Japan Travel Guide
Visa summary
247 passport nationalities researched for entry into Japan.
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Guide
Japan has no land borders at all, it is worth saying plainly rather than dancing around it. Every arrival is by air or by sea, which actually simplifies the planning question down to one thing: which airport, and from there, whether your passport falls into the 68 country visa exemption list, most of which allows a 90 day stay with no visa applied for in advance.
Visit Japan Web gets described as mandatory by a lot of sites, it is not. Paper arrival and customs cards are still handed out on the plane and accepted at every airport. Registering online in advance just gets you into the faster QR code lane at the automated gates, a real time saver at Narita or Haneda during a busy morning, not a requirement to clear immigration at all.
Border crossings
- There is no land border to speak of
Every entry point is an airport or a seaport. That is not a gap in this guide, it is the actual geography, and it means the usual land crossing detail this site covers for other countries simply does not apply here.
- Narita and Haneda are not interchangeable
Haneda sits close to central Tokyo and has taken on more international routes in recent years, useful if your hotel is downtown. Narita, further out, is still the larger international gateway for many airlines. Check which one your flight actually uses before booking a hotel near the other.
- Kansai, Chubu, Fukuoka, and Sapporo cover the rest
Osaka's Kansai, Nagoya's Chubu, and the regional hubs at Fukuoka and Sapporo (New Chitose) all handle real international traffic, useful if Tokyo is not your first stop.
Transit routes
- The Shinkansen does the heavy lifting
Tokyo to Kyoto or Osaka is well under three hours, and the network extends to Fukuoka in the south and Sapporo's region in the north. Once you have cleared entry, this is the actual backbone of a Japan trip, more than any single flight.
- A domestic flight only for the long stretches
Tokyo to Sapporo or Tokyo to Okinawa are long enough that flying beats the train. For anything inside Honshu's main corridor, the Shinkansen is usually faster door to door once you count airport transit time.
- Regional rail rewards a slower itinerary
Beyond the Shinkansen spine, local and regional lines reach smaller cities the bullet trains skip. Worth building in if your trip is not just Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka on a tight schedule.
Entry point notes
- Visit Japan Web is optional, not required
Register in advance if you want the QR fast lane at Narita, Haneda, or Kansai. Skip it and use the paper forms on the plane, both routes get you through immigration, one is just faster on a crowded morning.
- JESTA is coming, but not yet
Japan's parliament passed a law on May 29, 2026 to eventually require pre-screening for visa exempt travelers, similar in spirit to the US ESTA or Europe's ETIAS. It will not launch before 2028 at the earliest. Nothing changes for a trip booked now, but expect this to matter eventually.
- Proof of onward travel gets checked
A confirmed return or onward ticket is part of the basic entry expectation, on top of a passport valid for your whole stay. It is a plain, standard requirement, not a special Japan quirk, but it is the kind of detail that trips people up at check in more than at the border itself.