Your first 30 minutes at the airport
Everything is easiest inside the airport: English signage, staffed counters, short queues. Every one of these three gets harder the moment you board a train.
Get the order wrong and you stall. No data and you can't reach your hotel or read a map. No cash and you can't top up a travel card, because most top-up machines don't take foreign cards. Each one blocks the next.
What to do
1 — Get data working
Activate your eSIM before you fly if you can; otherwise the SIM and pocket-wifi counters are in arrivals. Do this first — the other two are much easier with a working phone.
2 — Get yen from an ATM that works
Use the 7-Eleven (Seven Bank) or Japan Post ATM in the terminal. Most Japanese bank ATMs reject foreign cards outright. Take enough for a few days.
3 — Get a travel IC card
Suica, Pasmo or Welcome Suica from the JR East Travel Service Center. One tap for every train, bus and convenience store from here on.
4 — Then decide your train
Only now look at the airport train options. With data and a charged card you can just tap through the gate instead of queueing at a ticket machine.
Say this
スイカを買いたいです
suika wo kaitai desu
I’d like to buy a Suica card.
Watch out for
Top-up machines are usually cash-only
This is the one that catches people. You can often buy the card with a card, but charging it up at a station machine generally needs cash — which is why yen comes before the IC card.
Welcome Suica expires in 28 days
It needs no ¥500 deposit, but the validity cannot be extended and the leftover balance is not refundable. On a long trip a normal Suica or Pasmo is the better buy.
One tourist card per person
Welcome Suica is limited to one per person, so a family needs one each — do it at the counter while you are all standing there.
Where this comes from
- Japan Guide — Prepaid IC cards (Suica, Pasmo, Icoca)
- JR East — Welcome Suica (official)
- Seven Bank — international cards at 7-Eleven ATMs
Last checked 2026-07-29. Unnamed Suica and Pasmo returned to general sale on 1 March 2025 after the chip shortage, so you are no longer forced onto the tourist card.