If you’re staying in Japan longer than a few weeks, you’ll need a Japanese phone number. Not so much for calling people. For everything else.
Delivery apps won’t verify your account without one. Restaurant booking sites ask for one. So do landlords, banks, gyms and the ward office. LINE, which is how the entire country talks to each other, wants a number that can receive a text before it’ll let you register.
So you start looking at SIMs and eSIMs, and you hit the wall everyone hits. Every provider asks for a residence card. You won’t have one for a few weeks after you land, possibly longer.
You don’t need one. A passport is enough, as long as you pick a provider that checks your ID in person when you collect the SIM rather than demanding it online. Physical SIMs and eSIMs are both available this way.
Below we’ll cover why that wall is there, the two services that will sell you a number without a residence card, and how to go from ordering to a working phone. It’s written for people coming for months or years rather than a fortnight: students, working holiday makers, people starting a job, long-stay remote workers.
Prices checked against provider sites in August 2026, tax included. Promotional pricing moves around, so confirm before you buy.
Yes, you can get a number without a residence card
Order before you fly, pick a collection counter, show your passport when you land. That’s the whole thing. You walk out of the airport with a working Japanese number.
The one catch is that you can’t finish the process online. At some point a person has to look at your passport, which is why you collect the SIM in person rather than getting an eSIM QR code by email. Section 7 has the legal detail if you’re curious. The practical version: anyone promising you a real Japanese number instantly by email with no ID step is describing something that doesn’t exist.
Why the wall is there
Japan issues residence cards to people staying longer than three months. You get yours at the airport, but it won’t show a Japanese address until you’ve found somewhere to live and registered at your local ward office. Realistically that’s a few weeks.
Docomo, au, SoftBank, Rakuten and all the budget brands underneath them assume you’re already past that point. Turn up with a passport and a hotel booking and you’ll be turned away, politely.
A couple of providers exist for exactly this gap. They do identity checks the old-fashioned way: you show a person your passport at a counter, they hand you a SIM. No chip reader, no Japanese address, no bank account.
One thing to avoid: 050 numbers
You’ll see cheap “Japanese phone numbers” starting with 050 advertised online. Skip them. They’re internet numbers, and they can’t receive SMS at all, because text messages travel over the voice network rather than the internet. LINE’s own help pages tell you to register with a number from a real carrier. Payment apps generally reject 050 too.
Data-only SIMs and cheap travel eSIMs have the same problem for the same reason. Fine for Google Maps, useless for anything that texts you a code.
The two options
| Mobal | Sakura Mobile | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | ¥4,950 (¥4,455 on current sale) | ¥5,500 |
| Monthly | ¥1,430 voice only ¥1,650 / 1GB ¥3,630 / 10GB ¥4,378 / 30GB ¥5,280 / 50GB | ¥3,278 / 5GB ¥3,828 / 15GB ¥4,378 / 30GB ¥5,478 / 40GB ¥7,678 / 60GB |
| Payment method | Overseas credit or debit card, PayPal | Overseas credit or debit card |
| What you need to buy it | Passport (18+) | Passport |
| eSIM | Yes | Yes |
| Minimum term / cancellation fee | None / none | One month / none |
| Support language | English | English |
Neither is the cheapest phone plan in Japan. Budget brands like ahamo and LINEMO will sell you 30GB for around ¥3,000, which is better value by any measure. What they need is a residence card with your address printed on it, a Japanese bank account or credit card, and enough Japanese to get through a signup form that doesn’t come in English. Once you’ve settled in and none of that is an obstacle any more, switching over makes good sense. For your first few months, they’re simply not available to you.
Don’t worry about the network
Neither company is a name you’ll recognise, and people reasonably assume that means a weaker signal. It doesn’t, because neither one runs a network of its own. Both operate on docomo, the same network millions of people here use daily, so your coverage and speeds are whatever a docomo customer gets. Docomo reaches over 99% of Japan’s population, which covers cities, small towns, countryside, mountains and shinkansen routes.
Why we’d go with Mobal
Ask around any share house in Tokyo and Mobal is the name that comes back. Not scientific, but it does mean your housemates can probably talk you through the setup, which is worth something at 11pm when your APN settings won’t stick.
The reasons that hold up:
- It’s cheaper to get started. ¥4,950 with no separate activation fee, against ¥5,500 in activation fees alone at Sakura Mobile. Sakura is the better-known name among long-term residents, but you pay for it on day one and again every month at the lower tiers.
- There’s a voice-only plan at ¥1,430. If you just need a number that catches verification codes, because you’ll be on Wi-Fi at home, at school and at work, this is the cheapest legitimate Japanese number a foreigner can get. Sakura has nothing like it; its entry point is ¥3,278.
- You can leave whenever. No minimum term, no cancellation fee. Cancel from your account page the week you fly home.
- You can collect it the day you land. Counters at Haneda T3, Narita T1 and T2, Kansai T1, Chubu, Fukuoka, Sapporo and Naha, plus Shibuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo Station, Kyoto, Osaka and Yokohama.
- Incoming calls and texts are free. Which matters more than you’d think once landlords and banks start ringing you back.
- Support is in English, from people who deal with your exact situation all day.
The other name that comes up in guides for foreigners is GTN Mobile, and it’s a decent company. But its main plans want a residence card with your address printed on it, and the passport-only voice SIM has to be bought in person at one of its shops. Sorting that out in your first week, jet-lagged, without a phone to navigate with, is not how you want to spend a morning.
Ordering and setting it up
What to expect
ID check: required. Your passport is what you show.
How you receive it: Japanese law says that check has to happen face to face, which is why nobody can email you an eSIM QR code. You order online, collect your SIM or eSIM access code at a counter, then activate it. Collection is free.
Worth knowing: postal delivery inside Japan exists, but it goes to your local post office rather than your door, and it needs ID showing your name and a Japanese address. A passport won’t do it and neither will a hotel booking. Without a residence card, counter pickup is your route.
Will your phone work? A two-minute check
If your phone is a few years old at most and isn’t locked to a carrier, it’ll almost certainly be fine. Two things to check before you order.
Is it carrier-locked? On iPhone, go to Settings → General → About and scroll to Carrier Lock. You want “No SIM restrictions”. On Android it’s usually Settings → About phone → SIM status, or just ask your carrier. This is the one that actually catches people, especially phones bought on a US carrier plan. Most carriers will unlock a handset once it’s paid off, but it can take a few days, so do it now rather than the night before your flight.
eSIM or physical SIM? Dial *#06#. If a 32-digit EID number comes up, your phone does eSIM and you can order either. If it doesn’t, order the physical SIM. One exception: US-market iPhone 14 and newer, and Japanese-market iPhone 17, have no SIM tray at all, so eSIM is your only choice there.
That’s the check. If you want the technical bit, the phone needs 4G Band 1 (2100MHz) and VoLTE, and Android has to be on version 12 or newer. Anything mainstream sold in the US, UK, Canada or Australia in the last few years covers all three without you thinking about it. Bringing something older or unusual, check the compatibility list first.
Pick your plan
Order online in English. Choose voice-only or voice plus data, then a data tier.
If you’re not sure, start at 30GB. Your first month you’ll be on maps constantly and running your whole life off mobile data, and you can move to a smaller plan on the 1st of any month from your account page once you know what you actually use. Unused data rolls into the following month too. Nothing about this decision is permanent.
Choose how to receive it
Counter pickup. Free, same day, and you show your passport and order confirmation. You choose the counter and the date at checkout, so pick the one nearest your arrival gate and the day you land. Counters keep normal business hours, so for a late-night landing, book a city location for the next day instead.
Delivery to your home country before you fly. Also free, but your passport alone often isn’t enough. Requirements vary: a state ID or driver’s license in the US, a photocard driving licence or passport plus a tax document in the UK, a Personalausweis in Germany, a national ID card in Thailand. Shipping is 13 to 18 business days to the US, 15 to 30 to Australia and Canada. If your ID doesn’t qualify, take counter pickup instead.
Delivery to a Japanese address. Not realistically open to you yet, for the reasons in the box above.
Setting up an eSIM
Most people go this way, and if your phone has no SIM tray you don’t have a choice.
- Collect your eSIM access code at the counter with your passport and order confirmation. You get a paper voucher with a code on it rather than a QR code by email.
- Get on Wi-Fi. Airport or hotel is fine.
- Log in to your account and enter the code.
- Confirm your data plan. Billing starts here and the first month is pro-rated, so activating mid-month costs you about half.
- Install the eSIM profile. On iPhone: Settings → Cellular → Add eSIM → scan the QR code on your account page.
- Install the APN configuration profile from the link they give you, then restart the phone.
- You should see docomo in the status bar. Your number arrives by email and shows in your account.
Setting up a physical SIM
- Collect your SIM with your passport and order confirmation. It’s multi-size, so it fits any phone.
- Check your activation deadline, which is in your account. Physical SIMs have to be activated by the end of the second month after collection.
- Power off, insert the SIM.
- Log in, activate, choose your data plan. Billing starts here, pro-rated.
- Set up the APN, then restart.
- If your iPhone asks whether to switch your number to the new SIM, think before tapping. Keeping your original line selected preserves iMessage and FaceTime on your home number. Also turn off “Send as SMS” in Messages, or your home carrier will charge you roaming for texts you didn’t mean to send that way.
Give yourself half an hour and don’t try it in a taxi. The APN step is where people get stuck and it goes much better sitting down with hotel Wi-Fi.
A few costs to know about
- Incoming calls and texts are free. Outgoing domestic calls are ¥44 a minute, texts ¥33 each.
- Running out of data doesn’t cut you off. You drop to around 200kbps, which is rough for video and fine for maps and messaging.
- International calls go through a
0063prefix instead of dialling directly, at ¥65 a minute to most major countries. Most people just use WhatsApp. - Roaming is an add-on at ¥5,995 every time you switch it on, which adds up if you leave and re-enter Japan often.
Later on
Once your residence card has an address on it and you’ve found your feet, the brands mentioned earlier open up, along with the rest of the Japanese market. There’s far more variety at the cheap end than anything aimed at foreigners. You can switch whenever you like since nothing is holding you, though if you want to keep your number, ask support about porting before you commit, because the documentation on that isn’t consistent.
Plenty of people never bother. ¥1,650 for 1GB with English support and no friction is a fine place to stay.
In short
Order before you fly. Choose counter pickup. Bring your passport. Start at 30GB and drop down later if you don’t need it.
Shortest possible version: Mobal, airport pickup, sort out the rest once you’re here.
The rules behind all this
You don’t need this section to get a phone. It’s here because it explains why the process looks the way it does.
Why it can’t all happen online
Since 1 April 2026, identity verification for voice lines in Japan has been stricter. The old online method, photographing your ID and taking a selfie, was scrapped, along with verification by forwarding-prohibited mail. Online checks now need an IC chip read (My Number Card, Japanese driver’s license, residence card) or JPKI, Japan’s public key certificate system.
Read that again holding a passport. There’s no chip-reading route that accepts one.
That’s why providers can’t email you an eSIM QR code the way a travel data eSIM arrives, and issue an access code you collect in person instead. It applies to every voice provider equally, so a company offering a real Japanese number with no ID step and an instant email is not offering what it says.
What’s coming
A separate amendment to the same law went through cabinet on 24 March 2026, passed the Diet and was promulgated in May 2026. It extends identity verification to data-only SIMs, caps how many lines one person can hold and widens the range of covered services. It takes effect within a year of promulgation, so expect it around May 2027.1
Some sites say that from 1 April 2026 all SIMs including data-only require ID. That’s the two changes getting mixed up. For now, data-only eSIMs are still generally sold without an ID check.
- Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, official notice: https://www.soumu.go.jp/menu_news/gyouji/02kiban18_02000488.html ↩
Common questions
Can I really get a Japanese number with just my passport? Yes, from a provider that checks ID in person. Order, choose a collection counter, show your passport there. What you can’t do since April 2026 is finish an identity check online using a photo of your passport.
Can I set it up before I arrive? You can order and pay before you fly and choose your collection point and date at checkout. Home country delivery is possible but has ID requirements a passport alone often doesn’t meet, so ordering ahead and collecting on arrival is the version that reliably works.
Do I need a Japanese bank account or credit card? No. An overseas credit or debit card is fine, and Mobal takes PayPal. Cash isn’t accepted online.
Is the signal actually good? Yes. Both providers run on docomo, which covers over 99% of Japan’s population.
Can I tether? Yes on voice plus data plans. Not on voice-only, since there’s no data to share.
What if I’m under 18? You can’t hold a voice line in your own name, and a parent ordering in theirs has to collect it in person, since the ID has to match the order.
How long does setup take? About half an hour once you have the SIM or access code. Do it on Wi-Fi.
