Visit Japan Web: QR Code Guide (2026)

Visit Japan Web is Japan's official pre-arrival portal: 15 minutes on your phone before the trip produces one QR code that covers both immigration and customs, and typically saves 20–30 minutes of queueing and form-filling when you land. It's free, it's not mandatory (paper forms still exist), and it's run by the government at vjw.digital.go.jp, so ignore any site or app charging for it. Here's the walkthrough, and the handful of things that trip people up.

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Step by Step (Do This Before You Fly)

1. Create an account at vjw.digital.go.jp with an email and password. There is no app; it's a website, which means nothing to download and it works on any phone.
2. Enter your passport details, exactly as printed. The site can read the passport photo page with your phone camera, which avoids typos; a mismatched digit is the most common reason a QR code fails at the kiosk.
3. Register the trip: arrival flight number, arrival date, and your first accommodation's name, address, and phone number. Copy these from your booking confirmation; "Shinjuku somewhere" doesn't pass. If you're using our trip planner, the details are on your trip page.
4. Fill in the two declarations: the immigration questions (purpose of visit, length of stay) and the customs declaration (the same questions the paper card asks about cash over ¥1 million and restricted goods). For a normal tourist the honest answer to nearly everything is "no". If you're travelling with medication that needed an import certificate, that's separate from customs; our medication guide covers it.
5. Show the QR code button, then screenshot it. Since 2024 immigration and customs share a single unified QR code. The screenshot matters: airport WiFi at a jet-bridge crawl is where good pre-planning goes to die, and the kiosk reads a screenshot as happily as the live page.

When to do it: anytime from when your flights and first hotel are booked, up to at least 6 hours before landing so the code is active. Doing it the week before departure, when bookings are final, is the sweet spot. You can edit details later if plans change.

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What Happens at the Airport

At Haneda, Narita Terminal 3, Kansai, and Fukuoka, 2026 brought Joint Kiosks: one machine scans your passport and QR code together and handles immigration entry and the customs declaration in a single step, leaving just the fingerprint-and-photo capture and a short officer check. At other terminals the flow is the classic two stops (immigration desk, then a customs gate), with your QR code scanned at each; still far faster than handwriting two forms in the arrivals hall.

After customs you're into the arrivals concourse, where the next moves are cash, an IC card, and a train into town; our airport-to-Tokyo guide and eSIM guide take over from there.

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The Details That Trip People Up

• Families register together. One account can hold companions (children, partners without their own email); each person gets their own QR code under the same login. Screenshot all of them.
• No smartphone, dead battery, or no code? You're fine. Paper immigration and customs cards remain legal and are stocked on the plane and in the hall. Visit Japan Web is a fast lane, not a requirement.
• One trip entry per visit. Returning to Japan later in the year? The account persists; just add a new trip registration. There's no earliest-allowed date, so register whenever your plans are firm.
• Connecting flights: register the flight that actually lands in Japan, not the first leg of the journey.
• It's not a visa. Visit Japan Web only digitizes the arrival forms. Visa-exempt nationalities (most Western passports, for stays up to 90 days) need nothing else; travellers who need a visa still need the visa.

That's genuinely all of it. Fifteen minutes with your booking confirmations open, one screenshot, and your arrival day starts at the luggage belt instead of the back of a forms queue. For the rest of the pre-flight checklist, our essential apps guide has the full setup.