Everyone Says Buy a Suica the Second You Land. Since March, 729 Stations Just Take the Card in Your Pocket.
To say tap to pay (contactless) in Japanese, say タッチ決済 (tatchi kessai).
Everyone tells you to buy a Suica the second you land. Since March, seven hundred stations around Tokyo just take the card already in your pocket.
In this video
- タッチ決済、使えますか？ tatchi kessai, tsukaemasu ka? Can I use tap to pay?
- この改札、タッチ決済は使えますか？ kono kaisatsu, tatchi kessai wa tsukaemasu ka? Does this gate take tap to pay?
Kanji in this phrase
- 決済
- けっさい
- 改札
- かいさつ
- 使え
- つかえ
Why this phrase
The single most repeated piece of Japan travel advice went out of date on the twenty fifth of March, 2026, when eleven Kanto railway operators switched on interoperable contactless payment across fifty four lines and 729 stations. You tap your own Visa or Mastercard, or the phone it lives in, straight on the reader at the gate. No top up, no deposit, no queue at a machine. The word printed on the reader is 「タッチ決済」. The catch that keeps this from being a free pass: JR East is not one of the eleven, so the Yamanote line and the rest of JR still want an IC card. One clear takeaway, look for 「タッチ決済」 on the gate, and know it is a separate reader from the IC pad.
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