves. ### Should I keep my own copy of the receipt? Keeping it, or photographing it before leaving the shop, costs nothing and does not depend on what the shop holds. ### What should I write down about a purchase? The shop, the date and the total, because a purchase is counted per buyer, per shop, per day. ### How long does a shop hold the record? That is not published as of August 19, 2026. ### What does the terminal read at departure? The passport, and the result decides whether the goods themselves are shown. ### Where are the terminals in the airport? Where they stand, how many there are and what their screens show is not published as of August 19, 2026. ### What are the published refund methods? Cash, credit card, smartphone payment apps, and routing through an approved sending and receiving operator. ### When does the tax come back? After the customs confirmation at departure, rather than at the register. ### How much of a tax-included price is tax? One eleventh of it, because consumption tax runs at 10%. ### What does a purchase have to reach to qualify? ¥5,000 before tax for one buyer at one shop on one day, which reads as ¥5,500 on a tax-included tag. ### How long is there to leave Japan? 90 days from the purchase date, with the goods leaving Japan with the buyer. ### Who is the system for? Non-residents, foreign travellers staying under six months. ### Is a fee deducted from the refund? Whether a handling fee is deducted at all is not published as of August 19, 2026. ### Where would the answer about records be published? Through the Japan Tourism Agency or the Japan Tax-free Shop Association, and a shop can describe its own counters. ## Sources - [Japan Tourism Agency](https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/tax-free/page01_000001_00019.html) — checked August 19, 2026 - [the Japan Tax-free Shop Association](https://zenmenkyo.jp/refund/) — checked August 19, 2026 - [Japan Customs](https://www.customs.go.jp/) — checked August 19, 2026