Japan’s rail map can look like a circuit board to a first-time visitor, but one small card still cuts through nearly all of it. Suica, the contactless IC card issued by JR East, lets you tap onto trains, subways, buses and trams across the country without buying a single paper ticket. For three years, though, getting one as a tourist was genuinely harder than it should have been — a global semiconductor shortage forced JR East to halt sales of unregistered physical cards in June 2023, pushing visitors toward app-based workarounds. That crisis is now over. Here’s exactly where things stand heading into 2027, and which option — plastic or phone — actually makes sense for your trip.
