Steve M

It's not an either/or. You can go through the regular Immigration lines upon landing, and then go to the landside registration office. That is, there are three places you can register: landing examination area (when arriving in Japan), departure examination area (when departing Japan), and a landside office that you can get to without needing a flight.

The way I read the information on the MOJ website, you do not need to have used the TTP card for entry in order to carry it while in Japan in lieu of your passport. Here is the relevant text:

The plain reading of the above seems to say that once you're issued a TTP card, you must carry it on your person whether or not you used it to enter Japan, and that as long as you do so, it waives the requirement to carry your passport. I see no reason this wouldn't apply to someone that used their passport to enter (whether through the APEC lane or otherwise).

Now, since if you use your passport to enter, your landing permission will be on a sticker in your passport and not endorsed on the back of the TTP card, you're still going to need your passport for certain purposes, such as making duty-free purchases or getting a visitors-only train pass. Plus, you'd probably still need it to check into a hotel (if you're just visiting, it's highly likely that you'll have all of your "stuff" including your passport when you check into a hotel anyway). But as far as the general requirement to carry your passport on your person, the TTP card replaces that, just as an Alien Registration Card does for someone with residency. Presumably, a police officer can easily determine your landing status by "calling it in," which they'd presumably do anyway if the situation came up, in order to see if your status had been revoked or if you were wanted.

To me, that's a big benefit of the card, on par with the automated gates (especially for those that don't have APEC).

I just did it at the HND departures lobby office (not departure inspection). They asked me for the copies of my passport, which I did not bring. The email said to bring "the original copies of your application documents." I took that to mean the forms I had filled out, which was limited to the form that certified my PASS ID (I used Global Entry to qualify). My belief was that that wording primarily referred to people that didn't qualify via Global Entry, but rather had an invitation from a (Japanese) company, and all of the paperwork required to go that route. The man just said "okay" when I said I didn't have the passport page. I could have gone somewhere and printed it out had I needed to.

There was another interesting thing I wanted to share: as has been mentioned before, the instructions on the website to apply are far from ideal. Had I not waited until now and read what others have posted here and elsewhere, there's no way I would have been able to complete the application - there are just too many details that are not clear.

One aspect of this is the photo. The upload website says that it has to be a jpeg within certain file size requirements. The picture I uploaded met those requirements. A few days after submitting my application, I read several pages down in the FAQ that there are more specific requirements, as to the size and position of the head, and that the picture must be exactly 640x480 pixels. I wasn't sure what to do. There wasn't an option online to amend an application - the only option was to cancel and then re-apply, but I had a trip coming up and risked not being approved in time if I went that route. It was beyond frustrating to find these requirements later buried in the FAQ and not mentioned anywhere else. Since nobody else had mentioned any grief about the picture, I just let it be.

I got the "primary inspection complete" email, and it said in part:

I thought this might apply to me, and wondered how this might be accomplished. There didn't appear to be any way to submit supplementary information on the website outside of a completely new application, and they didn't provide any guidance other than the above. I did come prepared with a properly-formatted photo, on USB stick and CD-ROM. Plus, I could have emailed or uploaded it if they provided information. I assumed that I'd figure it out when I got there.

Anyway, they didn't say anything about the photo. They do take another photo and index fingerprints at time of registration. However, I noticed that the photo on my TTP card is not the one they took at time of TTP issuance, nor is it the one that I uploaded with the application. Rather, it's the photo from my passport! And, it wasn't just scanned from the data page, as it does not have the overlayed security features. The only place this could have come from is that they read it from the RFID chip in the passport, and imported that photo for the TTP card, rather than using the one they require you to upload with the application or any of the other photos they have of you.

I asked about that, and the answer I got was that the QR code was for resident foreigners that apply for automated gate access via the method available to them, and not TTP cardholders.