AlwaysAisle

Currently there is a talk going at Japanese parliament about new tax for international departing passengers.

For example, currently international airline tickets departing from NRT include air fare itself plus:
Passenger Facility Charge: 2090 yen (fee collected by NRT airport operator)
Passenger Security Charge: 520 yen (fee collected by NRT airport operator)
Fuel surcharge: (varies by airlines, collected by airlines)

Japanese government is now talking about adding departure tax to international airline ticket departing Japan. There is no specific about how tax will be, is it fixed amount or is it percentage of air fare? Will be like U.K., where different tax for economy and business/first? When will be implemented? Japanese government is saying that if this departure tax get implemented, money will be used on tourism related items.

abmj-jr

I recall that when I first started visiting Japan, shortly after 9/11, KIX had a departure fee that had to be paid separately at the airport, before you could pass through to the security screening point. As I recall, it was paid in cash, which was a problem for some who had already exchanged all their yen. It wasn't long before the fee was rolled into the ticket charge, which eliminated the need for last-minute cash. Hopefully any new departure tax will be collected when ticketing is done and not at the airport.

codex57

I hope it's rolled into the ticket charge because many leisure people book their tickets a year out. If this change happens soon and they start collecting right away, it could mess with a lot of peoples' tickets that have already been paid for.

MSPeconomist

IIRC NRT once had the same system of paying the departure fee (fixed amount) in cash in yen before it started to be included on tickets. This would have been during the 1990s.

Also, during the transition period, I remember being told that if I were to go landside during a connection, I would be required to pay this fee in cash before clearing exit immigration since it hadn't been included in my ticket. I didn't test this, so I don't know whether anyone would have noticed. More recently, I've chosen to transfer landisde rather than airside at NRT when I had a long connection and wanted to check out the landside contract lounges in T2 with no issue or mention of departure/security fees needing to be paid.

AlwaysAisle

Japanese parliament is at the final stage of new departure tax for international departure tax for passengers departing international from Japan.

The parliament has pretty much agreed and decided that the new departure tax will go in effect on January 2019 and tax will be 1000 yen per passenger which will be collected when a ticket is purchased.

During 2016 there were approximately 40,000,000 people departed Japan by air. 1000 yen departure tax per person would have equated to 40 billion yen (€ 300 million or US$ 353 million) of tax revenue for Japan.

rosensfole

My first experience of this was in the late 80s, it was Y2000 for an "airport facilities voucher" at that time and, afaik, that charge has never varied since. I think they stopped using the voucher system around the time of the building rework at NRT.

LapLap

Are children exempt from this tax? And if so, up until what age?

5khours

Actually it started back in '78 when NRT first opened.

5khours

My guess is that Japan will lose about 100,000 in tourism revenues for every 1000 yen collected. Country is run by a bunch of boneheads.

AlwaysAisle

At this moment I have not seen anything to indicate minors will be exempt from this new departure tax. It indicates departure tax will be collected per passenger and does not indicate any age condition.

Once the parliament pass the new departure tax and become official then likely more information will be available.