Tabitecho: Receipt to Refund

On 1 November 2026 Japan changed how tax-free works. You pay the full, tax-included price in the shop and get the tax back when you leave the country.

The part that bites is that the refund is judged one receipt at a time, as a whole. If even one item on a receipt cannot be shown at customs, nothing on that receipt is refunded. Fifty thousand yen on one slip, one item left at the hotel, and the whole fifty thousand is gone.

Tabitecho finds it while you can still act, instead of at the airport. And it is not only a refund ledger.

Tax-free shops, by area

Osaka, Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sapporo and more. Department stores, electronics, drugstores. Filter by area and open the map. Shops the editor has been to carry a personal ranking and a note; the rest carry facts only.

Can you take it home?

Meat, dairy, fresh produce, medicine, liquids and lithium batteries, by destination country, in three levels. Finding out at the border is the expensive way. Voltage and plug shape too, so you know before you buy whether it will work at home.

The check before you leave Japan

You tick items off receipt by receipt. A receipt that is still short goes to the top of the list, with the number of items missing and what it means: this whole receipt will not be refunded. If you linked a photo to the receipt, the check shows it, so you tick by looking instead of trying to remember.

The money arrives after you have gone

The unsettling part is that the refund lands after you are home. Each receipt moves through three stages: registered, confirmed at the airport, came back. What actually came back is recorded separately from the estimate, so you can see afterwards how much was taken in fees.

Customs has 90 days

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