Get ICOCA Card—Convenient Prepaid E-Money Card for Kansai Region

Overview

Use handy ICOCA prepaid e-money card to pay for transportation or shopping. Board buses without coins, enter stations without tickets; use ICOCA to pay for goods at stores, kiosks, or vending machines, or for services like lockers, parking, or taxis.

Highlights

Key Information

Description

Reserve an ICOCA Card—Japan's convenient prepaid e-money card—before you travel. The rechargeable IC card ICOCA is a widely used prepaid e-money card in the Kansai region. But it's also usable in Tokyo, and most major cities in Japan! Use ICOCA to pay for train or bus transportation, purchase goods at convenience stores, kiosks, or vending machines, or to pay for lockers or taxi cabs. In Japan, there are several types of e-money cards in use, depending on the city. However, most of these systems accept IC cards including ICOCA as well. Using ICOCA to pay for public transportation is slightly cheaper than using cash to purchase tickets. So in addition to saving you time and effort, using ICOCA also saves you money as well. ICOCA and PiTaPa distributed by Surutto Kansai can be mutually used in Kansai. Beyond Kansai, use ICOCA on the following IC systems across Japan: Kitaca (JR Hokkaido) Suica (JR East, Sendai area) Suica (JR East, Niigata area) Suica (JR East, Tokyo area) PASMO (Tokyo area) manaca (Nagoya Railways) Toica (JR Toukai) SUGOCA (JR Kyushu) Nimoca (Western Japan Railways) HAYAKAKEN (Fukuoka Subway) Your ICOCA card comes preloaded with 1,500 JPY, in addition to the 500 JPY card deposit JR West Japan charges to issue each ICOCA card.* With so many ways to use cash stored on ICOCA, including shopping and services, you need not worry about adding too much cash to ICOCA. You can also get your balance back before you leave Japan (see Important Information for details). * To get your 500 JPY deposit back, return your ICOCA card at any JR Ticket Office (Midori-no-Madoguchi) at a JR West station before leaving Japan.