Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful
78 comments
·May 15, 2025eloisius
I think they are even more useful in Taiwan. Every single transit system across the entire island that I’ve ever encountered accepts EasyCard (悠遊卡). Even ferries. So does every convenience store, and even a lot of proper restaurants and stores. They are also fast, like you don’t even have to break your strike while passing the turnstiles to enter the metro.
lhl
I think it's about equal for utility - Japanese Suica/Pasmo cards are also usable in every single konbini, at all the stations stores, across most regional transportation and taxis, and at maybe half of Tokyo shops/restaurants (it's a default option in AirPay and other PoS systems). A lot of vending machines accept Suica, and I use it at grocery or drug stores. You can even use it at some other types of shops like Bic Camera, although for high ticket items you're going to hit the Suica balance limits... https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en/suicamoney/shop.html
walthamstow
The funny thing about Japan is they have this wonderful universal IC card, but not everywhere accepts it, some accept only it, some only accept cash, some only cash or physical credit card, some only QR (PayPay), so you end up needing to carry several methods, and one of them is paper and coins!
socalgal2
Variety is good! The fact the USA only has Mastercard and Visa and that they've colluded to keep all other forms of payments out is why their fees aren't lower.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...
Japan has competition in payment systems. Paypay, D-Pay, Meri-pay, Line Pay, Rakuten Pay, etc... Each tries to entice both customers and retailers by offering discounts and bonuses.
Also I'm happy to pay cash as it's private.
ksdnjweusdnkl21
It's amazingly fractured actually. In my home country every store pretty much has the same exact model of a card reader that takes all contacless payments and credit cards with chips. In Japan it's a coinflip wether a credit card reader can take contactless credit cards. And if you do it with the chip, it's always a fun process of the clerk not understanding you need to insert a pin or select a currency, so they sometimes abort the process in confusion.
Needless to say, I prefer to use cash in Japan.
decimalenough
Most, but not all. Wikipedia has a hideously convoluted diagram showing the complex web of interoperability or lack thereof:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_Mutual_Usage_Servic...
bemmu
I seem to have managed to live in the only place in Japan where you can’t use suica/pasmo for transport: Tokushima. Still works in convini though.
anArbitraryOne
Technically a gate, not a turnstile (which inherently slows traffic)
ranma42
> Since there's no point in generating keys for a device which will not be used in Japan, non-Japan SKUs don't have Osaifu-Keitai functionality. So even if you rooted your phone and had full access to the secure element, if your phone's secure element doesn't have the key, you can't use it as an IC card.
At least in some cases it is sufficient to change the phone SKU id (which requires temporary rooting) to the Japan SKU id to unlock the Osaifu-Keitai functionality on a non-Japan phone. I'm not sure if this means that the secure element had the necessary keys provisioned all along, or just that the Osaifu-Keitai app then provisions it on first use.
dadadad100
I believe it is the case that US (at least) iPhones work as IC cards in Japan
Source - I’m sitting in Kyoto right now having travelled all over Tokyo and then on to Kyoto using only my phone to interact with Japan Rail. Verified with two 16Es and a 12. In fact we were able to add the Suica cards to our phones and charge them fromApplePay while still stateside. That let us skip the Welcome Suica line at Haneda and go straight to the monorail. Highly recommended
cosmic_cheese
Yes, all iPhones and Apple Watches carry the functionality regardless of where you buy them, which has been wonderful for me. The fact that the iOS Wallet app can generate these cards as needed and reload them without a third party app is a cherry on top of— so nice to for once get a standardized UI instead of having to deal with some half baked transit service app.
tkgally
Long-time Japan resident here. The IC cards do work quickly and smoothly, but the retail payment system overall is a mess because different stores accept different combinations of dozens of electronic payment brands.
When shopping, I prefer to use the Suica app in my iPhone as it’s just a quick touch, but some stores won’t accept it so I have to use the Nanaco app—which requires a face recognition step—or pay in cash. I haven’t bothered to set up a QR code app yet. Twice, when I tried to install PayPay, the most common one, I got stuck on an authentication step and gave up.
Even shops within the same department store accept different combinations of payment systems. In my local Takashimaya, I can use Suica to buy food in the basement but not in the restaurants on the upper floors. Shops in the nearby Sogo Department Store do not accept Suica, only Nanaco, except for the Starbucks on the third floor, which does accept Suica.
Convenience stores seem to accept nearly everything, as you can guess from the number of logos on this sign:
https://news.mynavi.jp/article/osusumecredit-107/images/003l...
Some relatives are arriving in Japan next Tuesday for a three-week visit, and they asked me what they should do about credit cards, digital money, cash, etc. I realized that, despite living here, I barely understood the situation myself, so I had Gemini Deep Research prepare a report for them:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WY4AM0mJS94uwPMK8XjIQMLf...
Another point to add is that in the 1980s and 1990s big security problems emerged with the magnetic cards that were used widely then for transportation and telephone calls. Here is what Perplexity has to say about that:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/i-want-some-information-in-...
I well remember the “open street markets in urban areas like Shibuya ... known for selling counterfeit cards.”
astrange
> but the retail payment system overall is a mess because different stores accept different combinations of dozens of electronic payment brands.
This is a fun thing to keep in mind when people tell you Japan is a "homogenous society".
(It's not high-trust either.)
BlueTemplar
(What do you mean ?)
thm
I found Suica/Pasmo/Icoca to be the golden trinity for most regions.
TheChaplain
I love IC cards. They had them on all transport where I live, but a few years ago they changed to QR codes..
Now it's a fiddle with an app, then try to get the right angle on a smudgy reader. Getting onboard takes much longer and it feels like technology sent us 2 steps back instead of forward.
IC cards are better, and if they could be integrated in the phone then it would be even better and faster for everyone.
numpad0
It's about fees and control. Whether it's EMV(Europay Mastercard Visa) or JR East, they take 3% commission on every single sales + realtime sales data for your competitors to abuse. So alternative choices gets occasionally chosen to replace them, I think often as bargaining chips and a backup plan.
mschild
Would printing out the QR code and putting it into your wallet work or is it a changing one?
lmz
I think the most annoying part is the external QR reader (on faregates?). I've rarely had a good experience with those whether using a QR on paper or from a phone screen.
0xCMP
iOS supports ICs fine. It has supported Suica since 2017 when I used it instead of the physical card.
Forcing use of an app and QR codes does seem like a significant step back, although I guess it makes paper tickets much easier to implement with the same scanner.
oivey
At least in Japan, they all work from your phone already.
anArbitraryOne
They even work when the phone is off
AshamedCaptain
I don't understand -- we are talking about 100ms or so of latency? which is almost completely dwarfed by any mechanical action such as the gates actually opening?? This is about as ridiculous as it gets. The videos that compare the UK system with the JP system practically show the same throughput, even when in the UK video most people are using magnetic/paper tickets (which by necessity are going to be much slower than NFC).
In addition, the annoyance of these gates comes from having to fiddle with the wallet, etc. in order to find the card or the phone, or the fact that multiples tries may be required for the reader to actually read it; not the 200ms it takes for the reader to do so. I'm going to bet that faster NFC bandwidth makes the entire thing even more finicky, not less.
If you really want to speed how people go through the gates, then _remove the damn gates_. It's not rocket science, and there are some European cities that have _no_ gates in their underground systems. München comes to mind, but even in London less central stations have no gates. Beat that.
In addition , the article bashes NXP for using obscurity as a defense, then goes to praise Felica, whose apparently main barrier of defense is:
> the crypto is proprietary, and probably buried underneath a mountain of NDAs, so the public can't audit it independently.
This is literally the definition of security by obscurity. When I read the two examples set by the author, my only possible conclusion is that security by obscurity actually works, but only when you can keep it actually obscure. The only problem is that NXP failed to keep their algorithms obscure while apparently FeliCa did. It is basically the opposite conclusion to what the author is trying to convince me to believe. I find it totally unjustified to blame NXP for trying to keep the algorithm obscure by the courts when apparently FeliCa also does it -- just much more successfully.
Note: I personally consider MIFARE classic being _almost_ trivially clonable a requirement.
askvictor
Many gates in Japan are open by default, and close if they detect someone trying to go through without tapping/inserting ticket/incorrect ticket. I'm not sure why it's not all of them though. But the whole system is built for speed/throughput. Smaller stations outside the cities don't have gates
socalgal2
Maybe because I started my public transportation life in Japan I prefer gates to no gates
(1) it means people pay for usage. Someone going 20km pays more than someone going 1km since they have proof where you entered.
(2) it prevents more accidents/fines? - I had this happen to me in Paris, maybe because I was used to Japan. I was going to Paris Disneyland. I wrongly assumed I couldn't get there without going through a gate. I got on the subway, followed the signs in the tunnels to some train in Châtelet les Halles, was on the train, showed up at Paris Disneyland, was told I had to pay a 3x fine for not having the correct ticket. Or I could get on the train, go back to Paris, get the correct ticket, then come back (2hrs?) In Japan, for the most part, I couldn't have gotten on the train without a ticket and if I did go further than I paid can just adjust my fare at the end. No fines needed or imposed.
Washuu
> In addition, the annoyance of these gates comes from having to fiddle with the wallet, etc. in order to find the card or the phone, or the fact that multiples tries may be required for the reader to actually read it;
The NFC readers on the gates in Japan will read cards from several centimeters away. My phone, which has Osaifu-Keitai setup, can be left in my bag and I just wave my bag over the reader as I walk by. It is incredibly rare for a misread to occur. They just work.
phh
With regards to latency, in Paris the biggest hurdle to increase trafic is people. You can quite literally walk through like on the Japanese video linked. But the vast majority don't.
The way it's supposed to work is that if you pass your card while the gate is opened, it keeps the gate open longer.
In practice most people wait for the gate to close in front of them before reopening it.
I'm not sure why people do fgaf. I think the reason is that this makes you look like a fraudster going right behind a valid passenger.
psalaun
I do wait because I'm sure that my ticket is validated, and therefore won't be fined by a controller. Sometimes the machine visual/sound signal is broken, so no way to be 100% sure.
Aeolun
The absense of a negative is not a positive. It could be secure, or it could not. On the whole I’m inclined to believe that if it could be broken, it would have been in my lifetime.
socalgal2
I think I must be mis-understanding something
> Since there's no point in generating keys for a device which will not be used in Japan, non-Japan SKUs don't have Osaifu-Keitai functionality.
AFAIK, all iPhones from all regions since like iPhone 10 (internet says iPhone 7) support Osaifu-Kaitai unless I don't understand what that means. My USA iPhones works everywhere Suika, Pasmo, Icoca, etc work. Every station, bus, vending machine, convenience store, super market, restaurant, and retail store that accept these forms of payment, they all just work.
Given that all of this works, what is it I'm missing?
dal
Also my western Google pixel pro 9XL does not support it..while the Japanese version does. I guess google might be saving on the licensing or something.
artdigital
iPhones yes, Android no. Most Android devices sold outside of Japan can’t use FeliCa so you have to get the Japan model for osaifu-keitai stuff
pwim
Unfortunately transit operators are looking to discontinue the use of these IC cards in favour of QR codes as part of a cost saving strategy: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241015/p2a/00m/0bu/01...
tonyhart7
they want to replace that for cutting cost, this system is great when in large cities but in rural areas the speed,cost etc is excessive
so there's that, I mean if we can optimize QR code system. the winner obviously would be QR because no need to have an dedicated hardware for this
Yes, IC card would be faster but at what point the difference is matters???
charcircuit
That article doesn't say they are.
>It will continue to accept national IC cards such as Suica and Icoca
cmcaleer
I hope it lasts, but I'm seeing gates which have QR code readers, IC card readers,and contactless payment readers, which is obviously unsustainable. One or more of these will have to give eventually, and given Japan's tolerance for QR code payments (PayPay is massive) and foreigners' familiarity with contactless it seems like IC is the most likely one to go.
I'd be sad if they do go or get relegated to some app, I love the little mascots.
0xCMP
There are several operators mentioned in the article. One is possibly switching entirely to QR because renewing the IC contract is too expensive.
Some are cutting back to just Suica and Icoca. Some are switching to, or using from the start, tap-and-pay (Visa, EMV, etc.).
Reason077
> “The London Underground gates don't work nearly as quick with Google Pay or any of my other contactless cards - what gives?”
They used to (and still do?) work faster with the Oyster fare card. Virtually instant. But paying with EMV cards/devices does add a noticable transaction latency before the gate opens. A few hundred milliseconds, I’d say.
RajT88
Not mentioned is the cards currently in use in Japan, "icoca". A pun on "ikouka" - "shall we go?"
amelius
As in, "will this train run?"?
PaulHoule
If I had to ask “why is it so fast?” I’d turn it around and ask “Why are western systems so slow?” and posit that Western capital has an ideology that throughout matters by latency doesn’t. (As Fred Brooks puts it, “Nine women can have a baby in one month”). As an individual or a customer you perceive latency directly though, and throughout secondarily. So it comes down to empathy or lack thereof.
aecsocket
The magnitude to which FeliCa was faster shocked me as well when I found out. But it's not like the latency is insignificant: it's obvious how much faster people can get through a Tokyo metro gate than a London one. So clearly it must have some kind of financial impact as well, if an entire city's public transport system works slower because of it. Even ignoring empathy for a second, isn't this the kind of thing that a Western capital ideology is supposed to improve? Some food for thought.
PaulHoule
It is not just capital but the interpersonal and bureaucratic factors.
Technically the way to think about latency is that a process has N serial steps and you can (a) reduce N, (b) run some of those serial steps in parallel, and (c) speed up the steps.
For one thing, different aspects of the organization own the N steps. You might have one step that is difficult to improve because of organizational issues and then the excuses come in... Step 3 takes 2.0 sec, so why bother reducing Step 5 from 0.5 sec to 0.1 sec? On top of that we valorize "slow food" [1] have sayings like "all good things come to those who wait" and tend to think people are morally superior for waiting as opposed to "get you ass out of the line so we can serve other customers quickly" (e.g. truly empathetic, compassionate, etc.)
Maybe the ultimate expression of the American bad attitude is how you have to wait 20 minutes to board a plane because they have a complicated procedure with 9 priority levels and they have to pay somebody to explain that if you are a veteran you are in zone 3 and if you have this credit card from an another airline that this airline acquired you are in zone 5, etc... meanwhile they are paying the flight crew to wait, paying the ground crew to wait, etc. Southwest Airlines used to have a reasonable and optimized boarding scheme but they gave up on it, I guess the revenue from those credit cards is worth too much.
[1] it's a running gag when I go to a McDonalds in a distant city that it takes forever compared to, I dunno, Sweetgreens, even "fast" food isn't fast anymore. When I worked at a BK circa 1988, we cooked burgers ahead of time and stored them in a steam tray for up to ten minutes and then put condiments on them and put them in a box on a heat chute for up to another ten minutes. Whether you ordered a standard or customized burger you'd usually get it quickly, whereas burger restaurants today all cook the beef to order which just plain takes a while, longer than it takes to assemble a burrito at Chipotle.
SideburnsOfDoom
> American bad attitude is how you have to wait 20 minutes to board a plane because they have a complicated procedure with 9 priority levels
The purpose of the many boarding groups is IMHO, to make those in groups > 1 feel as though they're missing out on some perk that they could get if they paid more. It's an intentional class system where some are encouraged to look down on those who paid less, and vice versa. It's good for revenue, bad for people.
brigandish
> On top of that we valorize "slow food" [1] have sayings like "all good things come to those who wait"
Japan has its own versions of these things so I doubt it's this. The whole culture is, in general, not built for efficiency either.
toxik
The departure times dominate latency and throughput in metros. The gates are not the bottleneck.
chgs
When a full train empties out at a specific station you can get massive delays. Euston platforms 8-11 come to mind. Two arrivals of 600+ people (including standing) trains in a minute or so in say 8 and 11 can cause chaos.
aecsocket
It depends. Usually you'd be right, but for some big events, the stations and platforms can be incredibly packed. In those cases the extra delay from gates could really hurt. One example is Comiket, where you have thousands of attendees all coming to the same few stations around the venue. Both times I was there, there was a massive crowd spanning from the platform to the outside. Having to wait the extra few hundred milliseconds on each card tap would have been painful.
Here's an example video to show the gates in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YffjxN3KsD4
makeitdouble
Another angle: mass transit is seen at best as a cost center in the west, when it's more expected to be a fully profitable business in Japan [0]
Paris adopted an IC system as well and it is pretty usable, but not pushed to the extremes of the JR system because they weren't ready to invest as much, manage the money aspect and really make it a full blown business.
[0] some lines and areas are definitely money pits. That's where some companies bail out of the IC system altogether for instance, or go with a different, incompatible but cheaper implementation.
londons_explore
> throughout matters but latency doesn’t
Governments who think this set speed limits on roads to 45 mph, since that's the speed where most cars pass per second on a busy road.
Those same governments then act all surprised when it turns out their whole population is depressed and overworked when they work a 9 hour workday, commute 1.5 hours each way, and have no free time for life, relationships, hobbies, etc.
coolcase
They are OK. I find Sydney ones more reliably tap, plus you can use just a credit card to tap, as well as use a credit card to buy the Opal card. You can buy the opal card at 100s of places not just train stations. The actual transport itself is better in Tokyo tho.
> [...] conflict avoidance - a reader can detect when it's reading more than 1 FeliCa card at a time, and prevent any reading if so [...]
That must be one of the things that ISO 14443 has improved on then, compared to FeliCa:
At least 14443-A (and I believe also B) allows addressing each card in the field individually by its serial number, and then selectively "halt" or resume it. Practically, this means that the reader can talk to cards one by one until it finds the one it's interested in (if any).
Unfortunately I don't know any practical system making use of that (it could get pretty confusing with payment cards, for example – charging a random card of several possible ones sounds like an anti-feature), but I still find it very neat.