Japan to Start Collecting 1,000-Yen Departure Tax

January 2, 2019

Tokyo--Japan will start on Monday collecting a departure tax of 1,000 yen per person leaving the country by aircraft or ship regardless of nationality.

Under the law on the International Tourist Tax, which was enacted in April 2018, the levy will be collected each time an individual leaves the country on top of airfares, ship fares or travel fees.

The Japanese government plans to utilize the revenue from the tax for measures to accommodate more foreign visitors to the country, develop tourism bases and improve immigration procedures, officials said.

People leaving Japan within 24 hours after their transit entry and children under two years old will be exempted from the departure tax.

Those with tickets purchased and issued before Monday will be basically exempted from the tax.

The revenue from the tax is estimated at 6 billion yen in fiscal 2018 through March 2019 and 50 billion yen in fiscal 2019.

Specifically, the revenue will be used to set up facial recognition gates at airports for speedier immigration procedures, promote the use of multilingual information boards and introduce more cashless payment terminals for public transportation.

The number of visitors to Japan has been surging recently, topping 30 million for the first time ever in 2018.

The government has set a goal of increasing the annual number of foreign visitors to 40 million by 2020, when the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will take place. It, therefore, needs to accelerate efforts to accept more visitors in a bid to achieve the target.

With the departure tax, the government expects to secure stable financial resources for measures to promote tourism, the officials said. Jiji Press