From November 1, 2026, the customs confirmation is the step that actually releases your refund — nothing gets paid out until it happens. Most travelers picture that as a kiosk in the departure lobby, and at most airports that’s exactly right. But at seven of the country’s busiest airports, you can complete the whole confirmation on your own phone through Visit Japan Web instead of queuing at a kiosk.

It’s a route almost no English-language guide to the new system covers yet — probably because it depends on something you have to set up well before you land, not something you can figure out at the gate.

How online confirmation works

  1. Register with Visit Japan Web before you get to the airport. It’s the Digital Agency’s official service for arrival and departure procedures, and registration has to be in place before you try to use it for the customs confirmation — do it at home or at your hotel, not standing in the departure lobby. The Japan Tourism Agency’s leaflet notes that registering either before or after you enter Japan also makes immigration and tax-free-store procedures go more smoothly.
  2. Check that your departure airport is one of the seven that support it. Narita, Haneda (Tokyo International), Kansai, Chubu Centrair, New Chitose, Fukuoka, and Naha all offer the online route. Flying out anywhere else — another airport, or by sea — means you’ll use the kiosk instead; see at the kiosk.
  3. Find the dedicated Wi-Fi area in the international departure lobby. The online procedure only works inside the zone covered by the wireless LAN set up for it, and that zone sits before the security checkpoint. The same rule as the kiosk applies: you have to finish this before you check in any bags — once they’re checked, the option is gone.
  4. Complete the confirmation on your phone with every purchase still in hand. Go through the customs confirmation in Visit Japan Web with every tax-free item physically with you in carry-on, and your receipts within reach in case you need them.
  5. Check your purchase history and refund list — something the kiosk never shows you. Visit Japan Web lets you see your store purchase history (your purchase records) and, after the confirmation, the exact list of purchase records that will be refunded. If a store filled in the optional English shop-name field, it appears there too — useful for spotting a store that seems to be missing. If one is, see when a store’s purchases don’t show up.
  6. Be ready to show your goods regardless of which route you use. Online or at the kiosk, customs can still ask to see your tax-free items, and the entire customs step — including any inspection — has to be finished before your boarding procedures close. The online route is the same customs confirmation as the kiosk, not a lighter version of it.
  7. Use your Visit Japan Web QR code at the store, too. Showing it when you buy something lets the store pull your passport details directly from it, which the NTA says helps prevent input errors in your purchase record. It’s optional, and you still carry your physical passport either way.
  8. Fall back to the kiosk if the online route doesn’t work for you. The kiosks sit in the same landside departure lobby, before security. See at the kiosk for what that looks like.

Why the online route is worth knowing about

The online procedure isn’t a shortcut around the rules — it’s the same legal customs confirmation as the kiosk, with the same conditions attached: your purchases have to be within the 90-day window, everything has to still be with you, and it all has to happen before you check any bags.

What it adds is visibility. The kiosk reads your passport and shows you green or red — it doesn’t show you what it checked. Visit Japan Web does: your purchase history, and after confirmation, exactly which purchase records are being refunded. That’s worth knowing about even if you never spot a problem, since it’s the only version of this process that shows its own work.

The registration requirement isn’t a technicality, either. The confirmation has to be tied to your passport inside Visit Japan Web before you can use it, which is why this is best done well before you’re standing in the departure lobby with a flight to catch.

One honest caveat: the exact screen-by-screen flow inside Visit Japan Web hasn’t been published in detail, so the signage and prompts you see on the day are the real guide, not this article. What is worth locking down beforehand is a reliable mobile data connection — you’ll need it to set up and check your Visit Japan Web account before you arrive, since the dedicated airport Wi-Fi exists for the confirmation procedure, not as a general connection to lean on.

For the underlying rules — the 90-day window, what counts as an eligible purchase, what happens on a red result — the official pages below cover the details this article doesn’t repeat.