A Japanese visa costs 15.000¥ since 1 July 2026
Visastarting July 1, 2026
Reviewed on 2026-10-12. This information expires: confirm it close to your travel dates.
This only touches you if your passport needs a visa to enter Japan. The single-entry visa went from about 3.000¥ to about 15.000¥ and the multiple-entry visa from about 6.000¥ to about 30.000¥, on 1 July 2026, at every mission on the same day. What counts is the day the mission accepts your application, not the day you fly. It was the first revision since 1978: forty-eight years on the same tariff. The ministry itself warns that depending on nationality and purpose of travel the fee may be waived or different.
Japan keeps short-stay visa exemption arrangements with 74 countries and regions. Among Spanish-speaking ones that covers Spain, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, plus Panama, Paraguay and Peru if the passport is an ICAO ePassport. Outside it sit Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea. Colombia is the odd one out: it is not on the exemption list and the Japanese ministry has advised Colombians since 2004 to get a visa before travelling, yet they are exempt from the fee, so the paperwork is compulsory and free. The list moves (Panama joined in 2024, Paraguay and Peru in 2025), so confirm it with your Japanese consulate.
The change almost nobody reports: the transit visa is gone. It cost around 700¥ and was the cheap route for anyone who had to clear immigration during a layover; since 1 July 2026 Japanese consulates no longer issue it and point applicants to the short-stay visa: around 700¥ becomes around 15.000¥. It is paid in local currency, 101 dollars for single entry in the United States and 576 reais in Brazil, which is why the yen figures are given as approximate. If the visa is refused, you are charged nothing.
What it means for your trip
If you need a visa, budget roughly 12.000¥ more per person than in June, at whatever the rate is that day. A family of four on Bolivian passports goes from around 12.000¥ to around 60.000¥ in consular fees alone, before any agency charge or trips to the consulate. And one warning that is in no guidebook: Uruguayan passports issued from 16 April 2025 without a place of birth are not recognised by Japan, so the exemption holds only with the older model.
For anyone exempt, nothing changes today, and that is worth saying plainly: you arrive on your passport, you are stamped in for 90 days as a temporary visitor, and you pay nothing. Those 90 days do not get extended for tourism, and what they cover is sightseeing, visiting relatives, courses, meetings and unpaid company business, never paid work. Japan sets no minimum passport validity, only that it cover your whole stay, and an onward ticket is not a written requirement though border officers may ask.
Questions
Do I need a visa for Japan on a Spanish passport?
No, not for tourism or unpaid business travel of up to 90 days. You arrive on your passport, with no paperwork and no fee, and the increase does not reach you. Same for most of Latin America: the ones that do need a visa are Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
How much is the visa if my country does need one?
About 15.000¥ for single entry and about 30.000¥ for multiple entry, in the currency of the country where you apply. Bilateral agreements carve out exceptions: Colombian nationals pay nothing, and Indian passport holders still pay the equivalent of around 500 rupees. If the visa is refused, there is no fee.
I have a layover in Tokyo, do I need a transit visa?
That visa no longer exists, consulates stopped issuing it on 1 July 2026. If you transfer airside on a single ticket and never clear immigration, you need nothing. If you do have to enter, because you change airports or stay overnight, the route now is the short-stay visa at 15.000¥.
Can I extend the 90 days if I want to stay longer?
Not as a tourist. Immigration renews temporary visitor status only for a genuinely unavoidable humanitarian reason or an equivalent special circumstance, naming medical treatment as the example. The exception is the six-month group, Mexico among them, who do apply for an extension at an immigration office before the 90 days expire.
What is JESTA and when does it start?
It is the electronic travel authorisation Japan will require from visitors arriving visa-free, in the mould of ESTA or ETIAS. The law creating it passed on 29 May 2026 and the target is fiscal year 2028. It will also reach some transit and cruise passengers, and without it the airline will not let you board. A fee is provided for, with no amount set.
What is still unclear
Little about JESTA is firm beyond the law and the target year: no exact date, no price, no validity period, no closed list of transit passengers. Japanese press reports have floated 2.000¥ or 3.000¥, with no official confirmation. And the yen amounts are approximate by design, since each mission sets its own local-currency figure: what the Japanese embassy for your country says beats any web page, this one included.
Build your route with this already factored in
The planner accounts for these changes where they matter: the JR Pass comparison uses current prices, and the cost summary includes the taxes you will actually run into.
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