🇯🇵 Japan
Japan eSIM for digital nomads
Staying in Japan for a month or a season changes the maths. You need enough data to work, you may not have a local address to register a SIM against, and you probably do not want a contract tied to a country you will leave in eight weeks.
A pay-as-you-go balance at $2.80 per GB covers the working days and stops costing anything on the days you are on cafe wifi.
Working coverage, not just tourist coverage
Constant transit routing, translation and IC card apps. Two weeks often reaches 8 to 12 GB.
Partner networks are NTT Docomo, SoftBank, so a coworking day in Tokyo and a weekend outside the city both sit on infrastructure built for residents rather than a thin visitor roaming agreement.
No address, no registration, no problem
Buying a local prepaid SIM in Japan means presenting ID and having your details recorded against the number. An eSIM issued outside the country skips that process entirely.
Long-stay visitors get caught by this more than tourists do, because the postpaid plans with sensible pricing usually require residency, a local bank account or a tax number. A prepaid eSIM sidesteps the entire requirement.
What it costs
Month, wifi most days
$28
about 10 GB
Month, mobile as primary connection
$112
about 40 GB
Month with heavy video calls
$196
about 70 GB
Practical tips
- Treat the eSIM as your backup to apartment wifi, which fails more often than the mobile network
- Auto refill at a low threshold avoids being cut off during a client call
- Use a hotspot for the laptop on travel days between Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto
- Keep the recovery token in your password manager, not only on the phone you travel with
Related reading
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