How to Pay Cash-Only Convenience Store Bills Without Cash in Japan

I could almost be called a cashless fundamentalist — I don’t want to use cash for any payment. Rather than “I think so,” it’s more accurate to say it’s my creed, my unbreakable rule. Maybe an ancestor suffered because of cash and died an unhappy death and is standing on my shoulders.

Lately cashless adoption has been progressing, and for most payments you no longer need cash. Still, there are places like local set-meal restaurants and ramen shops that use ticket machines that only accept cash. I won’t dig into that much here since it’s off-topic, but at the very least I tend to avoid stores that can’t take cashless payments — no matter how good they look, even if the food seems mouthwateringly delicious. If I’m with a generous friend or acquaintance who’s willing to pay in cash, sometimes I’ll have them pay in cash and then reimburse them via PayPay or Kotora remittance.

Reluctant cash finally reaches its limit

Recently I’ve had occasion to pay multiple times at convenience stores for things like a certificate of seal registration and utility bills. Those can only be paid in cash. They only happened very rarely before, and I thought how many times in a lifetime will I need a seal registration or a certificate of residence, so I reluctantly continued to pay in cash.

But since these instances have become more frequent recently, I decided I can’t keep paying in cash here — that would ruin my reputation as a cashless fundamentalist — so I resolved to go cashless.

It took longer to write the article than to register Nanaco

In short, I decided to start using the electronic money Nanaco, which can be used at Seven-Eleven. In the early days of cashless payments I used Edy, and more recently I’ve used Suica for a long time, but precharged electronic money always felt like a hassle to top up.

I had the preconceived notion that Nanaco required getting a Seven & I group card and was a pain, but when I actually tried it was surprisingly simple. In fact, writing this article took longer. In the iPhone Wallet app I chose to create a new card, selected electronic money, and went to Nanaco. I charged it with the Rakuten Card that I had already registered as my main card, and for now I could load 1,000 yen.

I don’t know whether it’s always been this easy or it got better recently, but I regret not doing it sooner. Suica used to require JR terminals or Suica-specific cards to top up, but lately services like Rakuten have opened access, so it may be a similar situation.

So, after a long, exaggerated write-up, the simple point is that I enabled Nanaco. This means that whether it’s a certificate of seal registration or a certificate of residence, I can complete the process with the My Number Card on my iPhone (by the way, I’m also a virtual card fundamentalist) and Nanaco, so I was able to eliminate another bit of unnecessary cash. There are still some things you can’t pay with it, but for my purposes the result is satisfactory.

Seven-Eleven

Payment of various feesThis is a page explaining the bill payment slips and smartphone-based payment collection agency services available at Seven-Eleven.

Filling the remaining gaps is difficult right now

There are still situations in life where you have to use cash.

However, the things I can change through my own actions are getting fewer. Looking back at recent times when I used cash, it’s probably just ticket machines at small eateries and vending machines at event venues.

There’s nothing I can do about those, so I can only wait for time to fix them. The former is also my own choice, so I try not to use them; the latter — fairly recent vending machines — increasingly support cashless payments. Even if they don’t have direct payment functions,Coke ONandJihanpicovered, you can handle most of them.

By the way, in the passage in front of the ticket gates at Shiki Station on the Tobu Tojo Line there are many shops and they all support cashless payments. However, there’s a pop-up shop there that’s cash-only. That makes no sense to me — I assume they’re renting the space from Tobu Railway, so I’d like them to provide terminals or otherwise enable cashless payments. I do a little passive protest: I look at what they’re selling, chat a bit to give the impression I might buy, then midway say, “Oh, you don’t accept cashless payments? That’s a shame,” and walk away. I figure that might give the seller the impression that sales dropped because they don’t accept cashless payments (laughs). Whether it has any effect is unclear, but at least it makes me feel better.

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Also, when I tried to pay several tens of thousands of yen at once, and attempted to charge the needed amount at the Seven-Eleven register, my Rakuten Card was stopped by fraud prevention — I had to re-authenticate via SMS and step out of the line for a bit, which was a little mishap.

I hope the world soon becomes a peaceful place where we can live securely without cash.