The tax-free rules change on 1 November. None of the shops have updated their pages

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Seven retailers, zero mentions

Japan's tax-free system changes on 1 November 2026. The discount stops happening at the till; you pay the full price and the tax comes back to you afterwards. Two of the rules that shape how people shop — the split between "general items" and "consumables", and the ¥500,000 ceiling on consumables — go away entirely, along with the sealed bag.

I wrote about the change itself in a separate article. This one is about something else.

That is not a scandal. On the date of that check the new rules had not yet taken effect, and nobody is obliged to publish early. But it does mean something practical for you: the shop's own page is not a reliable guide to the rules you will be shopping under.

What I found

Seven retailers. Zero mentions.

But "not updated" covers three quite different situations, and only one of them can actually mislead you.

The two that will tell you the old rules

Don Quijote and Isetan Mitsukoshi both set out the earlier system in full — the two categories, the ¥500,000 cap, the sealed bag you must not open.

Isetan Mitsukoshi's English guide says:

And on the bag:

All of that holds for purchases made up to 31 October 2026. For purchases made on or after 1 November 2026, none of it does. There are no separate categories to calculate, no ceiling to stay under, and no sealed bag to ask for.

One quirk worth knowing about the Isetan Mitsukoshi page: the guide is not text. It is two images. Your browser cannot translate it, and there is no Japanese version of the page — the English one is the only one. Why it is built that way, I don't know and won't guess.

The two that say nothing at all

Yodobashi Camera and Laox. I could not find a tax-free guide on either site.

Laox's Akihabara flagship page lists the payment methods a visiting shopper would care about — UnionPay, Alipay, WeChat Pay — and never uses the word "tax-free" at all.

This is a different problem from the one above, and a smaller one. A page that says nothing cannot tell you something wrong. You will arrive without information, which is annoying, rather than with the wrong information, which is expensive.

The two that only explain the paperwork

Matsumoto Kiyoshi and Takashimaya skip the rules and describe the process. Matsumoto Kiyoshi's only tax-free FAQ entry explains how to filter its store map for tax-free branches. Takashimaya's counter listing tells you what to bring:

It also mentions a 1.55% handling fee on tax-free purchases, and that a card must be in the same name as the passport.

Here is the useful accident: by describing what happens at the counter rather than what the law says, these pages have mostly avoided going stale. Bring your passport, bring your receipt, expect a fee — all of that will still be true in November.

What to do with this

Do not use a shop's page as your source for the rules. Use it for what it is good at: where the counter is, what time it closes, what you need to bring, whether that branch does tax-free at all.

For the rules themselves, go to the National Tax Agency. They are the ones changing them. That is what the companion article is built on.

One government page is worth knowing about for the same reason. The Japan Tourism Agency's explainer on what a tax-free shop is (免税店とは) sets out the conditions that apply to purchases up to 31 October 2026 — the general-items and consumables split, the ¥500,000 ceiling on consumables, and the packaging requirement — and does not mention the November change. The agency covers the new rules on a separate page, which is listed in the sources of the companion article. Checked 8 September 2026.

And if you are shopping on or after 1 November, treat any shop page that talks about "general items and consumable items" as out of date, however official it looks.

One thing that is not the tax-free system. Klook lists a coupon for Don Quijote, one of the two retailers above. It is worth being exact about what it is: the listing describes it as a 5% or 7% discount on top of tax-free, not a part of it. It does not change any rule described in this article, it is not the tax-free procedure, and it will not help you with the paperwork — you show a barcode at the till. The coupon itself costs nothing. I have not checked whether its terms change on 1 November 2026. Checked 8 September 2026. Don Quijote coupon on Klook (affiliate link).

A caution about this article

Seven retailers is not the whole industry. I checked the ones a visitor is most likely to walk into. There will be shops that have updated, and I have not found them.

And none of this is a criticism of the retailers. On 27 August 2026 the change was still ahead of them. Some may update on the day, some may have internal briefings that never reach the website. What I can tell you is only what was published on 27 August 2026.

This article has a shelf life. From 1 November 2026 it either becomes obsolete — because everyone updated — or it becomes considerably more urgent. I will check again.

Facts, dates and sources