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It appears that as of Oct. 11th (ie, Tuesday) the rules regarding tourist travel to Japan have changed. My understanding if that as of the 11th (or perhaps 12th) you can

  • assuming you're from a "blue" country
  • assuming you have a full 3+ injections covid vax

it's perfectly fine to just arrive in Japan ("as in the old days") with no visa, and, you can stay as a tourist for awhile.

However, I actually called a couple different airlines and ... they didn't have a clue about this :/ Which is not encouraging.

Airline experts, could it be that this information is perhaps not yet on Timatic? Or?

Does any one happen to know,

  • in fact if one can fly visa-free to Japan (after the 11th) is there an electronic-visa type arrangement? Or do you literally just roll up to Haneda with a (blue country) passport and you can visit?

  • does anyone know why, apparently, the "11th" change seems unknown to airlines, as of yet? (Of course, it could have just been a rare snafu w/ the agents I talked to, as always can happen.)

Addendum. As of early Nov (2022), this seems to be fixed.

Just for the sake of anyone actually flying, I added this addendum.

It was definitely not-fixed for three weeks. Incredible!

Fattie
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1 Answers1

2

(Thursday night)

I'm putting in an answer based on info gleaned so far.

It would appear there is a major mistake in Timatic's data.

(1) I could be mistaken but it clearly states on this official source that "UK" is included in visa free travel:

https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/short/novisa.html#notice06

(2) As of now, go to any timatic gateway and simply enter UK (passport) UK (resident) UK (departing) and Japan destination ... date after the 12th (or any date) and it asserts you DO NEED a visa.

Strange stuff!

That is a massive problem if so. No airline will sell a ticket if timatic says no.


Friday morning ...

All Timatic fed sites still report that UK travellers need a visa:

enter image description here

This does seem to be simply "completely wrong" based on all the info on Japanese gov't websites.

(Friday night)

No change. Timatic incorrectly says that UK passports need a visa.

What a strange thing.

Fattie
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