This is an update to a previous post about using credit cards and atm cards in Japan.
I have recently gone around Japan with some friends, and although most places I go take credit cards (Visa and Mastercard are the most widely accepted), I have recently been to a few family restaurant chains, and less expensive kaiten (revolving) sushi places that only accepted cash.
Please ask or call a shop beforehand to be sure, but I want to advise you to have at least some cash with you when you go out because there still are a lot of places that are not accepting credit cards. I also believe many shops that previously accepted credit cards are beginning to go cash-only to cut costs.
The extent to which cash is king in Japan can be seen through the travel agencies. I mentioned the travel agency HIS in a previous post, but failed to mention that while this is the national chain I prefer, and has more often than not given me the best prices, the HIS travel agency in Japan is a cash only business.
To put that in perspective, once I had to pay for tickets to Hawaii for a trip with my family and my extended family for a total of 8 people… the day I went to pick up the tickets, I was carrying more than a million yen with me, or more than ten thousand dollars in my wallet.
Although I want everyone to be able to have an inexpensive travel Japan experience, I also don’t want people to have to keep adjusting plans or making it hard for people by trying to pay for everything with credit cards. At the end of the day, the price is the price, and in the case of Japan, it might be a good idea just to go cash and avoid some of the international usage fees and other incidental trouble (like having to find a restaurant that takes your plastic).
At the end of the day, it might be best and cheapest just to go cash in Japan as much as possible. (As I mentioned in the post linked to above, you can access US bank accounts through ATMs at 7-11 convenience stores, and Japanese post offices as well, neither of which should be very hard to find.)