Topping up a Japanese IC card: cash, the conbini counter, and what's left

The machine beside the ticket gates at Shinjuku Station (新宿駅, Shinjuku-eki) has a slot for coins, a slot for notes and a shallow tray for your card, and a small queue often forms behind whoever is reading the screen for the first time. The button you want says チャージ, chāji, borrowed from the English charge, and once you press it the machine wants cash. Many visitors learn this with a credit card already in hand. The rest of a trip on a transit IC card is a version of the same lesson: the card is digital, but keeping it alive is a cash habit, with its own places and its own words.

The button marked chāji, and what it will take

At station ticket machines, 券売機 (kenbaiki), the IC functions share a touchscreen with paper tickets, sometimes behind a tab labelled with the card's name. Set the card in the tray, press チャージ, choose one of the preset amounts and feed in notes; the presets are round and modest, and the machine returns change if you overpay.

In practice, plan on cash. Where a machine takes cards for a charge at all, it is often limited to the operator's own affiliated credit cards, and a small station on a private line may take notes only. The same machines usually offer 履歴印字 (rireki inji), a printed history of recent rides and purchases, which is the quickest way to see where a balance went when it falls faster than expected.

The conbini register as a top-up desk

The calmer place to charge a card is often not a station. At the registers of the large chains, 7-Eleven (セブン-イレブン), FamilyMart (ファミリーマート) and Lawson (ローソン), hand over the card, name it and say chāji, and the clerk asks how much. You pay cash, the clerk keys in the amount, and you hold the card on the small reader by the register until it chimes. A busy branch at lunchtime may point you toward the station instead, and some smaller stores do not handle it.

このカードに、現金でチャージをお願いします。

Said aloud, that is kono kādo ni, genkin de chāji o onegaishimasu, this card, with cash, a charge please, and it works with the card name left out. Inside many 7-Eleven stores the Seven Bank (セブン銀行) ATM also lists a charge for transport IC cards on a menu that switches to English. Not every unit has the option, but where it does one visit covers two jobs: withdraw yen with a foreign card, then move part of it onto the IC card.

Reading the number as you pass

Tap through a gate and a small display on the reader shows what was deducted and what remains, the latter marked 残額 (zangaku). Commuters glance down as they walk rather than stopping, because at a station like Tokyo (東京駅, Tōkyō-eki) on a weekday morning a pause at the gate holds up the line behind.

The same number appears elsewhere. Vending machines with an IC reader flash it after a purchase, as do registers in station shops such as NewDays (ニューデイズ) in JR East territory. On some city buses, Toei Bus (都営バス) in Tokyo among them, the driver can charge a card at the fare box, usually only while the bus is stopped; it is a fallback, not a plan. When the balance is short at the exit, the fare adjustment machine, 精算機 (seisanki), just inside the barrier charges cards as well as settling fares.

Ten cards, one network, and its edges

Japan has ten major transport IC cards that work in one another's areas: Suica (スイカ) from JR East, PASMO (パスモ) from Tokyo's private railways and subways, ICOCA (イコカ) from JR West, plus Kitaca, TOICA, manaca, PiTaPa, SUGOCA, nimoca and Hayakaken. A Suica bought in Tokyo opens gates in Osaka and charges at a Kansai conbini the same way it does at home. PiTaPa is the outlier: it bills afterwards from a Japanese account rather than storing cash, and visitors rarely hold one.

The edges are geographic. A single journey that starts in one card's railway area and ends in another, on JR lines between Tokyo and Shizuoka for instance, may not be processed on the card at all, and a paper ticket is the answer. Some rural lines sit outside IC coverage entirely. Phone versions of Suica, PASMO and ICOCA charge through the phone's wallet app with a linked card, but whether a foreign-issued card is accepted depends on the issuer and has changed over time, so yen in your pocket remains the dependable backup.

What happens to the last of the balance

Visitors are often sold Welcome Suica, a short-stay version with a fixed validity period and no deposit, and JR East states that its leftover balance is not refunded. Standard Suica, PASMO and ICOCA cards carry a deposit that can be returned at a staffed office such as JR's みどりの窓口 (Midori no Madoguchi), along with the balance, less a handling charge. The conditions are on each operator's site and are worth reading before you decide.

Spending down is easiest at a conbini. Some registers will take the card's remaining balance and the rest in cash if you ask, 残高を全部使って、残りは現金で (zandaka o zenbu tsukatte, nokori wa genkin de), though not every chain or terminal can split a payment, and a clerk may suggest paying one way or the other. A standard card need not be emptied at all: cards lapse only after a long stretch without use, a period each operator states, and a balance carried over means the airport train on the next trip starts with a tap.

Getting a card, when to charge, and one mistake

Cards are sold from machines and offices at the main airports, Narita (成田), Haneda (羽田) and Kansai (関西) among them, and at major city stations. Supply of physical cards has been restricted at times in recent years, so check the JR East, JR West or PASMO sites before counting on a particular card the morning you land. Deposits, charging limits and refund fees are set by the operators and change, and those sites are where to confirm them.

The best time to charge is the evening before a travel day, at the conbini nearest your hotel, with no train to catch and no queue behind you. Keep notes and coins as well for rural buses and small shops that take cash only. The mistake to avoid is a large charge on the last full day: on a Welcome Suica whatever you don't spend stays on the card when you leave, and on a standard card recovering it means an office visit and a fee. Charge in small amounts, watch the 残額 at the gates, and let the final ride to the airport bring the balance close to zero.