| ⚠️ Story update: Japan will be bringing forward the end of COVID-19 border restrictions, which will now take effect from 29 April 2023, 0001 hours Japan Standard Time. |
Japan has announced that it will end its COVID-19 border restrictions from 8 May 2023, downgrading the virus to the “common disease” category and scrapping testing and vaccination requirements.
As the classification of COVID-19 in the Infectious Diseases Control Law is to be changed on May 8, 2023, all border measures, including provisional measures, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will be lifted on May 8, 2023.
In the meantime, a procedure tentatively named, “Genomic Surveillance of Infectious Diseases” will be launched to monitor the inflow of new infectious diseases on May 8.
-Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs
This marks the end of a long road to reopening, which saw international travellers first admitted under escorted package tours in June 2022, then non-escorted package tours in September 2022, and finally on free-and-easy from October 2022. Visa-waiver schemes have been restored and daily visitor arrivals scrapped; speaking as someone currently in Osaka, I can tell you the place has never been busier.
Japan ends border control measures from 8 May
| 🇯🇵 Summary: Travel to Japan (until 7 May 2023) |
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| Japan Border Measures |
Japan currently requires all international arrivals to present either:
- Proof of COVID-19 vaccination (primary course plus one booster dose)
- A negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours of departure
From Monday, 8 May 2023, it will no longer be necessary to show either before entering Japan. Instead, there will be “voluntary testing” for arriving passengers at Tokyo Narita, Tokyo Haneda, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Osaka Kansai airports with symptoms such as fever.
Restrictions will also be eased for travellers arriving in Japan from China, with the mandatory pre-departure PCR test removed from Wednesday, 5 April 2023. Travellers can instead present proof of COVID-19 vaccination, just like those originating from elsewhere in the world.
What about Visit Japan Web?
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| Visit Japan Web |
| FAQs |
International arrivals are currently requested (but not required) to pre-register on the Visit Japan Web (VJW) portal at least six hours prior to the scheduled arrival time.
There are three sections to complete:
- Quarantine (Fast-track)
- Immigration
- Customs
It’s unclear at the moment what the scrapping of border control measures means for VJW, but it seems likely to me that it’ll either become an immigration and customs-only platform, or be phased out altogether.
Personally, I think the former is more likely, since VJW is still useful for speeding up the arrivals process. I’ve flown into Tokyo a couple of times since Japan reopened, and all I had to do was scan the QR codes at the immigration counter/customs declaration booths. It worked seamlessly (if you’re otherwise technically-challenged, don’t worry; paper-based forms remain available).
A bigger issue might be the long and unpredictable immigration queues. I arrived at Tokyo-Haneda around 6 a.m a week ago and the queue was stretching all the way out of the immigration hall. Thank goodness for the APEC card!
Conclusion
Japan will lift its remaining COVID-19 border control measures from 8 May 2023, which means an end to vaccination and testing requirements. It could also lead to a scaled-back or completely eliminated VJW portal, though an official announcement is still pending on that.
I’ve been travelling around Tokyo and Osaka for the past week, and from what I can see the tourists are back in full force!
WIthout an APEC card, you are really screwed when arriving in Japan right now. Arriving to Handa at 6am last week, and it took over an hour to clear immigration, and was told by the lady at the immigration counter I was lucky as usually it is taking 3 hours now ! And then a saw something that came across my face book, that had some guy at Narita saying he waited 6.5 hours! Quite unbelievable if true. And why is it, that Japan does not give fast-track for business class passengers? Most annoying. Next, the visit Japan Web Portal… Read more »
thank you for your insights. I welcomed a party back in January in HND where also 1+ hour was apparently the norm and they came out within minutes, so there seems to be a lot of variance. As for the 3rd QR, I recall having done everything beforehand, has that changed now? Finally, I agree on the Premium Immigration, however I feel that if they reinstate the seniors manning the mobile stations prior to the immigration desks, they might significantly reduce the immigration times: are these operational yet?
note to others: prior to COVID they started to implement mobile passport control, which apparently took care of all the data entry and left the official at the counter with the approval. This significantly increased the speed of immigration and the mobile units were all manned by very enthusiastic seniors at the time, which was a nice contrast to the very quaint and serious immigration clerks. On a sidenote, I would recommend to always have a customs form also in paper, as the line for it after reclaiming baggage was sometimes shorter than the ones for the digital check of… Read more »
We thought we had done everything before hand regards QR codes – the Japan Web Portal, I think, used to generate a third QR code for quararntine. But when we completed our details that third QR code could no longer be generated from the portal, and the portal was quite clear in saying it was no longer required. So we were most frustrated to be caught in “absolute complete chaos” upon arrival with everyone “scrambling” to try and work out how to connect to data and generate this third QR code. Perhaps, the requirement at the airport and the Web… Read more »
Mark, thank you for your insights again, indeed the QR code thing sounds awful. As for the mobile seniors, I saw them only at NRT and the units resembled F&B cabin trolleys with the fingerprinting/camera on top. They were white and I saw them both in November 2019 and January 2020. Before that, upon arriving on SQ12, ie. late afternoon, my maximum waiting time was overall 60-90 minutes, but that was because a United plane would land before us. Upon the mobile units being deployed, the immigration time was cut down, althought it created a bottleneck downstairs at customs.
ps. another thing that might unfortunately return was the gate availability at NRT. On the two trips I mentioned, we had to wait up to 30 minutes on the tarmac for other planes to vacate their gate.
I was in Japan arriving in NRT in Dec 22 and end-Mar 23, only waited about 45 min on both occasions. The first time in Dec, those who filled in the Visit Japan Web declarations had to go to a fast-track area to verify the QR codes, which did not take very long as long as you had already made the declaration pre-trip, but this time in Mar, that area was totally skipped for those who had submitted their VJW declarations and most headed straight for the immigration queue. It was the immigration queue that slowed the process down and… Read more »