Japan waives the visa requirement for short stays by nationals of 74 countries and regions. If your passport is on this list, you board a plane, present it at the airport, and are granted Temporary Visitor status at the counter. If it is not, you apply for a visa before travelling, even for a two-day trip.
The 90-day countries
Most exempt nationalities get 90 days.
Europe. Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The Americas. Canada, the United States, Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay.
Asia. Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macao, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.
Oceania. Australia and New Zealand.
Middle East and Africa. Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Lesotho, Mauritius and Tunisia.
The shorter allowances
Four countries and regions get less than 90 days, and this catches people out:
- Thailand: 15 days
- Brunei: 30 days
- Israel and Qatar: 30 days
The United Arab Emirates and Qatar exemptions also come with passport or pre-registration conditions, so check the current terms rather than assuming.
Passport conditions attached to some exemptions
Several exemptions are conditional on holding a particular kind of passport. Indonesia, Malaysia, Serbia, Türkiye and the UAE are among those where an ePassport, a biometric passport, or advance registration is part of the arrangement. Indonesian nationals, for example, need to have registered an ePassport with a Japanese embassy or consulate in advance.
A machine-readable passport requirement applies more broadly. If your passport is old enough to lack a machine-readable zone, the exemption does not apply.
What the exemption does and does not cover
Exemption covers the same activities as a Temporary Visitor visa: tourism, visiting friends and relatives, conferences, and business meetings where you are not paid from a Japanese source.
It does not cover work of any kind. It does not cover study beyond short courses. And it cannot be converted into a longer status from inside Japan in most cases: someone who arrives visa-free and then wants to take a job normally has to leave, get a Certificate of Eligibility filed by their employer, and re-enter on a proper visa.
Extending the 90 days
For most exempt nationalities, no. There are reciprocal arrangements with a handful of countries, including Austria, Germany, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, where nationals may apply in Japan to extend a short stay to six months. These are extensions of a short stay, not a route to residence, and they are applied for at an immigration bureau before the initial period expires.
Repeat visits
There is no formal limit on how often you may enter visa-free, and there is a real practical one. Immigration officers assess each entry, and a pattern of near-continuous stays leads to secondary questioning and sometimes refusal at the border. The unwritten guideline most long-term visitors work to is not spending more than about half of any year in Japan on this basis.
Being refused entry once makes every subsequent entry harder, so it is worth staying well clear of the line rather than testing it.
JESTA changes this, from 2028
Japan approved a pre-travel screening system called JESTA in March 2026. Once it is running, nationals of the exempt countries listed above will register online before departure and receive authorisation before boarding, in the same way ESTA works for travel to the United States. Full rollout is targeted for 2028.
Visa exemption itself continues. JESTA adds a registration step and a fee for people who currently need neither.
Where to go next
For what you can do on a short stay, see Tourist Visa (Temporary Visitor). If you need a longer stay, start at Visa Types.
Back to Eligibility & Requirements.