Identification required at hotel check in?
 

I've noticed when checking into properties in Tokyo (ex: Hyatt, Hilton, etc), they generally want a copy of your passport. This seems pretty standard practice in many other countries as well, although I am still not quite sure exactly why. Showing a drivers license or passport doesn't generally seem to be a requirement at hotels domestically in the US, where a credit card seems to do the trick.

Anyhow, I plan to venture to Hakone soon and will be staying at what I can only describe as a "traditional Japanese hotel" booked by a friend. I have little more than that to go on. I was planning on paying in cash and not planning to bring my passport. Do you feel that may be a problem? Will some form of ID be required? If my friend has their ID (Japanese citizen), will that be sufficient?

I realize it's likely difficult to answer specifically for this property, but generally speaking, what are your experiences and thoughts?

Unless you're resident in Japan, the hotel is legally required to take a copy of your passport.
If you have a Japanese home address, they shouldn't ask for it, but some do.

Damn, this is good to know. I wonder what would happen if I didn't bring it...

If you don't want to show ID at the hotel, it's probably best to remember a Japanese address and claim to be living in Japan.

I wouldn't recommend actually going there without ID. There's a small chance you'd be stopped by cops at a railway station or something and asked for ID - which means alien registration card if you're resident in Japan and passport if you're not. Failure to have ID with you could result in some wasted time at a police station.

I'm not saying that I think it's appropriate that you should be asked for ID by the police, just saying that's something that does occasionally happen. If a hotel demands ID and you refuse on the grounds that you live in Japan, you can just walk away without consequences. Not so with the police.

Yes, I do not step outside the door in Japan without my passport when I'm visiting. Even long-term expats will not leave the house without their alien registration.

I know people who have gone out without their passport or alien registration (as in "Why should I have to take my alien registration along on my morning run?") and encountered a cop who is either bored or in a bad mood and asks for their ID. From what I recall of their accounts, the cop has the right to haul you in, make you pay a fine, and, in a typically Japanese touch, write a letter of apology.

Your passport is unlikely to get stolen in Japan, and it's no trouble to stick it into a pocket or neck pouch or money belt or handbag and keep it with you at all times.

Not so long ago that most countries required you to leave your passport with the FD at check-in so that the police could review it.

1) At the hotel, just give them a Japan address.

2) If you are far from your hotel/accomodation, take your passport.

3) If you're on a morning run, the odds of getting hassled are really low so I wouldn't worry about the passport. Worst case, you waste an hour or two talking to the cops, writing an apology letter, and then going back to your to hotel to show them your passport.

Thanks, folks. I'll bring it with me.

Just thinking out loud.

What about love hotels? I don't think they ask for any ID. In fact, don't think you even get to see the clerk when money / keys exchange.

I am assuming that OP doesn't want a paper trail at said hotel.

Disclaimer: Not from personal experience.

Whatever the reason, I think the friend could check in without you and you would avoid the problem although some hotel rates are per person rates. The easiest thing is to just give a Japanese address. This is not something they are very strict about. IIRC, you may just be able to give a foreign address also and claim you don't have your passport.

Is it really worth the risk, however small, of getting into really big trouble by trying to hide from the letter of the law? I'd advise to just take the passport wherever you go in a foreign country.

I suppose by that logic you would need always to carry an asteroid shield. Not having your gaijin card or passport won't get you into big trouble, and the risk is miniscule unless like Hailstorm your spend your evenings in Roppongi touting passerbys.:D

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...ama/?mobile=nc

Why would you risk this over just carrying the damned passport with you wherever you go?

At first I thought the article was a parody: "arrested for being in violation of a section of the draconian law that requires everyone to have a valid license while driving". How is that draconian?

It sounds like he had an International Driver's Permit, which clearly states that it is only valid with an actual license (it's just a translation of the content of said license). So he was driving without a valid license.

Certainly requiring that the operator of a multi-ton vehicle carry a valid license to so is less draconian than requiring pedestrians to have ID, as Yada's own country requires?

Hailstorm,

1) That's the U.S. not Japan.
2) That's a driver's license not a passport, AND
3) If it was Japan and we were talking about drivers licenses, the penalty for driving without having your license with you is only $30 and no points.

and 4) The Japanese police are racist in their enforcement of the law and it would be worth getting stopped to just hassle them about it. If it was me and I got stopped, I would insist on a apology letter from the police. The last time I saw this happen was when a police officer was asking for a passport from an elderly Filipino woman in a quiet residential neighborhood. I forced him to verbally apologize to the woman. You can't let these fascists get away with this s**t.