Japan has just announced that border restrictions will be scraped from October 11, 2022. The country will once again allow visa-free, independent tourism and abolish a daily arrival cap.
Japan Entry Requirements
- Ensure you have spent the last 14 days in a “blue” country. Australia is in the blue category and you can check other countries here.
- Minimum of 3 covid vaccine doses.
- If unvaccinated or if you only had 2 vaccines, you can take a PCR test within 72h before travel.
- Children under 18 don’t need to be vaccinated but will need to take a PCR test in this case.
- Ensure your passport is on the visa-free country list. This includes 68 countries which you can check here.
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Japan already leaked the date earlier this month, as one of our switched-on readers reported seeing visa application dates blocked from October 11.
As you may recall, I recently went through the costly process of obtaining a tourist visa, which will now be rendered useless. At least I will get to keep a cool memento since getting a physical visa these days is rare.
After 2.5 years of hard border restrictions, Japan is finally opening up, and it’s undoubtedly high on people’s list of destinations to visit! In 2019, Japan set a record of 31.88 million foreign visitors, but the figure plummeted to about 250,000 in 2021 due to the closed borders.
As for entry requirements, you won’t need to do any tests if you have had 3 vaccinations; alternatively, if you don’t meet this requirement, you can enter the country by producing a negative PCR test 72h before departure.
