Visa Launches Apple Pay Support in Japan

Visa has announced that starting today, customers in Japan will be able to use their Visa debit or credit card with Apple Pay.

visa apple pay japan
Customers with Visa cards issued by Aplus, SMBC Finance Service, NTT DoCoMo, Credit Saison, JACCS, Mitsui Sumitomo Bank Card, and Rakuten cards will be able to add their card to their Wallet on iPhone and Apple Watch.

Japan has set an ambitious goal of achieving 40% of all daily transactions via digital, cashless methods by 2025. With expanded support for Visa cards, more customers will have access to the ease and convenience of ‌Apple Pay‌, which should help the country move towards its goal within the next four years.

‌Apple Pay‌ earlier last week launched in Israel, and in Feburary made its long-awaited debut in Mexico.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Japan

Popular Stories

Apple Wallet ID Illinois

Apple Plans to Expand iPhone Driver's Licenses to These 7 U.S. States

Wednesday December 24, 2025 8:40 am PST by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, and then use it to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. The feature is currently available in 13 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, and it is expected to launch in at least seven more in the future. To set up the...
maxresdefault

Where's the New Apple TV?

Monday December 22, 2025 11:30 am PST by
Apple hasn't updated the Apple TV 4K since 2022, and 2025 was supposed to be the year that we got a refresh. There were rumors suggesting Apple would release the new Apple TV before the end of 2025, but it looks like that's not going to happen now. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said several times across 2024 and 2025 that Apple would...
iPhone Top Left Hole Punch Face ID Feature Purple

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Next Year With These 12 New Features

Tuesday December 23, 2025 8:36 am PST by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another nine months, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we have recapped 12 features rumored for the iPhone 18 Pro models. The same overall design is expected, with 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch display sizes, and a "plateau" housing three rear cameras Under-screen Face ID Front camera in...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Adds These 8 New Features to Your iPhone

Monday December 22, 2025 8:47 am PST by
Earlier this month, Apple released iOS 26.2, following more than a month of beta testing. It is a big update, with many new features and changes for iPhones. iOS 26.2 adds a Liquid Glass slider for the Lock Screen's clock, offline lyrics in Apple Music, and more. Below, we have highlighted a total of eight new features. Liquid Glass Slider on Lock Screen A new slider in the Lock...
iOS 26

iOS 26.3 Brings AirPods-Like Pairing to Third-Party Devices in EU Under DMA

Monday December 22, 2025 3:20 pm PST by
The European Commission today praised the interoperability changes that Apple is introducing in iOS 26.3, once again crediting the Digital Markets Act (DMA) with bringing "new opportunities" to European users and developers. The Digital Markets Act requires Apple to provide third-party accessories with the same capabilities and access to device features that Apple's own products get. In iOS...
iPhone Fold Vertical Feature

Why Apple's Foldable iPhone May Be Smaller Than Expected

Tuesday December 23, 2025 5:21 am PST by
Apple's first foldable iPhone, rumored for release next year, may turn out to be smaller than most people imagine, if a recent report is anything to go by. According to The Information, the outer display on the book-style device will measure just 5.3 inches – that's smaller than the 5.4-inch screen on the ‌iPhone‌ mini, a line Apple discontinued in 2022 due to poor sales. The report has led ...
iPhone Chips

Apple Clings to Samsung as RAM Prices Soar

Monday December 22, 2025 6:17 am PST by
Apple is significantly increasing its reliance on Samsung for iPhone memory as component prices surge, according to The Korea Economic Daily. Apple is said to be expanding the share of iPhone memory it sources from Samsung due to rapidly rising memory prices. The shift is expected to result in Samsung supplying roughly 60% to 70% of the low-power DRAM used in the iPhone 17, compared with a...
iPhone Top Left Hole Punch Face ID Feature Purple

iPhone 18 Pro Features Leaked in New Report, Including Under-Screen Face ID

Tuesday December 16, 2025 8:44 am PST by
Next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, according to a new report from The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu. As a result of these changes, the report said the iPhone 18 Pro models will not have a pill-shaped Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen....
chatgpt year end

ChatGPT Now Has a 2025 Year-End Summary Feature Like Spotify Wrapped

Monday December 22, 2025 4:12 pm PST by
OpenAI added a year-end summary feature to ChatGPT, allowing users to get a personalized overview of their 2025 ChatGPT usage. The summary is similar to year-end wrap-ups from companies like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and other services. ChatGPT offers up an overview of themes discussed and chat stats, such as busiest chatting day, number of overall chats, messages sent, and more....

Top Rated Comments

Jtamale Avatar
60 months ago

40%? I’m surprised they aren’t already at 40%.
Japan is a predominantly cash society
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kentacho Avatar
60 months ago

40%? I’m surprised they aren’t already at 40%.
Most Japanese customers still prefer cash over over types of payment
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TakeshimaIslands Avatar
60 months ago

Most Japanese customers still prefer cash over over types of payment
Which is even more bizarre because Japan was the pioneer in 'cashless' payments.
Sony developed 'FeliCa ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa')' the first RFID cashless payment card system in the early 90s.
Japanese cellphones also had contactless payment abilities in the early 00's over a decade before Apple pay.

This is where the US inc /Apple always have the upper hand compered to Japan inc, Japanese companies might be the first to innovate and market amazing new IP's but the west always has huge success in making huge profits in mass marketing, gaining astroturfed mind share and saturation point adaptation of new innovations...
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bosatsu Avatar
60 months ago
I have a Visa credit card installed in the Wallet app, I use it both on my iPhone 12 and my Apple Watch 4 at any store with the “iD” logo.
so far it wasn’t compatible with Apple Pay.

What would be the differences if you use Apple Pay? I don’t quite understand it.
Thank you!
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bwayne Avatar
60 months ago

I have a Visa credit card installed in the Wallet app, I use it both on my iPhone 12 and my Apple Watch 4 at any store with the “iD” logo.
so far it wasn’t compatible with Apple Pay.

What would be the differences if you use Apple Pay? I don’t quite understand it.
Thank you!
I have American Express, Visa, and Suica in the wallet too. Works fantastic. iD is a multi card aggregator so it accepts a number of cards. I think the big upside with Apple Pay will be online shopping and sending money to other people via iMessage I hope…
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tsubame Avatar
60 months ago

For such a modern society it certainly seems out of place.
We are a weird dichotomy about that. In certain areas we lead the field, and in other areas we could not be more behind. Fax machines are still prevalent, I still know of offices that place delivery lunch orders via fax every day. A noodle soup tried to modernize and phase out faxes once and they lost so many orders they had to immediately go back.

Even with streaming services like Netflix gaining traction, our equivalent of Blockbuster is still thriving with video and music CD (yes, music CD) rentals.

Banking is one of the areas where we are really behind. I have given up on the rudimentary internet banking we have and accepted using my bank book/cash for lots of things. Getting a credit card as a foreigner here took me years (protip: Amazon's mastercard is a lot easier for foreigners than anything else I tried), I remember paying my tuition in grad school in cash.

Thankfully it is generally safe enough that carrying thousands of dollars in cash around isn't the end of the world, but it still feels really strange. It is a LOT easier these days than say...ten years ago. Taxis all take CC now and at the very least convenience stores all accept cashless payments. Paypay in particular has seemed to make significant inroads to widespread acceptance.

Your local hole-in-the-wall izakaya probably still only takes cash though.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)