Paying and Credit Cards

5 comments

1. get a visa card that alloes you to withdraw and pay without extra charges. Really wouldn’t recommend opening a japanese bank account unless it’s required for job pay, scholarship, etc…the ATM is gonna charge you 120-240¥ per withdrawal anyway, you won’t get rid of that (with foreign cards at least).

   Since you are from the Euro-Zone…get a card like the Barclay’s Visa Card, DKB if you are from Germany (need 700€ added to account monthly after 1st year to get 0% fees) or smth similar from your home country. I wouldn’t exchange money, just withdraw from an ATM after landing. Most stores accept cards anyway.

   Edit: If you withdraw money, I can recommend the convenience store ATMs of 7-eleven or Familymart, with withdraws of ¥30k best, because they have a max fee of 240¥ for withdraws of 20k or more

   Also, if you could edit your post to include your country, ppl could tell you about good credit card options xd

2. >Also do you know if it is correct, that bank notes and hard cash are not often used and one does more often pay with a card?

   Cash is used much, much more often that anywhere I have been in America or Europe. Like to the point where my wife and I were out and about in Japan yesterday and worried we were going to run out of cash while carrying only 10,000 yen on us. In the US, I would go weeks with less than $20 USD on me and not worry one bit.

   While it is changing and going cashless is starting to grow in Japan, it is still likely that you will need to carry some cash on you all the time.

3. Definitely get a credit card in your home country. If you want to travel in Japan you need it to book hotels, buses etc.
   Cash is still needed in some areas but services like PayPay are growing super fast and even small restaurants or food stalls accept it now. My bf almost never uses cash and has no problems

4. > I Read that there are high fees for paing with the “wrong” credit card.

   Usually this depends on the card. So read up on the card itself, whether it has exchange fees, or fees for using abroad etc.

   >Furthermore I read about different possibilities to get your money to Japan and pay there without beeing charged for changing money etc.

   The way I did was just using my debit card to withdraw money at the Post office ATM. My foreign bank doesn’t charge any exchange fees or withdrawal fees, so it was very little overhead.

   Either this or a CC with no exchange fees is recommended.

   >opening a bank account in Japan can be useful. Do you have recommendations about that matter? Waht are the pros and cons?

   Unless you actually get money from within Japan, there is really no need to have a Japanese bank account. If you do part time work or need the bank account for paying rent, then it’s pretty easy to transfer money from abroad by using Wise or something.

   >Also do you know if it is correct, that bank notes and hard cash are not often used and one does more often pay with a card?

   I haven’t been to a single place that doesn’t accept cash in Japan. Cash is widely used. CC and cashless is getting more popular, but Japan is not as Cash-less as many other countries. In Sweden for example, most places wouldn’t accept cash at all when I left a few years ago. Here many places only accept cash.

5. One more point of advice- get an American Express card. A lot of stores that supposedly block foreign cards won’t block foreign AmEx cards as long as you type in any local Japanese address. In your case, as someone in Germany, the AmEx Blue would work fine for this- 2% foreign transaction fee and no annual fee (you can add the option to earn rewards for 30 euros a year but you can skip this if you don’t care) is good enough if you’re only using it for places that won’t take your Visa card. That, a 0% forex fee Visa, and cash will get you pretty much anywhere in Japan without a bank account (for utilities and rent, you can send a bank transfer with cash at an ATM).