Author: Paul Granberg, Issue: December 2004, Topic: Immigration

It's coming up to the season where everyone flies off to exotic locations/home, so you all need to be aware of this to avoid being stung (like I have been in the past).

As residents of Japan, we are subject to DIFFERENT Customs Allowances than to people just visiting Japan. The odds are, if you ask an assistant in a duty free shop what the maximum duty free customs allowance is for Japan, they will invariably tell you the rate for Visitors, not Residents. Also, in a spectacular blunder by the Japanese Customs Department, none of this is stated on the English version of the Japanese Customs website (your tax yen at work).

Visitors to Japan are allowed...

3 x 750cc bottles of booze (regardless of alcohol content, not exceeding 2.5L) 100 Cigars OR 400 Cigarettes, OR not more than 500 grams of a mixture of tobacco products. 2 Ounces of perfume 200,000 yen, market value, of other items

http://www.customs.go.jp/asem/partners_db/db_jp_passenger.htm

Residents of Japan (JETs, partners and longtimers)

3 x 750cc bottles of booze (regardless of alcohol content, not exceeding 2.5L) 50 Cigars OR 200 Cigarettes, OR not more than 250 grams of a mixture of tobacco products (this is HALF the allowance of visitors). 2 Ounces of perfume 200,000 yen market value of other items

They were also differentiating between Japanese domestic brands and international brands of cigarettes as well, once apon a time. There may also be other quirks with the system that I don't know of, so please bare this in mind when passing through the system.

You can also bring in up to 100kg of rice tax free per anum if you wish.

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