PayperWIZ

Best credit cards in Japan, by what they actually pay

Every card in the Japan catalogue, ranked by what it genuinely returns on each kind of spending — after the monthly cap, and after the minimum spend some cards require before any bonus rate applies.

17 cards · catalogue v101 · 4 of 17 read from the issuer's own terms

The best rate here with nothing attached to it

リクルートカード (Recruit Card) pays 1.20% on everything else with no monthly cap and no minimum spend to unlock it — which is rarer, and worth more over a year, than most of the larger numbers in the table below.

The 4 Japan cards read off the issuer

Every rate on this page came from somewhere. These ones came from the bank's own published terms, read by a person on the date shown, with the cap and the minimum spend that the comparison tables leave out. Each has its own page.

Every category in Japan

In the order people spend, not biggest number first. The highest rate on a card is routinely the one that means least, so what limits it is shown beside it.

Best published return per category in Japan, from 17 cards. The headline rate is one that covers the whole category; where a bigger rate covers only part of it, that is shown underneath with what it covers.
Spending onBest returnCard
groceries20.00%on 対象店舗（最大20%還元）三菱UFJカード ゴールドMUFG · JPY 11,000 a yearat most JPY 50,000 back a month
dining20.00%on Pocket Concierge bookingsアメリカン・エキスプレス・ゴールドAmerican Express · JPY 39,600 a yearat most JPY 10,000 back a month
online and delivery1.00%or 7.00% (公式サイト/アプリ（7%還元）), with 三菱UFJカード ゴールドアメリカン・エキスプレス・プラチナAmerican Express
travel3.00%on foreign currency spendアメリカン・エキスプレス・プラチナAmerican Express
phone and internet0.50%or 5.00% (携帯電話料金), with 三菱UFJカード ゴールド楽天カード (Rakuten Card)checkedRakuten · JPY 0 a year
entertainment5.00%on 指定サブスクリプション三菱UFJカード ゴールドMUFG · JPY 11,000 a year
pharmacy7.00%on アカチャンホンポ等（7%還元）三菱UFJカード ゴールドMUFG · JPY 11,000 a yearat most JPY 50,000 back a month
government0.50%or 1.00% (public utilities and taxes), with LINEクレカPayPayカード (PayPay Card)checkedPayPay Card · JPY 0 a year
everything else1.20%or 5.00% (電気料金), with 三菱UFJカード ゴールドリクルートカード (Recruit Card)Recruit · JPY 0 a year
How these were worked out. 4 of the 17 cards here have been read against the issuer's own terms line by line and are marked checked in the tables below. The rest come from each issuer's published material and have not been checked that way. Every rate is converted to what the card actually returns — points and miles are valued at the redemption rate the programme publishes, using the rate anyone can take rather than the best one available after a transfer. Where a card's programme publishes no redemption value, the card is left off this page rather than listed at a number that would be a guess. Caps and minimum monthly spends are shown because they are usually what decides whether a headline rate is real.

This is a table. Your wallet is a decision.

PayperWIZ holds the cards you actually own and names the right one at the till — after the cap you have already used this month, and after the foreign-currency fee. It works offline and needs no bank connection.

Download on the App Store See how it works

Other markets

The same working, for the other countries in the catalogue.