Buying a SIM Card or eSIM for Travel in Japan

With its incredible food and long history, dazzling cities coupled with stunning natural beauty, and fascinating mix of high-tech and traditional society, Japan is an incredible country for visitors.

It can also be a confusing one, however. Cities are huge, with a complex (albeit well-oiled) transport network, and there’s often limited amounts of English spoken.

More than most other countries, having a working phone makes a trip noticeably easier. You’ll appreciate it whenever you’re translating a menu, checking a train timetable, or just trying to find your way out of yet another sprawling metro station.

Wi-Fi is widely available but still isn’t everywhere, and it’s not always particularly fast or reliable in the places that do have it. Having your own connection makes for a simpler, less-stressful experience, especially in smaller towns and more rural areas.

Getting hold of a local SIM card isn’t particularly difficult. That said, with dozens of vendors and a few unusual quirks in the process, it’s not always straightforward either., and is rarely the cheapest option.

For that reason, these days I’m recommending most people just set themselves up with a travel eSIM before leaving home instead. They’re cheaper and easier to buy, will likely have faster data speeds, and mean you have a working phone before you even get off the plane.

Whichever approach you take, here’s what you need to know getting connected in Japan.

First up, the bad news: if you’re looking for a SIM card or eSIM with a local phone number, local regulations mean they’re very hard to find. If you’d like one, you’ll need to order it ahead of time from Mobal, one of the very few companies that offer them.

They’ll send the SIM card or eSIM activation code out to you anywhere in the world for free if you’ve got enough time before your trip, or you can pick it up from a range of airports and train stations in Japan when you arrive. ID and registration requirements are somewhat onerous thanks to those local regulations, but at least you only need to do them once.

Fortunately, the same restrictions don’t apply to data-only SIMs and eSIMs, so unless you really need a local phone number, these are the way to go for most short-term visitors.

On my first trip to Japan a few years ago, I ended up with a data-only SIM from b-mobile, which offered more data for the money than much of the competition. Speeds were slow, but it worked well enough everywhere I went on my three-week trip that I didn’t feel the need to seek out anything better.

While the purchase and registration process wasn’t too difficult, it did take a bit of time, and meant I was without a working phone for the first several hours I was in the country. Not ideal when trying to navigate Shibuya station for the first time!

On my most recent trip last month, I opted for a travel eSIM instead. It was a much better option for all kinds of reasons!

This time around I flew into Fukuoka, spending 10 days traveling around the southern island of Kyushu before heading up towards Osaka and Tokyo to finish off the trip. I had an absolutely incredible time, but that’s a story for a different blog post.

On the connectivity side of things, I primarily used an unlimited 5G eSIM from Mobal, but also tested out aloSIM and Roamless, two travel eSIM companies I often use elsewhere in the world.

I tested all three providers throughout the country, including in several small towns, beside a couple of volcanoes, and whizzing through the countryside on the Shinkansen at 250km/h, but have only included the Tokyo results in the table below for easier comparison.

My brother also used Airalo on his trip a couple of years ago, so I’ve put his results from Kanazawa in there as well.

With the exception of Roamless, upload and download speeds were similar across the board. Because it’s a local company, however, Mobal’s ping speeds were noticeably better than the rest. You’ll notice the difference mainly when streaming, either on video calls or watching Instagram, Tiktok, or whatever your social media vice of choice is.

That makes Mobal my top overall eSIM pick for Japan, especially if you need unlimited or large amounts of data. I found myself using more data than usual, partly because I was out exploring so much, partly because Wi-Fi wasn’t always reliable at my hotels.

If you expect to be more restrained with your phone use, take a look at aloSIM as well: it has good pricing for smaller data packs and service was fast and reliable everywhere I tested it. If this is the first time you’ve used it, make sure you use the code WDD to get a few dollars off.

You can find the latest pricing for both companies below, plus others I regularly use around the world. I update it every week, most recently on 6 Jul 2026.

Like most travel eSIMs, these are data-only, which means you don’t get a local number. As I mentioned earlier, that’s the same as the vast majority of physical tourist SIMs in Japan as well: most companies other than Mobal can’t provide SIM cards with phone numbers to non-residents.

I use apps for everything from communication to transport these days, so the lack of a local number never mattered to me in Japan, but it’s something to bear in mind if that’s not how you usually travel.

If you’re new to eSIMs, they offer big benefits to travelers in terms of how quickly, easily, and (often) cheaply you can get connected when you arrive in a new country. Most recent phones support them.

Going to other countries as well? Be sure to check out my quick and easy eSIM finder with real-world recommendations for every trip: it only takes a few seconds, and could save you a ton of money!

If you do decide you really do want a local SIM card rather than an eSIM, there are a few ways to get it.

In Advance

The easiest way to get a SIM card in advance, either with a phone number or data-only, is to order it from Mobal. They’ll send it out to you anywhere in the world for free, although it can take a while: you can check the estimated delivery times for your country on the shipping section of this page.

In Person

If you don’t physically need it before you arrive, you can order the same SIMs from Mobal to be collected once you get to Japan. They have pickup points all over the country, including all international airports, major train and metro stations, and elsewhere.

There are also staffed kiosks and SIM vending machines in the arrivals area of international airports: I saw several of both in Tokyo and Fukuoka. You’ll generally pay a premium of 10-20% to purchase at airports versus going to major electronics stores like Yodabashi Camera and BIC Camera.

At those stores, you’ll typically find the tourist SIMs on a rack alongside the dozens of prepaid offerings for locals. It’s easy to spot which is which – the ones aimed at foreigners will be the only ones with English lettering!

On my first trip I was staying in the Shibuya neighborhood in Tokyo, which had two BIC Camera stores close to the metro station. The Shibuya East store had the widest range of options, including a 21 day/7GB b-mobile package that wasn’t available at the other store nearby.

The store attendants spoke a little English, but they didn’t need to, since the purchase process was fast and straightforward.

There was a sticker on the packaging saying there was no help or refunds available with that particular pack. The cashier made sure to point it out to me again before ringing up the purchase.

In other words, don’t expect assistance from in-store staff if you have problems. You’d need to contact the b-mobile helpdesk by phone or email if you have any issues.

Setup was straightforward enough using the instructions included in the package I bought. It took around five minutes, and I did it while sitting on the steps outside the BIC Camera store. The only caveat is needing access to Wi-Fi to do the initial registration. I needed to enter my name, passport number, and a few other details before the SIM would start working.

The 21 day/7GB b-mobile package I mentioned above costs ¥2,970▾, including tax. There’s also a cheaper ¥1,980▾ version that lasts for ten days and has 5GB of data to use.

Prices from the vending machines at the airport varied depending on the provider, how much data you wanted, and how long you wanted it for. A few examples in Fukuoka included:

Topping Up

b-mobile

If your b-mobile SIM expires or you run out of data, you can buy an additional 1GB, valid for just one day, for ¥500▾. That’s the only way to top up, though, and is relatively expensive.

It also expires at 11:59pm on the day you buy it, rather than giving an extra 24 hours. Bear that in mind if you run out of data late in the day! Personally I’d probably just go buy another SIM card if I needed to do this for more than two or three days, or switch to a travel eSIM as above for the rest of my stay.

Mobal

There’s no top-up with Mobal’s data-only plans: if you need more data or longer validity, just log into your account here and buy another SIM or eSIM. You can extend the duration of its voice and data plans in the same place.

aloSIM

Topping up with aloSIM (or any of the other travel eSIM companies) is done by logging into the website or app. You just select your Japan eSIM, hit the top-up button, and buy the same package again.

The top-up packs have exactly the same pricing and duration as the original eSIMs: there’s little difference between topping up your current eSIM and buying a new one, other than not having to activate it.

My Mobal eSIM used the au network, and I had fast speeds and no noticeable latency everywhere I tried it on both Kyushu and the main island of Honshu. Video calls were lag-free, and all of the usual travel things I needed to do like navigation and translation happened almost instantly.

Surprisingly, some of the hotels I stayed in had pretty mediocre Wi-Fi speeds. As a result, I often found myself using my phone as a hotspot to stream TV shows in the evening: because the eSIM had unlimited data, this wasn’t an issue.

As I mentioned in the table above, aloSIM and Airalo had similar speeds and coverage to Mobal, but the latency was higher with both. They both use the KDDI network, and Airalo can also switch to Softbank as needed.

Roamless is also on the KDDI network, but was noticeably slower than the others. While it was still totally usable, there’s no particular reason to recommend it unless you already have prepaid credit you want to use.

On my previous trip, coverage was good with my b-mobile SIM card but download speeds were not. Uploads were often 10x faster than downloads, which I’ve never seen elsewhere in the world.

It was never slow enough to stop me from doing normal tourist activities like maps, email, or web browsing, but streaming video was out of the question. As a result, even using my phone extensively throughout my trip, I used less than half my data allowance by the time I left Japan.

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