> The cards have no battery and aren’t self-powered in any way. Instead, the reader on the gate emits an electromagnetic field that powers the card just long enough to complete the transaction.
Brillant!
trescenzi · 2026-08-27 16:20:21 UTC
This is how all passive RFID works. It's pretty cool. There's even systems that are both passive and active. For example, as a Disney adult, I'm familiar with their magic bands which do have a battery but also work passively. For tying ride photos automatically to you the battery matters because you're either moving too fast or are too far from the camera for passive to be consistently effective. But for simply using it as payment or a ticket you're pressing the device up against a reader and no matter how old the battery is it'll continue working.
dfox · 2026-08-27 16:36:02 UTC
At a first glance passive RFID would be a perfect match for ride photos, the whole mechanism is ridiculously fast so speed of the ride would not matter much (the technology works at highway speeds just fine) and can work over ~15 meters.
But there are two somewhat significant issues with the radio layer in this application: the geometry of tag antenna is somewhat critical (making it into a band would be problematic) and the back scatter is attenuated by salt water blobs (ie. people) almost perfectly.
reaperducer · 2026-08-27 17:23:29 UTC
> The cards have no battery and aren’t self-powered in any way. Instead, the reader on the gate emits an electromagnetic field that powers the card just long enough to complete the transaction.
Brillant!
AT&T showed this in television commercials back in the 1980's.
"Can you go through a toll booth without stopping? You will. And the company that will bring it to you is AT&T."
Lots of those things happened (maybe not faxing from the beach), but AT&T didn't bring us very many of them.
jjice · 2026-08-27 16:13:06 UTC
Suica was excellent when I had the chance to use it. I used the Apple Pay version and it worked flawlessly. I think I do prefer what I'm seeing more and more in the US with a tap-to-pay so I don't have to learn a new system, but Suica was so universal that I really couldn't complain. Makes sense especially with the larger diversity of digital payment methods and cash prevalence in Japan.
TulliusCicero · 2026-08-27 16:16:48 UTC
The really nice advantage of Suica is its speed. Yeah credit card tap to pay is alright, but it's relatively slow, taking multiple seconds.
Now QR code payment seems to be taking off in Japan, but unfortunately you can't access it as a tourist.
Tor3 · 2026-08-27 20:25:59 UTC
There are several types of QR code payments getting introduced, so it would be interesting to know the specifics. I'm only aware of using a QR code for Shinkansen tickets, which is something I have used and something a tourist can use as well. And then there's the new tickets slowly getting introduced in some areas, where the paper ticket has a QR code. I've not seen those yet, but it sounds like just an ordinary ticket otherwise.
TulliusCicero · 2026-08-28 02:01:10 UTC
I mean general QR code payments as opposed to QR codes on tickets. First noticed them at convenience stores, but vending machines have them too, and I think some restaurants.
crote · 2026-08-28 03:48:51 UTC
Credit card tap-to-pay doesn't have to be slow. The transaction could be done asynchronously, and some payment schemes even explicitly classify transit transactions as impossible-to-fail and will ignore things like overdraft limits.
Similarly, it could also be implemented via a rolling payment hold loop. Unattended petrol stations do something similar: you first insert the card to authorize a hold (say $200), then fill up the car, then finalize the transaction - at which point your $50 bill is actually deducted and the hold on the remaining $150 is released. Transit could do the same, with only the very first transaction being slow, and each terminal containing a list of pre-authorized cards.
kubb · 2026-08-27 16:15:59 UTC
One thing that surprised me was that certain ramen and soba shops didn’t accept cards at all and the only non-cash payment option was the IC card.
Tor3 · 2026-08-27 20:28:41 UTC
An Indian curry restaurant in "my" local Aeon only accepts PayPay or cash and that's it, so you get all kinds. Other than that I've been able to use my Suica card in surprising places.
trzy · 2026-08-27 16:24:26 UTC
I still have my Passmo card from my very first visit to Japan in 2008. I went back in 2018 and it still worked and had a balance. I used it as recently as 2025. Pretty cool!
jacobgkau · 2026-08-27 16:53:00 UTC
It's a bit of a shame that the long-term "wow" factor has been somewhat negated by the new tourist cards that expire after four weeks ("Welcome Suica" and "Passmo Passport"). It looks like you can get the regular cards everywhere again if you want now, but when I visited in early 2024, there was a months-long shortage of regular cards going on,* so the airports only had those temporary cards available, meaning a whole lot of people came and left only ever getting a temporary one. (I went out of my way to get "real" permanent cards from a couple of other regions, although I regret not collecting more of them at some places I passed through.)
* I have no idea how a shortage of hardware would make it better to give out temporary, expiring cards than permanent cards, since I assume they use the same technology (and the temporary ones would cause more churn, if anything). But that was the story at the time.
clifdweller · 2026-08-27 17:25:24 UTC
The joys of single supplier most likely. Probably contracted to provide 1 mil a year or something then if tourism greater than that have the "disposable" ones... doesn't need to be any hardware difference though a simple time limited cards get activated with expiration date and server auto permanent inactivates them.
numpad0 · 2026-08-27 18:08:30 UTC
Could be because of some payment regulation. IIUC prepaid payment method in Japan has to maintain a large sum of deposit to cover cost of refunds in case of insolvency situation. Balances on expired cards probably aren't used for that deposit calculation.
Also IIRC, relationship between Sony and JRE had soured few years ago and the fab in Japan that manufactured Suica cards was shut down. The contract went to Panasonic, but looks like Panasonic then sold off the smartcard unit to Nuvoton, and likely some security/nationalistic issues around that was the cause of the card supply issue.
There are really subtle cues to tell the model number(smartcards have model numbers!) and manufacturer of cards, most simply in tiny dent created by the cavity to hold the chip. Sony ones were circular and current cards are racetrack shaped.
forthwall · 2026-08-27 16:31:35 UTC
Suica is incredible, I remember when I first visited Japan in the 2010’s I was amazed at the speed and ubiquity, now in America that tap to pay on transit terminals are becoming more ubiquitous I feel somewhat disappointed at the “lag” I feel compared to the suica transactions
ben1040 · 2026-08-27 16:40:30 UTC
It's a bummer that while Google Wallet on Android phones supports Suica, they only offer the feature if the device was sold originally in Japan. Presumably they didn't want to pay Sony the licensing fees for the technology on non-JP devices.
iPhones have it worldwide, so a visitor to Japan can use Apple Pay to stand up a card and fund it.
panny · 2026-08-27 16:52:05 UTC
Cringe. Cards are fun, collectable, and never run out of battery. Mine is a custom limited edition card from a Japanese chocolate factory.
Suica cards (and transit express payments in other regions) work after iPhone batteries die for a few hours.
aqfamnzc · 2026-08-27 19:16:04 UTC
Are you saying that an iphone can be used as a Suica card even with a dead battery? Or just that a discrete card still works when your phone is dead?
Zee2 · 2026-08-27 19:30:43 UTC
iPhones still let you use certain contactless features (like Suica) even when the battery has "run out" (ie., the main OS has shut off). The reserve battery power is enough to run Suica, CarKey support, and FindMy.
klausa · 2026-08-28 06:01:20 UTC
I imagine there are only maybe three people as stupid as me to try this, but just in case: it works fine when the battery runs out; but it does _not_ work during the OS update process.
ink_13 · 2026-08-27 17:27:20 UTC
It's not just a patent fee, IC-card support takes special hardware that enables the low latency of the transaction. Only Android phones sold in Japan (including Pixels) get it installed at manufacturing.
skiman10 · 2026-08-27 18:21:03 UTC
All Pixels have the hardware, it's only activated on Japan-based skus. You can root and change the sku to the japanese model and it works. Allegedly the Pixel 11 is only the US sku and the international sku, so all international 11s should have it activated unless they do some serious shenanigans.
ericmay · 2026-08-27 18:14:20 UTC
The only annoying thing is, well at least in 2023 or so, was that you had to actually load the card with funds even if you had a payment method attached on the iPhone wallet. That got me once as I was tapping like normal throughout my time in Japan and ran out of funds and held up a bunch of Japanese schoolgirls (judging by their attire) who definitely laughed at me and I of course laughed at myself too.
If you’re in Japan here is a tip though. If you’re not super close to the main cities and you’re in an area without as many tourists and you see a group of Japanese school children and they all are eating something - the same thing or stuff from the same place, copy them. You won’t be disappointed. Probably. Had the best curry pan or whatever it’s called in my life following that trick.
arjie · 2026-08-27 22:57:23 UTC
That also happens with Clipper Card in the Bay Area. Happened to me a couple of weeks ago on BART. I wonder if all transit cards need to be loaded with money when used on iPhone. I remember having a Clipper Card with autoload and that would work just fine without balance.
ericmay · 2026-08-28 02:02:33 UTC
You might be right. I like how NYC is set up with just tap to pay with your wallet app without needing to unlock or anything.
arjie · 2026-08-28 02:06:42 UTC
Yeah, I particularly like London’s implementation (I moved away just short of a decade ago - might have changed since) where if you just use the same card you don’t need a pass because there are daily/weekly/monthly maximums and you travel for free afterwards. Very good system. But it is slower that Suica/Pasmo.
cosmic_cheese · 2026-08-27 18:18:09 UTC
Apple Watches also support it, which can make it even more convenient in some circumstances (no need to fish anything out of pockets/bags/etc, can be used while holding other things).
klausa · 2026-08-28 01:12:52 UTC
Only if you’re left handed, or wear your watch on your right hand for whatever reason.
Or you have a contortionist spirit in you, whatever works :)
cosmic_cheese · 2026-08-28 01:57:07 UTC
I'm right handed and wear my watch on my left wrist, never had an issue.
klausa · 2026-08-28 02:46:20 UTC
I've tried it once and found it very inconvenient, compared to pulling out my phone out of my pocket, but glad to hear it works for you!
taeric · 2026-08-27 16:43:47 UTC
Huge shout out that if you are going to be in Japan, you need one of these cards. I had thought I could just buy a two day pass in Tokyo. Which, you can, but you are almost certainly going to be limited to what routes and lines you can use, then. Which is brutal when you can't tell google maps which card you have.
usrnm · 2026-08-27 16:48:10 UTC
What happened to buying a single ticket at the station, when you need one? That's what I did when I was in Tokyo, but it was a long time ago
numpad0 · 2026-08-27 17:09:27 UTC
They're still available, but the card is more convenient(phones even more so). Tickets are also now priced slightly higher than card rides.
rwmj · 2026-08-27 17:17:51 UTC
You can do that, but the card is far more convenient and journeys are cheaper too.
clifdweller · 2026-08-27 17:19:03 UTC
yeah they still have the ticket stations next to the one to refill/buy IC cards. and thanks to the 20/21 Olympics in english now too(not 2 levels of menus deep like many of them used to be) so pretty easy to do
spike021 · 2026-08-27 18:55:00 UTC
If you're doing any transfers it could get reasonably complicated. SUICA makes those easy, unless you need a recharge to top it up.
Allows you to specify up front what passes you have, worked brilliantly on our honeymoon, especially when figuring out which Shinkansen reservations we needed to make.
decimalenough · 2026-08-27 20:45:50 UTC
As a rule, unless you have a very specific itinerary that involves a ton of travel within a single train company's network, passes in Japan are not worth it. This applies to both local subway passes and the sadly nerfed Japan Rail Pass for bullet trains. Even the Seishun 18 (unlimited travel for ¥2000/day, but local JR trains only) ain't what it used to be since they switched to requiring continuous days.
Marsymars · 2026-08-27 23:10:01 UTC
And there are several calculators online where you can punch in your itinerary and it will tell you the best pass to buy, if any.
On my last trip it only made sense to buy a pass for a single ~4 day segment that included two long Shinkansen rides plus an expensive sight-seeing bus.
haunter · 2026-08-27 17:42:23 UTC
tbh if you only stay in Tokyo then the combined Tokyo subway pass (Tokyo Metro and Toei Subway) is the best all around deal, you don't need anything else. ¥2000 for 72 hours
decimalenough · 2026-08-27 20:47:26 UTC
Hard disagree. It doesn't cover JR lines, and with subway fares starting from ¥160 a pop, that's a lot of riding.
Pooge · 2026-08-28 13:25:39 UTC
If you do 5 Metro journeys per day—which is very reasonable if you're a tourist—at the bare minimum of ¥160 per trip, you would save money by buying the Tokyo Metro Ticket for 72h.
Pooge · 2026-08-28 13:23:35 UTC
The Tokyo Metro Ticket (24h/48h/72h) is very convenient, though. I just looked at the prices and the longest one went from ¥1500 to ¥2000 since November 2025 but I think it's still very valuable, especially if you've never been to Tokyo and want to travel between a lot of places.
JR is better if you go to the countryside of Tokyo but for the city itself Metro is much more convenient, IMO. Perhaps it depends on the station you commute to, though.
When I travel to Tokyo, I usually do at the very least 4 Metro trips per day, and let's say the minimum fare is ¥178,it would come down to ¥712 daily.
sowbug · 2026-08-27 16:44:32 UTC
When you pay with Suica, the merchant pays a transaction fee of between 2 to 3.2%, similar to a credit card.
That's surprising. IC cards are so universally and cheerfully accepted that I assumed they had no per-transaction costs. Compare the US, where merchants can be surly about card payments.
Conan_Kudo · 2026-08-27 17:25:56 UTC
There's a mindset difference. People are more willing to pay to reduce inconvenience for customers there, whereas here the inconvenience to the merchant sometimes matters more.
ryan_lane · 2026-08-28 02:08:55 UTC
This simply isn't true, or you'd see these places accept credit cards.
The most prevalent mom & pop approach is either cash only or it's cash and PayPay. You may also see cash, PayPay and IC. PayPay, at first, had extremely low fees and an army of sales people that targeted mom & pops, pushing the low fees. They've since then increased fees as their saturation has increased, and now you'll see shops adding things like setapay or hachipay (which are annoyingly ku specific payment methods that are very low fee).
Larger businesses are owned by massive conglomerates, or are housed in shopping complexes owned by massive conglomerates that require them to accept more payment methods.
Like all businesses, they aim to reduce their costs and increase their margins. They aren't adding payment methods to reduce your inconvenience, unless they think doing so will increase their volume enough to offset the fees.
jen20 · 2026-08-27 23:05:02 UTC
> Compare the US, where merchants can be surly about card payments.
I rarely encounter this - I find it far more common to see places that won’t accept cash at all (even small businesses like food trucks).
kube-system · 2026-08-28 11:38:14 UTC
Attitudes depends on margin and cash-handling costs.
And prior to a 2013 class-action lawsuit that changed the situation, merchants were widely banned by payment processors from charging credit card transaction fees. But now many low margin businesses pass along the cost: for instance, it is common at gas stations, and almost universal at truck stops across the US. And some businesses have long opted for minimum transaction amount for credit purchases.
On the other hand, in places where the target clientele is fully-banked and handling cash is more costly, some businesses find it advantageous to opt solely for card transactions: for instance, an upscale establishment in a city. They may have higher margins that can easily eat the cost, and being card-only also decreases the attractiveness to robbers and discourages unbanked patrons. It has also been criticized for being discriminatory in the same way.
speak_plainly · 2026-08-27 16:49:42 UTC
Sad to see the mascot going in March. Apparently this entire brand reset is tied to something JR East is calling 'Suica Renaissance,' which is about a ten-year effort to turn Suica into a lifestyle brand.
They're planning on moving beyond the ¥20,000 prepaid balance limit, they are adding QR code payments (think WeChat and Alipay), making Suica work across regions and support more touchless and cloud-based systems, and connecting it more with banking, shopping, loyalty, discounts, and local services.
So essentially they want to become your default payment platform which is a huge opportunity given how paper-money-driven Japan is.
ak217 · 2026-08-27 17:38:41 UTC
Nooo the penguin is the best part of suica!
Shank · 2026-08-27 17:55:48 UTC
The penguin isn't owned by JR East, which is the problem. It's owned by a specific artist and licensed by Dentsu, who has to approve all usage. The other transit networks actually fully own their mascots, but Suica's Penguin isn't theirs to control.
echohack5 · 2026-08-27 18:24:04 UTC
The weirdest payment method has got to be the Coke ON vending machines that do not support SUICA but instead require you to QR code-IR blaster you to a website where you bluetooth pair with the vending machine then buy it on your mobile browser.
Like....somehow they turned a sub 1ms operation into a 4 minute 32 second one. It boggles the mind
freetime2 · 2026-08-27 19:29:26 UTC
Coke ON Pay uses an app that automatically pairs with the machine when you open it [1]. It’s pretty quick and takes less than 30 seconds once you set it up.
I think you might be referring to QR de Kessai [2], which was introduced in 2023 and is targeted more at inbound international tourists who don’t want to download the app and may not have an E-Money card. Basically they aim to support to support the widest possible audience - at the cost of a slow/clumsy experience. These machines should also accept payment via the faster Coke ON app method and often have E-Money tap-to-pay options too.
From that perspective it kinda sorta makes sense. But yeah I wouldn’t bother with it unless I was dying of thirst and I had no cash or other payment options available.
So they turned a couple of millisecond operation to a 30 second operation?
freetime2 · 2026-08-28 02:02:44 UTC
30 seconds is the complete user flow to open the app, select a drink, approve payment with face id, and dispense the drink. Maybe a few seconds longer in the end than paying with Suica, but pretty negligible.
And a lot of coke machines in train stations, service areas, etc also accept Suica if you prefer (but then you don't get the stamps).
Typically the machines I see which only accept the Coke ON app are in more rural areas that traditionally would have only accepted cash. And I much prefer the app to cash.
cyberrock · 2026-08-28 01:01:14 UTC
Most Coke On machines do support Suica/Felica but you have to press IC on the blinking pad. The problem is that the pad doesn't seem like a touchscreen and it can be difficult to precisely tap. However Suntory does have app-only machines now.
It's not really mentioned in the article, but Suntory and transit operators out in Hiroshima etc. are turning away from Felica simply because the licensing fee is too high for them. That's also why Samsung and Google don't enable it on non-Japanese phones. Sony and JR missed the part where they have to generous first to eliminate all competition before jacking up fees, and now they're getting eaten by QR payment and Visa.
decimalenough · 2026-08-27 20:41:56 UTC
They're a bit late to the party. It's still no China, but Japan has taken up digital payments big time post COVID and PayPay now has the lion's share.
totetsu · 2026-08-28 00:53:29 UTC
No Location based services please :(
gkanai · 2026-08-28 10:03:43 UTC
＞how paper-money-driven Japan is.
JFYI, over 50% of payments in Japan in 2026 are digital now. So not as high as other markets but certainly much less paper money than pre-pandemic.
> When you tap your card on a terminal, it reads and rewrites the card locally in an instant, with the entire transaction processed in under 200 milliseconds. For each tap, the card and terminal mutually authenticate each other and generate a fresh encryption key to prevent spoofing.
This is the part that I'd be interested in reading more about. I'd known there must be some data on the card itself (since I can still use smartphone apps to read my cards now that I'm back in the US), but assumed there must have been some server connection too since storing anything authoritative on the card would invite tampering, and wondered why they would've bothered to store a log of recent trips on the card itself in addition to the hypothetical servers. It does make sense for latency reasons that they'd design it for the card itself to be authoritative, but I wonder how they do prevent tampering.
numpad0 · 2026-08-27 18:19:58 UTC
It's largely the same as credit cards - the card have multiple data partitions and secure read/write are encrypted. Balances are logged on both the card and the station-level servers and correctable errors and/or mid-ride updates, if any, are propagated while the user is in motion, so that they can be written upon exit.
^ that was the official explanation for a long time, but they've reportedly transitioned to more credit-card like online system with no station-level servers, and also raised fees, which was negatively received by many rail operators aside JR East itself(which owns the system). There had been few rail companies experimenting with NFC credit card rides, though I'm personally suspecting it's more of bargaining power development.open threat than those lines seriously considering a switch.
The chips in the cards are secure enough that physical tampering is extremely difficult and software tampering is difficult enough with security by obscurity + encryption - the catch is that, it turns out, early Suica cards used DES(not even 3DES it seems), and they just didn't tell anybody until those went out of circulation. Plus, the prepaid limit of 20k yen(local equivalent of $200) limits abuse potential of the system; it's not worth trying to commit blatant frauds on the train-and-sandwiches card.
jacobgkau · 2026-08-27 21:48:39 UTC
> Plus, the prepaid limit of 20k yen(local equivalent of $200) limits abuse potential of the system; it's not worth trying to commit blatant frauds on the train-and-sandwiches card.
I don't think a limit on the value stored on the card limits the potential of fraud. I'm not imagining someone would load tens of thousands of yen onto their card. I'm more imagining someone setting the card to have enough money to get through the gate, every time they want to use the train. I'd agree fare is cheap enough that it's probably not worth someone's time to figure that out, but it would add up over time if someone did it (and especially if the method for doing so got passed around).
I also understand that there's two-way communication with one-time/expiring keys that would prevent a simple replay attack from working. Really just interested in understanding the entire mechanism in more detail! It gets handwaved as just "encryption" in a lot of discussions, probably due to a combination of intentional obscurity (like you mentioned) and it just not being super interesting or relevant to most contexts.
(Also, good point that the servers would still allow significant deviations to be caught and the card rejected/flagged in the system-- I've also seen that concept mentioned elsewhere after trying to research it a bit more.)
kalleboo · 2026-08-28 04:07:49 UTC
I remember the stored-value transit cards in Sweden in the 90's/00's. They were just magstripe cards with the value on it and a basic checksum value. It was not hard to figure out how to rewrite the card with a higher value, or just clone it, value and all, onto a separate card. No online component, as mobile networks weren't great when the system was designed.
They'd download their transaction logs out of the buses every night and do a reconciliation. If they found a card where the value went up or had impossible travel times, they'd look at the travel routes/dates and wait around on the "hackers" commute route with a police officer until they showed up. Very manual.
cptcobalt · 2026-08-27 17:12:51 UTC
If you haven’t experienced suica, it’s like magically fast. Faster than NFC, faster than Apple Pay, faster than tap to pay, faster than Disney magic bands, faster than your work badge. It absolutely floored me every time I used it in Japan and it’s a full payment transaction.
spot5010 · 2026-08-27 17:28:13 UTC
+1 you can walk through the subway turnstile and not slow down.
cute_boi · 2026-08-27 17:29:57 UTC
Anything is faster than NY turnstile lol.
In NY, sometime i have to double pay because the card that worked on bus doesn't work on subway...
lelandfe · 2026-08-27 20:40:32 UTC
OMNY with iOS Express Mode is crazy fast. I don't even have to do anything besides hold my wrist or phone next to the entrance: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105123
I don't often do transfers, though.
ezfe · 2026-08-27 17:31:33 UTC
That was not my experience in Japan; I found that it still took a second to go through every time, just like in New York/etc.
jen729w · 2026-08-27 23:11:20 UTC
Am in Japan now and can confirm: you got a broken one. It's magically fast, everywhere. I prefer it even at the 7-eleven. Why wait the interminable 2 seconds for your Visa 'cardo touchy' to work when Suica is literally instant.
Reading this article it makes sense why it feels too fast to be real, especially when using a powered phone. The things are already communicating as my hand is moving towards the reader. By the time it gets there, it's happened.
Stunningly good.
polishdude20 · 2026-08-27 17:40:32 UTC
The card might be fast but getting one as a tourist is kind of a hassle
electriclove · 2026-08-27 17:59:59 UTC
Super easy via your Apple wallet
qurren · 2026-08-27 18:09:35 UTC
Really? In 2009 I just bought one at a vending machine, but I haven't really explored Japan since then
my-next-account · 2026-08-27 18:44:23 UTC
We purchased it from a machine recently. By the way, can I just say: Japan cares about UI in a very different way to Europe. The screens had pleasant graphics and sound, and the buttons for pressing in numbers felt so good. It just felt like someone who cares designed that machine. I did not like the refill-your-IC-card machines though, they made very loud noises so you wouldn't forget to take your IC card with you.
qurren · 2026-08-27 18:46:08 UTC
The best part is if you press the help button a real person pops out of the machine in a few seconds.
HaloZero · 2026-08-27 18:12:28 UTC
There was a brief period where it was difficult but that's gone now, you can set it up easily on Apple Wallet at least (apparently Google wallet is different?).
It used to be easy to get one from a 7-11, then it was hard for a bit, then it was easy again with digital wallets.
Tor3 · 2026-08-27 18:49:26 UTC
Yes, that was during the period where there was a chip shortage for things like cars and other industrial products, this also affected production of Suica cards at the time. During that period you couldn't buy unregistered Suica cards, but you could still buy registered cards (registered to your name). This was simply used as a mechanism to limit the number of cards because of the shortage, and you could also buy those "visitor" Suica cards (those I don't like, for various reasons).
Anyway, that problem is long gone.
numpad0 · 2026-08-27 18:29:03 UTC
It's completely anonymous and available on many ticket machines. There are some half-wrong info that you have to fill in a form, but that's only for commuter passes and registered cards.
You just tap Buy Suica and insert two 1000 yen bills. The system keeps 500 yen as a deposit, which is refunded when you return the card, but it's also $3.50 for a little memorabilia.
If you absolutely don't want the keepsake, you can create a virtual card from Wallet on iPhone(7 or later). I believe an app is not needed through that path. Those can be loaded from your credit card, or at pink ticket vendors with the cavity for devices(IIRC the latter didn't work initially).
rtpg · 2026-08-27 22:29:09 UTC
I think the reason some people are complaining about the Suica stuff nowadays is that since... I think 2021 there's been stock shortages so getting a physical Suica involves going to specific places (I think at airports for example?) to get one. There's also now this "Welcome Suica" that you can get but it only works in certain areas of the country (so much for the IC standard...)
I believe you can't get a physical one from the ticket machines anymore unless you are getting a commuter pass, but I might be wrong.
Dedime · 2026-08-28 05:24:29 UTC
Yeah, at airports (where most travellers arrive). I recently arrived at Narita airport, you go down to the trains and there's an office you go to where a human being spends a couple minutes helping you get a Suica. It's great because you can also ask any questions you have about usage at the same time.
vvilliamperez · 2026-08-27 18:38:19 UTC
I bought one from a machine easily at a train station. It spits the card out for you.
spike021 · 2026-08-27 18:53:25 UTC
I've been able to get multiple over the past nearly 10 years, very easily. I think there was a relatively brief shortage toward the end of the COVID closure, maybe the first year or so Japan was re-opened. But generally you could still get them, just not at major hubs.
filoleg · 2026-08-27 19:17:08 UTC
I heard from friends that physical Suica cards tend to be difficult to obtain these days at times, but digital one isn't at all.
Took me roughly a minute to create one within Apple Wallet ahead of my trip, and that was it. Didn't need to install any apps or register on any websites, because creating a Suica card is natively supported in the wallet app.
Idk how the situation is like with Suica card on Android though, outside of the fact that unless the phone was purchased in Japan, it will typically lack the necessary hardware for it (which isn't a concern with iPhones, because all regional versions include it).
alerighi · 2026-08-27 21:54:53 UTC
Well you can get it only in some kind of machines, and you need to pay it cash. Also you need to use cash to charge it, and you can charge it minimum by 1000 or 500 yen at a time depending on the station, not less.
The digital version only works on iPhones, since Android phones sold outside Japan doesn't have the Felica chip, or if they have it (e.g. Google Pixel) is disabled in EU/US firmware because the manufacturer doesn't want to pay a fee for every phone to Sony for something 99.999% of people that will never travel to Japan would use.
kelnos · 2026-08-28 10:27:11 UTC
Many Android phones have the hardware, regardless of where they are sold, but it's disabled for non-Japanese SKUs so the manufacturer can avoid paying the licensing fees for it.
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Brillant!
But there are two somewhat significant issues with the radio layer in this application: the geometry of tag antenna is somewhat critical (making it into a band would be problematic) and the back scatter is attenuated by salt water blobs (ie. people) almost perfectly.
Brillant!
AT&T showed this in television commercials back in the 1980's.
"Can you go through a toll booth without stopping? You will. And the company that will bring it to you is AT&T."
Lots of those things happened (maybe not faxing from the beach), but AT&T didn't bring us very many of them.
Now QR code payment seems to be taking off in Japan, but unfortunately you can't access it as a tourist.
Similarly, it could also be implemented via a rolling payment hold loop. Unattended petrol stations do something similar: you first insert the card to authorize a hold (say $200), then fill up the car, then finalize the transaction - at which point your $50 bill is actually deducted and the hold on the remaining $150 is released. Transit could do the same, with only the very first transaction being slow, and each terminal containing a list of pre-authorized cards.
* I have no idea how a shortage of hardware would make it better to give out temporary, expiring cards than permanent cards, since I assume they use the same technology (and the temporary ones would cause more churn, if anything). But that was the story at the time.
Also IIRC, relationship between Sony and JRE had soured few years ago and the fab in Japan that manufactured Suica cards was shut down. The contract went to Panasonic, but looks like Panasonic then sold off the smartcard unit to Nuvoton, and likely some security/nationalistic issues around that was the cause of the card supply issue.
There are really subtle cues to tell the model number(smartcards have model numbers!) and manufacturer of cards, most simply in tiny dent created by the cavity to hold the chip. Sony ones were circular and current cards are racetrack shaped.
iPhones have it worldwide, so a visitor to Japan can use Apple Pay to stand up a card and fund it.
https://matcha-jp.com/en/9482
If you’re in Japan here is a tip though. If you’re not super close to the main cities and you’re in an area without as many tourists and you see a group of Japanese school children and they all are eating something - the same thing or stuff from the same place, copy them. You won’t be disappointed. Probably. Had the best curry pan or whatever it’s called in my life following that trick.
Or you have a contortionist spirit in you, whatever works :)
Allows you to specify up front what passes you have, worked brilliantly on our honeymoon, especially when figuring out which Shinkansen reservations we needed to make.
On my last trip it only made sense to buy a pass for a single ~4 day segment that included two long Shinkansen rides plus an expensive sight-seeing bus.
JR is better if you go to the countryside of Tokyo but for the city itself Metro is much more convenient, IMO. Perhaps it depends on the station you commute to, though.
When I travel to Tokyo, I usually do at the very least 4 Metro trips per day, and let's say the minimum fare is ¥178,it would come down to ¥712 daily.
That's surprising. IC cards are so universally and cheerfully accepted that I assumed they had no per-transaction costs. Compare the US, where merchants can be surly about card payments.
The most prevalent mom & pop approach is either cash only or it's cash and PayPay. You may also see cash, PayPay and IC. PayPay, at first, had extremely low fees and an army of sales people that targeted mom & pops, pushing the low fees. They've since then increased fees as their saturation has increased, and now you'll see shops adding things like setapay or hachipay (which are annoyingly ku specific payment methods that are very low fee).
Larger businesses are owned by massive conglomerates, or are housed in shopping complexes owned by massive conglomerates that require them to accept more payment methods.
Like all businesses, they aim to reduce their costs and increase their margins. They aren't adding payment methods to reduce your inconvenience, unless they think doing so will increase their volume enough to offset the fees.
I rarely encounter this - I find it far more common to see places that won’t accept cash at all (even small businesses like food trucks).
And prior to a 2013 class-action lawsuit that changed the situation, merchants were widely banned by payment processors from charging credit card transaction fees. But now many low margin businesses pass along the cost: for instance, it is common at gas stations, and almost universal at truck stops across the US. And some businesses have long opted for minimum transaction amount for credit purchases.
https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2022/03/N...
https://wpcdn.us-east-1.vip.tn-cloud.net/www.41nbc.com/conte...
On the other hand, in places where the target clientele is fully-banked and handling cash is more costly, some businesses find it advantageous to opt solely for card transactions: for instance, an upscale establishment in a city. They may have higher margins that can easily eat the cost, and being card-only also decreases the attractiveness to robbers and discourages unbanked patrons. It has also been criticized for being discriminatory in the same way.
Whitepaper: https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/press/2024/pdf/20241210.pdf
They're planning on moving beyond the ¥20,000 prepaid balance limit, they are adding QR code payments (think WeChat and Alipay), making Suica work across regions and support more touchless and cloud-based systems, and connecting it more with banking, shopping, loyalty, discounts, and local services.
So essentially they want to become your default payment platform which is a huge opportunity given how paper-money-driven Japan is.
Like....somehow they turned a sub 1ms operation into a 4 minute 32 second one. It boggles the mind
I think you might be referring to QR de Kessai [2], which was introduced in 2023 and is targeted more at inbound international tourists who don’t want to download the app and may not have an E-Money card. Basically they aim to support to support the widest possible audience - at the cost of a slow/clumsy experience. These machines should also accept payment via the faster Coke ON app method and often have E-Money tap-to-pay options too.
From that perspective it kinda sorta makes sense. But yeah I wouldn’t bother with it unless I was dying of thirst and I had no cash or other payment options available.
[1] https://szabo.jp/2021/05/16/coke-on/
[2] https://en.ccbji.co.jp/business/installation/qr-de-kessai/
And a lot of coke machines in train stations, service areas, etc also accept Suica if you prefer (but then you don't get the stamps).
Typically the machines I see which only accept the Coke ON app are in more rural areas that traditionally would have only accepted cash. And I much prefer the app to cash.
It's not really mentioned in the article, but Suntory and transit operators out in Hiroshima etc. are turning away from Felica simply because the licensing fee is too high for them. That's also why Samsung and Google don't enable it on non-Japanese phones. Sony and JR missed the part where they have to generous first to eliminate all competition before jacking up fees, and now they're getting eaten by QR payment and Visa.
JFYI, over 50% of payments in Japan in 2026 are digital now. So not as high as other markets but certainly much less paper money than pre-pandemic.
https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2026/0331_005.html
This is the part that I'd be interested in reading more about. I'd known there must be some data on the card itself (since I can still use smartphone apps to read my cards now that I'm back in the US), but assumed there must have been some server connection too since storing anything authoritative on the card would invite tampering, and wondered why they would've bothered to store a log of recent trips on the card itself in addition to the hypothetical servers. It does make sense for latency reasons that they'd design it for the card itself to be authoritative, but I wonder how they do prevent tampering.
^ that was the official explanation for a long time, but they've reportedly transitioned to more credit-card like online system with no station-level servers, and also raised fees, which was negatively received by many rail operators aside JR East itself(which owns the system). There had been few rail companies experimenting with NFC credit card rides, though I'm personally suspecting it's more of bargaining power development.open threat than those lines seriously considering a switch.
The chips in the cards are secure enough that physical tampering is extremely difficult and software tampering is difficult enough with security by obscurity + encryption - the catch is that, it turns out, early Suica cards used DES(not even 3DES it seems), and they just didn't tell anybody until those went out of circulation. Plus, the prepaid limit of 20k yen(local equivalent of $200) limits abuse potential of the system; it's not worth trying to commit blatant frauds on the train-and-sandwiches card.
I don't think a limit on the value stored on the card limits the potential of fraud. I'm not imagining someone would load tens of thousands of yen onto their card. I'm more imagining someone setting the card to have enough money to get through the gate, every time they want to use the train. I'd agree fare is cheap enough that it's probably not worth someone's time to figure that out, but it would add up over time if someone did it (and especially if the method for doing so got passed around).
I also understand that there's two-way communication with one-time/expiring keys that would prevent a simple replay attack from working. Really just interested in understanding the entire mechanism in more detail! It gets handwaved as just "encryption" in a lot of discussions, probably due to a combination of intentional obscurity (like you mentioned) and it just not being super interesting or relevant to most contexts.
(Also, good point that the servers would still allow significant deviations to be caught and the card rejected/flagged in the system-- I've also seen that concept mentioned elsewhere after trying to research it a bit more.)
They'd download their transaction logs out of the buses every night and do a reconciliation. If they found a card where the value went up or had impossible travel times, they'd look at the travel routes/dates and wait around on the "hackers" commute route with a police officer until they showed up. Very manual.
In NY, sometime i have to double pay because the card that worked on bus doesn't work on subway...
I don't often do transfers, though.
Reading this article it makes sense why it feels too fast to be real, especially when using a powered phone. The things are already communicating as my hand is moving towards the reader. By the time it gets there, it's happened.
Stunningly good.
It used to be easy to get one from a 7-11, then it was hard for a bit, then it was easy again with digital wallets.
Anyway, that problem is long gone.
You just tap Buy Suica and insert two 1000 yen bills. The system keeps 500 yen as a deposit, which is refunded when you return the card, but it's also $3.50 for a little memorabilia.
If you absolutely don't want the keepsake, you can create a virtual card from Wallet on iPhone(7 or later). I believe an app is not needed through that path. Those can be loaded from your credit card, or at pink ticket vendors with the cavity for devices(IIRC the latter didn't work initially).
I believe you can't get a physical one from the ticket machines anymore unless you are getting a commuter pass, but I might be wrong.
Took me roughly a minute to create one within Apple Wallet ahead of my trip, and that was it. Didn't need to install any apps or register on any websites, because creating a Suica card is natively supported in the wallet app.
Idk how the situation is like with Suica card on Android though, outside of the fact that unless the phone was purchased in Japan, it will typically lack the necessary hardware for it (which isn't a concern with iPhones, because all regional versions include it).
The digital version only works on iPhones, since Android phones sold outside Japan doesn't have the Felica chip, or if they have it (e.g. Google Pixel) is disabled in EU/US firmware because the manufacturer doesn't want to pay a fee for every phone to Sony for something 99.999% of people that will never travel to Japan would use.
https://www.jreast.co.jp/en/multi/welcomesuica/welcomesuica....