The Japanese government has decided to change the current duty-free procedure to ‘refund method’ on November 1 2026 to improve conveniences for international visitors to Japan and reduce workloads of duty-free shops.
A main reason to change to a refund method is to exclude illegal transactions under the current rule, in which a duty-free shop sells duty-free goods without taxes. The new rules include abolishments of special packaging for consumables, of the maximum amount of 500,000 yen and of duty-free judgement by shops.
The targeted duty-free goods will be those purchased 90 days before customs confirm that those are brought out from Japan.
In the refund method, a duty-free shop sells goods with tax and inform a purchase record to the duty-free sales management system of National Tax Administration Agency, and customs confirm the informed record and refund tax when an international traveler departs from Japan.
