Going to Japan for Sakura season? Getting around will be easier as prepaid card sales resume in March

Taking the subway and buses in Japan will become easier for tourists from March 1, when the sale of unregistered prepaid cards resumes after a nearly two-year hiatus.

While some train and bus operators in the Land of the Rising Sun allow commuters to

pay for fares with contactless credit and debit cards

, most people still use rechargeable prepaid cards, known as IC cards, for railway, subway and bus rides.

Commuters in the Tokyo, Sendai and Niigata regions typically rely on two kinds of IC cards: Suica cards sold by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East), and Pasmo cards from other railway and bus operators in the capital. These are interchangeable with IC cards issued in certain cities like Sapporo and Osaka.

Unregistered IC cards are especially popular with tourists, as they can be bought from station ticket offices and do not require users to register their personal information.

Registered cards, which are tied to personal information like names, allow users to claim their cards if they are lost and later found.

In June 2023, however, Tokyo’s train and bus operators indefinitely suspended the sale of physical, anonymous Suica and Pasmo cards due to a global semiconductor shortage. Two months later, the sale of registered cards was also stopped for the same reason.

This made it more inconvenient for tourists as they had fewer options.

Digital versions of IC cards were still available, but only for Apple devices and those with Google Wallets in Japanese Android devices.

Although Suica and Pasmo cards for foreign tourists were available, they could only be purchased from a handful of locations like travel hubs, and had shorter expiry dates.

Once chips for IC cards became easier to obtain as the global shortage eased, the sale of registered Pasmo and Suica cards restarted in September 2024.

On Feb 18 2025, JR East announced that Suica and Pasmo cards will be sold at ticket machines again from March 1 as sufficient stock has been secured.

The move comes ahead of the beloved Sakura season in Spring, with the pink blossoms forecast to bloom from late March in the capital Tokyo, according to the latest estimates.

After welcoming a record of

more than 36.8 million tourists

in 2024, the East Asian country is expected to draw even more sightseers in 2025 with the World Expo in Osaka, which will run from April to October.

Singaporeans alone accounted for

691,100 visitors to Japan

in 2024, a jump of 16.9 per cent from 2023, due to a stronger Singaporean dollar against the Japanese yen as well as the launch of more flight services.