eSIM for Japan

Ours connects to all four Japanese networks: NTT docomo, SoftBank, KDDI au and Rakuten Mobile. Your phone picks whichever is strongest where you are standing and moves between them as you travel, without you touching anything.

This is worth checking on any eSIM you compare, because it is the thing that decides whether your maps load in a valley in Hakone. Most travel eSIMs sold for Japan ride on two of the four. Ours is on all of them, which is the difference between one fallback and three.

docomo matters most outside the cities. It has the widest rural and mountain footprint of the four, so a plan that can reach it is a plan that still works on the Nakasendo trail, in the Japanese Alps and along the coast, not only in Tokyo and Osaka.

5G on every plan on this page, on all four networks. Not a 5G capable eSIM that quietly lands you on 4G, actual 5G where the network has it.

This comes up constantly among travellers comparing eSIMs for Japan, and for once it is a fair thing to argue about. Japan built out 5G early and heavily in the cities, so the gap between a 5G plan and a 4G one is genuinely visible in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka when you are uploading photos or on a video call.

Outside the cities you will spend most of your time on 4G regardless of what any provider promises, because that is what is built there. Anyone selling you 5G everywhere in rural Japan is selling you something that does not exist yet.

This is the single most common complaint travellers post about eSIMs in Japan, and it is almost never the maps app. It is the connection underneath it dropping to a network that has no capacity where you are, usually inside a station, a basement shopping street or a train.

Japan is unusually hard on this. Enormous amounts of daily life happen underground, in Shinjuku and Umeda especially, and a plan locked to one or two networks has nowhere to fall back to when that network is congested. You get a signal bar and nothing loads, which feels exactly like a broken eSIM.

• Download the Google Map of your cities offline before you fly. It costs nothing and it is the single best thing you can do for a Japan trip
• If maps stall with signal showing, turn airplane mode on and off once to force a fresh network selection
• If it keeps happening in the same place, select a network manually in settings and pick a different one of the four
• Check that low data mode is off, because it throttles background map tiles

Our plans reach all four networks, which is the structural fix rather than the workaround. There is more on how coverage differs by region in our guide to Japan eSIM coverage.

Here is the whole fixed data range with the price worked out per gigabyte, because a from price tells you nothing about the plan you will actually buy.

The per gigabyte column was worked out from these prices on 21 September 2026. The 10 GB plan at $6.58 is the one most people should look at first. It covers a fortnight of normal use with room to spare and it is the point where the price per gigabyte stops falling quickly.

The 50 GB plan at $23.80 exists for people tethering a laptop or working from Japan for a month. At under fifty cents a gigabyte it is the best value on the page, and it is worth a look even if you think you will not use it all.

Checked on 30 September 2026 in US dollars, on each company's own Japan page. Airalo and Saily show local currency by country, so both were read in their US dollar setting.

Ubigi, which many travellers rate highly for Japan and which is worth taking seriously on coverage, lists 10 GB for 30 days at around $16.50. Ours is $6.58 for the same size and length.

We are a small company. We do not advertise on television or sponsor travel channels, and the difference goes into the price rather than the marketing. That is the whole explanation.

Prices move. If one of these is cheaper on the day you read this, buy the cheaper one. We would rather you trust the page than the pitch.

For almost everyone, yes, comfortably. Two weeks of maps, messaging, searching, train times and normal social use lands between 8 GB and 15 GB. Twenty leaves room for the days you end up navigating a lot or video calling home.

Japan pushes your usage up in one specific way that catches people out. You will use maps far more here than on most trips, because station exits matter, because the walking legs between transfers are real, and because Google Maps is what tells you which of the twelve exits at Shinjuku you need. Maps is light per minute but you will have it open constantly.

If you are genuinely unsure, take the 50 GB plan. At $23.80 it costs about the same as a competitor's 20 GB and removes the question entirely.

Fixed data, for almost every trip here. We sell unlimited plans for Japan and we would rather tell you plainly that they are the wrong buy for most people than take the larger sale.

Our unlimited plans give you a set amount at full speed each day, then slow down until the next day. The 30 day unlimited tier at $33.60 gives you 1 GB a day at full speed. The 50 GB fixed plan is $23.80 and lets you use it however you like, a lot in one day and none the next, which is closer to how a real trip goes.

Unlimited earns its place in one case: a long trip where you genuinely cannot predict usage and you want to stop thinking about it. If you can estimate within about 10 GB, fixed data is better value here by a wide margin.

Coming from outside Japan, yes, and the maths is not close. A week of most home networks' roaming in Japan costs more than a month of data here, and Japan is one of the places where being offline genuinely slows you down because so much of getting around depends on live train information.

Japan is also a country where the free wifi story is worse than visitors expect. It exists in convenience stores, stations and cafes, but much of it wants a registration form, an email confirmation, or a Japanese phone number, and it rarely reaches the street where you are standing with a suitcase trying to find your ryokan.

• Worth it: you are coming from the United States, Europe, Australia, the Gulf or Southeast Asia
• Worth it: your trip involves more than one city, so you are navigating daily
• Worth it: your home plan charges a daily roaming fee, which most pay as you go plans do
• Probably not: a two day stopover where you will be at the hotel and the airport only
• Probably not: you already have a plan that includes Japan at no extra cost, which a few US and EU plans now do

That last one is a real answer, not modesty. Check what your own plan already includes for Japan before you buy anything from anyone.

Not from us. Our Japan plans are data only, so they have no number and cannot send or receive texts or calls.

If you specifically need a Japanese number, for a restaurant that only confirms by phone, a delivery, or a domestic booking site that demands one, then Mobal sells a Japan eSIM that includes a real Japanese number. It costs considerably more than a data plan and that is the thing you are paying for. Buy theirs if that is what your trip needs.

For nearly everyone else a data plan is enough, because LINE, WhatsApp and FaceTime all run over the data and that is how most people in Japan communicate anyway. Keep your home SIM switched on for texts if your bank sends codes, with its own data roaming turned off.

Yes, and this is where running on all four networks earns its keep. docomo in particular has the broadest coverage in the mountains and along the rural coast, so the plan has somewhere to go when the others thin out.

Expect 4G rather than 5G once you leave the big cities, and expect genuine gaps deep in the mountains, in tunnels and on some of the hiking trails. That is true of every network in Japan including the one a local pays for, so treat anyone promising unbroken rural coverage with suspicion.

Download your maps offline before you leave the city. On the Kumano Kodo, in Shirakawa go, or anywhere in the Alps, that one step matters more than which eSIM you bought.

On the Shinkansen, yes for most of the route, with drops in the long tunnels. The line between Tokyo and Osaka is well covered and you can work most of the way. Further north and through the mountains you will lose it more often.

On the subway, yes in the stations and on most lines in Tokyo and Osaka, which are unusually well covered underground compared with other countries. Deep sections and older lines still drop. Again, being on four networks rather than one means a better chance that something reaches you down there.

Practical version: load your route before you go down the stairs. Every regular commuter in Tokyo does exactly that.

Turn data roaming ON for the eSIM line. This is the setting that trips up more travellers than everything else combined, and the instinct to leave it off is exactly backwards.

A travel eSIM is a foreign profile connecting to a Japanese partner network, so to your phone it is always roaming. With roaming off for that line the eSIM shows a signal and refuses to pass any data, which looks like a broken eSIM and is not. The setting is per line, so switching it on for the eSIM does not switch it on for your home SIM.

The arrangement that works: eSIM set as the line for mobile data with roaming on, home SIM left on for calls and texts with its own data roaming off. You keep your own number reachable and pay your home network nothing for data.

Five minutes on wifi, and the only thing you need is the QR code we email you after payment. Do this at home before you fly, not at Narita.

• Check the phone first: dial *#06# and look for an EID number. No EID means no eSIM support
• Open the QR code on a second screen or print it. Your phone camera cannot scan a code that is on the same phone
• iPhone: Settings, then Mobile Service, then Add eSIM, then Use QR Code
• Android: Settings, then Network and internet, then SIMs, then Add eSIM
• Label it Japan when the phone asks, so you can find it later
• Set your home SIM as default for calls and texts, and the new eSIM for mobile data
• Switch data roaming ON for the eSIM line only

When you land, give it two or three minutes to find a network. Japanese airports are busy and first registration can be slow. If it still says no service, toggle airplane mode once, then check the eSIM line is selected for mobile data.

Keep the email. The profile cannot be moved to another phone and the QR code cannot be scanned twice, so that email is your record.

When the eSIM first connects to a Japanese network, not when you buy it and not when you install it. You can buy weeks ahead and install days ahead with nothing running down.

That means installing early is the right move. It is the one step that needs wifi and a bit of attention, and you would rather do it on your sofa than in an arrivals hall at the end of a long flight.

The clock then runs in calendar days, not in 24 hour blocks from first use, so a 7 day plan that connects on a Monday evening runs to the following Monday.

Four worth knowing, and none of them is a reason not to buy one. They are reasons to buy the right one.

• No phone number, so no calls or texts. LINE and WhatsApp work fine over the data
• Your phone must be carrier unlocked and eSIM capable. Dial *#06# and look for an EID
• Deleting an eSIM profile is permanent. The QR code will not scan a second time, so never delete one mid trip to free a slot
• No shop to walk into. Support is by message, which is fine until it is two in the morning

The one that causes real trouble is the third. Phones hold a limited number of profiles and travellers tidy up by deleting old ones, then find the code has already been used. Keep the profile until the trip is over.

The one that costs money is the first. Decide before you buy whether anything on your trip needs an actual phone number, because that changes which plan you want.

No. These are Japan plans and they stop working at the border. If your trip is Japan plus Korea, or Japan plus Taiwan, you have two sensible options.

Buy a separate plan for each country, which is usually cheaper per gigabyte and gives you the better local networks in both. Both can sit on the same phone at the same time, and you switch which one carries data in settings.

Or buy a regional Asia plan that covers the whole itinerary on one profile. It costs more per gigabyte than a single country plan, and it is worth it only if you are crossing more than two borders.

If your home plan already includes Japan at no extra cost, you do not need us. A few US and European plans now cover Japan, and paying twice for the same thing helps nobody.

If your phone is carrier locked, nothing here will work and no support agent can unlock it. Check before you buy, not after you land. And if you need a Japanese phone number rather than data, buy a plan that includes one, from us or from anyone else, rather than hoping a data plan will do it.

If you are in Japan for two days and will be at a hotel with wifi the whole time, offline maps and airplane mode will cover you for nothing.

For someone flying into Japan from outside it, this is the right product and fixed data is the right half of it. The 10 GB plan at $6.58 is what we would point most people at, and the 50 GB at $23.80 if you are staying a month or working.

What we would not tell you is that no other plan could suit you better. Ubigi has a strong reputation among travellers in Japan and deserves it. Mobal will sell you a Japanese number and we will not. If either of those matters more to you than price, buy theirs.

Where we are confident is value per gigabyte, and being on all four Japanese networks on 5G rather than two, which is the thing that decides whether your maps load when you are standing in an underground station trying to find the right exit.