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In Japan at train stations, you can very easily buy a ticket, shinkansen or other service, at the ticket machines just by the gate.

There are (A) "credit card only" machines and (B) machines that take either cash (ie, notes/coins) or credit card.

All machines have an English button /often other languages too and you can easily select the train, seat etc if relevant, and pay.

HOWEVER I was astonished to see that very simply, it seems foreign credit cards, foreign cards of any type, are just not accepted.

As a curiosity I tried this extensively at many stations and many ticket machines, and indeed where the staff / locals etc spoke enough English, as best as I could understand indeed, amazingly, that's the case.

If you need a train ticket and you particularly want to pay using credit card, you have to stand in line (allow minimum one hour in almost all cases, since tourists flock to the ticket counter) at the ticket office;

or simply get cash from an ATM and use cash in the ticket machines, which is dead easy.

(Just TBC ordinary foreign credit cards work completely normally as anywhere in the world and are accepted everywhere in Japan for everything, in my experience. (Shops, restaurants, etc etc.))

Somewhat surprisingly, I thought there would be 100 million web pages where Otaku travellers yell about how ah hah! surprisingly! no foreign cards at Japanese train ticket machines! But no, I really can't see any solid info on it.

Does anyone decisively know if it's a plain fact that JR ticket machines simply do not accept foreign credit cards?

It could be I'm missing something or making some sort of mistake.

Related footnote - it's funny we live in an era when the internet has been around long enough that info on the net goes out of date really quickly. There are a million posts on the internet that JAPAN IS A CASH SOCIETY YOU CAN'T USE CARDS TOURIST BEWARE CARRY ONLY CASH IN JAPAN etc. Of course, this is absolutely wrong and ancient history now, you use normal international cards everywhere and always in Japan these days. This question is only about the weird curiosity of JR ticket machines!

Fattie
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3 Answers3

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This is absolutely not true. I have used various foreign-issued cards at ticket vending machines operated by various JR companies and I have rarely had an issue. However, be well aware that not all cards would work. If your card is issued by Visa, MasterCard or American Express (or JCB, but that is very rare outside of East and Southeast Asia) and carries a chip, there is a good chance it would work. Amex cards seem to have the best chance of working, quite ironically.

Regardless, it's still a bad idea to go around Japan without carrying cash. Many places are still cash only; some have gone cashless recently but accept only QR codes, and yet others may accept cards but yours might not work.

xuq01
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I've been in Japan in November/December 2022, and bought tickets from JR machines at Kyoto station (and other places) using a UK MasterCard issued by Starling bank. I think I also used another card successfully, but I'm not sure about that.

Arno
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Note that if you want to use an IC card (Suica/pasmo etc) rather than paper ticket then these cannot be topped up with any credit/debit card whatsoever.

DigitalDave23
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