Welcome To Japan

What to expect

Congratulations! You’ve finally decided to come to Japan, and after a long flight, you’ve found yourself leaving your plane and now walking down the halls of an airport in a country you’ve never been before. You’ll just follow people and hope that you’re going the right way, while being filtered by Customs employees that may or may not speak English. Hopefully, this article helps you prepare you reduce anxiety and get you on your way to your next destination ASAP.

The first thing you should do, even before you board your flight, is think about Customs Clearance in Japan. Check out Visit Japan Web, it’s where you can electronically complete your Customs Form and receive a QR Code to provide to the Customs Agents once you land in Japan. It’s not required, as you can fill out a paper form, but nothing is worse than trying to find a pen or space to fill the form because most people don’t do it. If you have the QR code, you just split into the queue line for foreign visitors where an agent will guide you towards another agent that will scan your QR code, take your finger prints and photo, and get you on your way.

That’s the first check. After this, you’ll go down an escalator towards the luggage pick up. Hopefully you didn’t put your QR Code away, because once you get your luggage, you’ll have to go through a secondary Customs check. You’ll be guided to a machine that you will need to scan your passport into and confirm that your declarations are correct. After that, there is a Customs Agent at a gate that will confirm that you have completed the declaration and let you go on your way (a few years ago, this was a verbal exchange - while I enjoyed speaking to the agents, this speeds things up substantially).