I am 30M non-Japanese guy living in Yokohama. I work in Tokyo as permanent employee with close to 10 Million annual salary. I have been living here for close to 5 years now. And I am fluent in Japanese too. I have my savings account in MUFG bank. Until now, I have applied for a credit card in the same Bank (MUFG) for more than 5-6 times in past 4 years. But every time I get the email that I have failed in the Audit and they cannot give me a credit card. I haven’t had a credit card in Japan so far.
What am I doing wrong?
How can i get a credit card?
Which banks should I apply for to get the credit card without getting rejected?
46 comments
If you get rejected 6 times for the same card I think it’s clear that they aren’t going to give you one. But you can apply to other ones and hopefully have better luck. Rakuten and Amazon credit cards are the obligatory suggestions that will approve just about anyone with a job.
Does the name you entered match your passport and ID exactly? If not, that’s an auto rejection and a place many foreigners get stuck with credit cards. Also wait 6 months after the last rejection for trying again. I got rejected from multiple times before getting a Rakuten card on my third try I think
I think it is easy to get the ANA, JAL and Rakuten cards and the rewards are great if you travel a lot. Start with the entry level ones (i.e. non Gold) just to be sure. I easily got the ANA Gold card due to a long relationship with the issuer (SMBC) but when I applied for the JAL Gold card, I got a phone call that they approved me but only for the entry level card.
I got consistently denied for gas cards (e.g. eneos, idemitsu) and Amex Cards even after working 10+ years as a Japanese university professor.
Maybe try AMEX? I applied for an AMEX within my first month of living in Japan and before I even got my first salary. A week later, my AMEX arrived by post primed and ready to go.
I dont understand why youd apply for the same dang card?
Go with different providers and go from there
I’ve had the same experience. Stable job, Mo outstanding debts, lived here for years. Rejection after rejection. I know it’s all to do with my damn name on the bank book. It never fits in the online application field.
Same situation with Sumitomo Mitsui. The thing which is stopping you is just that you aren’t Japanese, and that isn’t going to change! Just do a different card.
I was amazed at how relatively simple it was to get a PayPay VISA card when SMBC were saying no despite having had an account there for nearly 20 years with quite a lot of money in it.
I honestly don’t think MUFG wants to deal with foreigners. I also had the same problem.
I got a JAL credit card. My wife and I manage to get enough point for a free domestic trip every year. Much better than what MUFG offers.
I got rejected many times by the credit card company as well, including by amazon for 2 times before eventually got it from them.
In my case, the mere existence of a middle name is what got me. Just make sure that my name in romaji and katakana is the same, then voila.
AI rejecting u.
Try Rakuten Visa card.
I tried about 6 times, waited 6 months between each attempt.
Rakuten Card was the one that finally gave me a chance. After about 1 year of paying off the Rakuten Card on time, I applied for another one that had some perks I wanted and I got that card too.
Enos….then Rakuten
Most of the times the audit is done by computers and somebody in their 30s without a credit history in Japan is automatically rejected for being “blank”. Nothing to do with income or Japanese level. I kept getting rejected for different cards until I got my first one (Paypay). After a couple months, I started to apply for others and always got approved – even the ones that had rejected me before. I have been here for less time, make less than you, and I have an MUFG card.
The “bank” ones are the most difficult to get. Just start with an easy one, build a decent history and you will get the one you want.
Go for rakuten card, i applied as unemployed Lmao i got approve 100k yen limit but i can increase to 300k. I didn’t tried to 500k yet haha. I’m sure u will get the rakuten card with that salary. Easily approved.
I think you can try an in-store card application first, like at a department store. The employee will be able to contact the help desk more immediately, because it probably is an issue with a middle name/katakana and lack of credit.
I also noticed that the big banks are much more reluctant to issue credit cards and give much less credit.
Just keep trying…
It took me 7 tries before I got accepted! Once you have a CC, almost any CC you apply for will be approved.
I’m 40M non-Japanese living in Tokyo. I work as a permanent employee with over 10M annual and speak zero Japanese. In my first year I’ve applied and had one credit card and after 12 months applied for another, now four years later after building my credit history I have total of 3 cards to my name. to add that in year two i took a small loan for a car, this added to my credit history too.
I think as some have suggested you’re struggling because you’ve applied to the same institution once every 8 months, surely after the second time getting rejected you definitely don’t fit their customer profile. try another company or maybe find something small and get some credit history then try again.
I got rejected by my own bank when I applied for a DEBIT card… And I already have a credit card with them.
Try Rakuten. I’ve had good experiences with them. Got a Gold debit card with better points and rewards than other credit cards.
Try paypay. It much easier to get than other credit card.
“John Smith” would not have had such a problem
Same thing happened to me for two years with many different cards. Even Rakuten rejected me 4-5 times. I had a big savings, a very respectable job, and a long contract. They even called my secretary to confirm my employment on a few occasions, but would still eventually reject with no explanation. I always thought it was due to being American with a the related tax and banking issues.
I finally got a Rakuten mobile phone line, which someone recommended as a solution. Then Rakuten easily gave me a bank account to make payments easier, and they approved a credit card right away. After 6 months, I increased the limit.
Same. Get a Rakuten card. The big banks are just a waste of time now.
I was lucky I got a SMBC Visa card when I first arrived 20 years ago. Over the last 5 years only Rakuten accepted me. 8m + income. Seishain. And no reason for rejection.
Will be probably just some silly Katakana version of your name different or something like that (missed out the middle name?). It is not because you are a foreigner.
Go to a marui and apply for an epos card in person. It’s like a hack. You’ll leave the store with it in hand.
Back when I applied I was actually between jobs and mainly just needed an ETC card
Left the store with the credit card in hand and the whole event took less than 30 minutes.
Good luck!
Hi OP. Did you try to apply one from JP Post Office Bank ? When I was a student in Japan (almost 10 years ago) without any income other than stipend money from my scholarship, I still manage to get one from Post Office.
Most of the time it’s wrong information. I’m a broke student and I’ve got 4 japanese credit cards with the first one being a month after arriving.
Rakuten kept rejecting me, but when I applied to their card through the rakuten mobile store they told me I have to put all the information exactly like it’s written in the zairyu card. So if a number in my address is written as 8, it has to be 8. Not 八 (even if the auto fill makes it in kanji), not ８. Same goes for the name, I’ve always written it in katakana with 2 surnames and a name, but they told me I have to put only one surname and the other one in the “name” section, because japanese people don’t have two surnames. After following all these instructions I finally got accepted in Rakuten after being rejected over 5 times in the past.
Rakuten was the hardest one to get. Line pay (SMBC) was easy, Mercari was easy and Amazon Mastercard (SMBC) was also pretty easy.
Do you have a middle name?
I had to put my first and middle together.
Small discrepancies can lead to rejection…
I would recommend you to try Paidy (which the credit is not so good, but its something – I got 500,000 to buy Apple products and 50,000 to buy everything else, interest rate 0%) and mercari app. Both of them you can get also physical credit cards. if you don’t pass that check CIC [https://www.cic.co.jp/en/](https://www.cic.co.jp/en/) what’s the reason.
If you’re fluent in Japanese, why not ask the bank? They must have a system.
The joke is, the banks are probably more likely to go under than OP.
The seven and I holdings card works. They work with foreigners well too.
Racism
I am at same boat. Got some major brands cc and also cc from bank (smbc). But rakuten hates me, get rejected everytime(i apply every 7-8 months gap) once getting rejected
I got my smbc card like 6 months after I came to Japan, they actually insisted I get it even though I told them I was an unemployed student. So bizarre to hear it’s that hard. Go figure
Sbi prestia gave me a card
You say you’ve been living in Tokyo for 4 years – was it the same place? And perm employee – has it also been the same place? And how many employees do they have?
Most banks read you living and working in the same place for an absolute minimum of two years.
A large Japanese company is best, a small foreign company is worse, but even then if the company has been saying and been profitable for 10 years or so, it will usually be seen as “fine”.
Income what varies wildly from year to year would also be a red flag, but I assume that’s not the case.
I would request your credit report from CIC and the others, just to see what’s on there. There could be some unpaid bill you don’t know about.
And, some banks are just picky out work in mysterious ways. I got rejected for a big camera card desire spending a small fortune there, and a MUFG amex card in the past, but a few years later MUFG sent me the application for the amex platinum card.
There is a pretty easy way to get a card if you have no history.
Get a store-only card for marui or another store that has both “in house” credit cards and real ones. (Usually the in store cards are more lenient). Use it for a year or so, and they will send you an invitation for the upgraded version with JCB or Visa that you can use anywhere.
According to friend, Lumine is not good for this strategy as they are picky. I know two people who have used Marui.
If you use that new card for a year or so, then you now have good credit and can use it to apply for other unrelated cards such as View, etc.
Option 2: if you actually have bad credit, just get a secured card and use it for a few years.
I got rejected MUFJ/Rakuten but got Amazon card easily, and now I could MUFJ.
Practically got given a credit card when shopping for a washing machine, air con etc. It was part of a points campaign so I guess they were just trying to sign up as many people as possible.
Got the card and didn’t buy from the store anyway.
I was in the same situation until last year. Got my first credit card (EPOS) from GTN.
If you’re with MFUG, and have money in your account try getting the the MUFG Visa Debit card 三菱ＵＦＪ-VISAデビット
Rakuten is good and easier to get approved for foreigners.
Our company credit card guy came in yesterday to discuss trying to get me a card:
He suggested PR would give me a higher chance of getting one, he also suggested having my salary go into a bigger bank (I just made the switch to JP Post so that I could FINALLY get a debit card). Despite accepting JP Post as an option, he told me there was little chance of it being accepted.
A couple of other things as well like applying for the lowest tier card, not having any loan features on the card etc.
Quite nice to have a guy actually tell you what you can do, as opposed to most customer facing staff who leave you guessing. He basically guarantees anyone in our company a card so my case is going to be a real test for him. :L
One other thing that might be a factor is the length of your name, if you have any middle names it might be impossible for them to enter you into the system, mine is about 27 characters long and I get rejected for EVERYTHING.
I managed to cheese the JP Post application for a debit card by putting my first and last names in as usual and then using my entire name for the furigana – another possible strategy to try.
Once I had a credit card under family shared in Japan (Rakuten).. it got cancelled upon renewal no reason given and credit was not delinquent.
You can do a credit history check. The linked site will give you some ideas – it’s in Japanese mind.
https://manekai.ameba.jp/creditcard/blacklist/
This is a first place to check and give you ideas. I checked mine and even though it was clean I still got rejected by MUFG for an additional JAL card. I already have 2 MUFG issued cards but they wouldn’t issue me another airline card. However I got an AMEX Platinum card at the same time as well as a Rakuten card.
Maybe it’s just MUFG as it depends on which agency they use for their credit checks. Note that a delayed credit card payment or loan payment is enough to get you on the blacklist.
Do you know the definition of insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over again expecting something different as an output.
op, that bank don’t want you, or are automatically rejecting you for some reason.
Try somewhere else 👍
On the credit card application form there should be a little box somewhere that says you want to pay your full monthly balance every month. In effect you’ll be treating your credit card a bit like a slightly delayed action debit card.
Check this box and you might find that magically you’ll be accepted.
Why? I think that Japanese banks have been stung one too many times by foreign residents who run up large debts on their credit cards and then simply leave the country. Now in theory they could chase you for that debt, but in practice that is rarely going to be successful without expensive legal action taken in a country far away, under a foreign legal system, using lawyers they don’t know. It’s just a massive pain in the posterior and they’ll only get back a fraction of what they’re owed at the end.
Add to this that 98% of their customers are Japanese and “missing out” on the 2% of foreigners who live in Japan isn’t a huge disadvantage to the business and you’ll find that most Japanese banks regard foreigners storming out saying, “Well I’ll take my business elsewhere then!!!!” with a shrug and a complete lack of interest.
So what can you do to reassure the Japanese bank that you’re not just going to run up a huge amount of debt and then leave? Tick the little box on the form that says you’ll pay it off in full every month.
But doesn’t this defeat the point of having a credit card? Well, no. Even when I had a credit card back home I cleared it every month to avoid paying the bank’s insane interest rates on credit card debt. Unsurprisingly banks don’t like this much and gave me a poor credit score because… apparently being financially responsible means I’m a credit risk? Yes, the entire “credit score” thing is a huge scam.
Back to the main issue. Check the “pay it all off monthly” box on the form. I noted with amusement that my current card allows me to “uncheck” this box on the payment website (because banks **like** earning that fat interest on credit card debt).
This should deal with your problem. Also, I strongly recommend keeping that box checked. Not spending money you don’t have is good basic financial discipline. Even if you’re “expecting a bonus” or someone tells you “the cheque is in the mail”, don’t spend the money until it is in your account.