This site · About
How this is written and checked
The rules that decide whether you can get a phone plan, internet or a bank account in Japan are published in Japanese. We read them and answer in plain English.
Editorial standards
How facts get on the page
Every price and condition we state is checked against the provider's own page or an official source, and the source is linked on the page.
Each page carries the date it was last reviewed. Japanese pricing changes often, and a figure without a date is not much use.
Anything not yet verified is marked checking. We do not fill gaps with a plausible number.
On this page
Japanese primary sources
We work from provider terms, ministry directives and city office notices, read in Japanese, and link each one from the page that uses it.
Why the gaps are visible
A wrong price on a three-year contract costs you money. "Checking" tells you to confirm the figure on the provider's page before you sign.
How advertising works here
Some links are advertising links. If you sign up through one, this site may earn a commission; your price is unaffected. Pages carrying them are labeled Ad · Affiliate links at the top, as Japan's stealth-marketing rules require.
Most options on these pages have an affiliate program we joined. That is how the list starts, and it means a service with no program can be missing. Where we know of one that matters to you, the page names it without a link: the SIM page names IIJmio, ahamo, LINEMO and povo without a link, and the home internet page lists ahamo with no advertising link.
Commission does not decide the order. We sort by what you can sign up for (payment, identity documents, installation), then by verified cost. Where a price is not verified we say so and do not rank on it. We name what each option is bad at.
We do not tell readers to avoid a service because of how its affiliate program pays us. How often a network confirms commissions says nothing about the service you would get.
Who checks the pages
Sam Harper, the editor, checks each English page against the providers' own Japanese pages and official notices, and answers corrections. The Japanese, Vietnamese, Portuguese and Indonesian pages are translated from the English page, and their prices, dates and sources come from the same data.
Sam Harper is a pen name for a real person who lives in Japan. You can reach the editor through the contact page.
Corrections
If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us. We fix it and update the page's review date.