IC cards & payments
Suica, Pasmo or Welcome Suica: which IC card should a visitor get?
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Short answer
For almost every visitor, a Suica or Pasmo on your phone is the best option — no deposit, no expiry, top up from your seat. If you can't add one to your phone, a physical Suica or Pasmo works identically; the tourist-only Welcome Suica suits short trips because it skips the deposit, but it expires 28 days after issue and its balance isn't refundable.
What you'll get from this page
- Suica and Pasmo are the same to use — accepted interchangeably across trains, buses and shops nationwide.
- A physical Suica or Pasmo carries a refundable deposit; a mobile one in Apple Pay or Google Pay has no deposit at all.
- Welcome Suica is a tourist card with no deposit, but it expires 28 days after issue and its leftover balance can't be refunded.
- IC cards work far beyond trains — convenience stores, vending machines, many restaurants and lockers all take them.
- A mobile Suica/Pasmo you top up from your phone is the least hassle if your handset supports it.
- Whichever card you hold, it's a prepaid balance — top it up before it runs dry at a gate.
The IC card question sounds small and turns out to be the thing that makes or breaks the first day. Get it right and you tap through every gate, buy coffee with a wave of your phone, and never count coins. Get it wrong and you're stuck at a ticket machine working out fares while a queue builds behind you.
I've handed these cards to dozens of visiting friends and watched which choices actually made their trips smoother. This is the version I wish someone had given me to give them — no deposit-versus-expiry confusion, just what to pick and why.
None of the cards here pay me anything to recommend them; the IC cards are run by the rail operators. Where I mention services further down that this site does earn from, I'll say so plainly.
First, what an IC card even is
An IC card is a prepaid tap card. You load money onto it, then touch it to a reader — at a train gate, a bus door, a shop till, a vending machine — and the fare or price is deducted instantly. No tickets, no working out the fare in advance, no exact change.
The magic isn't really the trains, although tapping through a gate instead of buying a paper ticket for every ride is a genuine relief. It's everywhere else the card works: convenience stores, vending machines, coin lockers, loads of restaurants and shops. It quietly becomes your small-payments wallet for the whole trip.
Suica, Pasmo and Welcome Suica are three versions of the same idea. Here's how they differ where it actually matters.
Suica and Pasmo are the same card in practice
People agonise over Suica versus Pasmo. Don't. For a visitor they are functionally identical.
- Suica is issued by JR East (the big rail company).
- Pasmo is issued by the Tokyo-area private railways and bus operators.
But they're part of the same mutual-acceptance network, so a Suica works on Pasmo's trains and buses and vice versa, and both work in the same shops. You will never be turned away because you tapped "the wrong one." Get whichever you can obtain first, and never think about it again. You do not need both.
✅ Key point
The choice that matters isn't Suica-vs-Pasmo. It's physical card vs mobile card, and normal card vs Welcome Suica. Those two decisions are the whole game.
The mobile card is the quiet best option
If your phone supports it, adding a Suica or Pasmo directly to Apple Pay or Google Pay is the smoothest route of all:
- No deposit. A mobile Suica doesn't carry the physical card's deposit.
- No expiry. Unlike Welcome Suica, it doesn't time out.
- Top up from your seat. Run low on the platform? Add money from the phone in ten seconds instead of hunting for a top-up machine.
- Nothing to carry or return. It's just on your phone.
The catch is compatibility. Recent iPhones handle Suica well; Android support depends on the phone and region. And — importantly — some overseas cards are declined when you try to top up, which is the trap that catches people who assumed it would just work. Because of that, I tell friends to add a mobile Suica and keep a physical card as backup for the first day.
I've written up exactly what works and what silently fails, including the top-up card issue, in adding Suica to an overseas iPhone. Read it before you rely on the phone route.
Physical Suica/Pasmo vs Welcome Suica
If you're getting a physical card — because your phone can't take a mobile one, or you just prefer plastic — the choice is between a normal Suica/Pasmo and the tourist-only Welcome Suica. The table lays the IC options out alongside the other things visitors tap and pay with; the deposit and expiry details follow underneath.
| Option | Typical price | Fully online | Ease for visitors | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wise | Free | Yes | ★★★★★ | Holding yen before you fly and avoiding your home bank's exchange markup on card payments |
| Welcome Suica (JR East) | Free | Counter pickup | ★★★★ | Short trips: no deposit, but it expires after 28 days and has to be collected in person |
| Visit Japan Web (official) | Free | Yes | ★★★★ | The government immigration and customs pre-registration everyone has to do — free, and not optional |
Prices are indicative figures published by each operator, converted to a common unit so the rows are comparable: one week of data for SIMs and eSIMs, a seven-day rental for pocket Wi-Fi, the face value for rail passes, and one room per night for stays. They move with demand, season and exchange rates, so always confirm on the operator's own site before booking. The date each figure was checked is stated in the article it appears in.
Normal Suica / Pasmo. You pay a small refundable deposit on top of your initial balance (¥500 for a Suica, checked 2026-08-01 — confirm at the machine). The card doesn't expire for years, and you can get the deposit and remaining balance back at a JR office when you leave, minus a small handling fee on the balance in some cases. Good if you might come back, or want your money returned.
Welcome Suica. A red tourist card with no deposit — you pay only for the balance you load. That's the upside. The downsides are firm:
⚠️ Heads-up
Welcome Suica expires 28 days after it's issued, and its leftover balance is not refundable. Whatever money is still on the card when it expires — or when you leave the country — is gone. There's no deposit to reclaim either, because you never paid one. So load it in smaller top-ups and aim to run it close to empty before you fly home. It also has to be collected in person from specific counters (typically at the airports and major stations), so it isn't something you can sort out before you arrive.
The rule of thumb: Welcome Suica for a genuinely short, single trip where the no-deposit convenience outweighs the throwaway nature. A normal Suica/Pasmo if you might return, want the balance back, or simply don't like the idea of a card that self-destructs with your money on it. And a mobile card over both if your phone cooperates.
How to actually get one
A mobile Suica or Pasmo is added through your phone's wallet app — Apple Pay's Wallet on a supported iPhone, or Google Pay on a supported Android — where you create the card and load it with a linked card. No queue, no counter. That's the appeal, and the reason I steer people to it first when their phone allows it.
A physical card is bought in person. Normal Suica and Pasmo come from ticket machines and station offices in the Tokyo area; the equivalent cards in other regions (Kansai's ICOCA, for instance) work the same way and are accepted interchangeably, so a card bought in one city taps fine in another. Welcome Suica is collected from specific tourist counters, typically at the airports and a handful of major stations — it isn't something a machine spits out anywhere.
One practical note that changes from time to time: the issuing of some personalised or standard physical cards has occasionally been paused or limited in certain regions. Because that comes and goes, don't build your whole plan around grabbing a specific physical card the second you land — a mobile card or a Welcome Suica is the more dependable fallback. Check the operator's current situation if you're set on a particular card.
Topping up, and getting your money back
You top up (charge) a physical card with cash at any station top-up or ticket machine — feed in notes, tap the card, done — and the English button is easy to find. A mobile card tops up from your phone in seconds, which is its quiet superpower on a crowded platform.
⚠️ Heads-up
Auto-charge and season-ticket features generally aren't available to short-term visitors, because they're tied to Japanese bank accounts or registration a tourist won't have. So plan to top up manually, and keep an eye on the balance — the most common IC-card embarrassment is a card declining at a busy gate because it ran dry. If that happens, there's a "fare adjustment" machine near the gates to settle the difference; it's routine, not a crisis, but topping up in advance avoids the fumble.
Refunds apply to a normal physical Suica or Pasmo: hand it back at a JR East office (for Suica) or the relevant operator, and you get your deposit back along with the remaining balance — a small handling fee may be deducted from the balance in some cases, so confirm at the office. A Welcome Suica gives you nothing back — no deposit was paid, and the balance isn't refundable — which is exactly why you run it close to empty before flying home.
Buses, regions and the small gaps
On the ground, an IC card does more than trains. Most city buses in the major areas let you tap on (and sometimes tap off) with the same card, no fumbling for change. Vending machines, station lockers, konbini and a great many shops take it too — it quietly becomes the way you spend small amounts all trip.
The gaps are narrow but worth knowing: some rural and regional lines still don't accept IC cards and want a paper ticket or cash, and a few small shops are cash-only. For a standard city-and-Shinkansen trip you'll rarely hit those edges, but it's the reason the card shouldn't be your only way to pay.
One card really does cover the country
The reason you don't need to overthink the regional versions — ICOCA in Kansai, and the other operator cards — is that the major IC cards are part of a mutual-acceptance network. A Suica bought in Tokyo taps through gates, buses and shop tills in Osaka, Kyoto, Sapporo, Fukuoka and most big cities, and a card bought in one of those places works back in Tokyo. So there's no need to collect a different card in each region; the one you start with carries you.
The same goes for travelling in a group with children — child IC cards exist at reduced fares, set up in person, but the everyday experience is identical: tap in, tap out. For a family, mobile cards on the adults' phones plus a physical card each for the kids is a tidy setup.
Where these cards work — and where they don't
One card covers a lot. The major IC cards are mutually accepted across most of Japan's big cities, so the same Suica taps you through gates in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sapporo, Fukuoka and more, plus buses and shops in between.
The gaps are narrow but real: some rural and regional lines still don't take IC cards, and a handful of small shops are cash-only. For a standard city-and-Shinkansen trip you'll rarely hit those edges, but it's the reason you shouldn't rely on the card as your only way to pay. Keep some cash too — how much is its own question, which I cover next.
The card is for taps, not for everything
Here's where I hand you over to the money question, because an IC card solves small tap payments and nothing larger. You still need to think about cash for the places that take neither card nor IC, and about which card to actually spend on bigger purchases.
- How much cash to carry, and where Japan is still cash-only, is in how much cash you actually need in Japan.
- Which ATMs give you yen on a foreign card, and what they charge, is in which ATMs in Japan take a foreign card.
Top your IC card up from cash at any station machine, or from a card if the machine and your card get along, and it'll carry the hundreds of small daily payments. The bigger stuff — hotels, some restaurants, shopping — is a separate decision.
IC cards are for local taps; they are not a complete trip-booking tool. For longer transport products, airport transfers or timed activities that sit outside ordinary IC-card use, Klook is worth checking alongside the official transport pages.
So which IC card should you get?
Get a mobile Suica or Pasmo if your phone supports it: no deposit, no expiry, top up from your seat. Add a physical card as first-day backup, because overseas-card top-ups sometimes fail.
Get a normal physical Suica or Pasmo if you can't use a mobile card, or you want a refundable deposit and a card that doesn't expire — especially if you might return to Japan.
Get a Welcome Suica if it's a short single trip and you'd rather skip the deposit than reclaim it later — just keep it low on balance near the end, because whatever's left when it expires is lost.
Don't agonise over Suica versus Pasmo. They're the same in daily use. Grab whichever you reach first and get on with the trip.
Next, sort the money side: how much cash you actually need in Japan, and if you're going the phone route, adding Suica to an overseas iPhone.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between Suica and Pasmo?
Almost none for a visitor. They're issued by different operators — Suica by JR East, Pasmo by the Tokyo-area private railways — but they're accepted interchangeably on trains, buses and in shops across the country. Pick whichever you can get to first; you don't need both.
Should a tourist get a Welcome Suica or a normal Suica?
Welcome Suica skips the deposit, which suits a short trip, but it expires 28 days after issue and any leftover balance isn't refunded. A normal Suica or Pasmo carries a refundable deposit and doesn't expire, so it's better if you might return or want your balance back. A mobile Suica avoids the deposit and the expiry entirely.
Can I put Suica on my iPhone as a visitor?
Often yes — recent iPhones can add a Suica or Pasmo in the Wallet app and top it up with a card, though some overseas cards are declined for the top-up. It doesn't always work, so have a physical card as a backup. There's a separate guide on this site covering exactly what works and what silently fails.
Do IC cards work outside Tokyo?
Yes. The major IC cards are mutually accepted across most of Japan's big cities and regions, so one card covers Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and beyond for trains, buses and shops. A few rural lines don't take them, but for a typical trip one card is enough.
Can I pay for things other than trains with a Suica?
Yes, and it's one of the best reasons to have one. Convenience stores, vending machines, many restaurants, station lockers and lots of shops accept IC cards with a single tap. It's the fastest way to spend small amounts without fumbling coins.