Only the carriers that say yes on their own site are ranked.

Among the 22 carriers in the table below, which all state that they accept residents, 8 confirm a non-credit-card payment method (bank transfer, debit, or convenience-store payment) at sign-up on their official site, some explicitly require a credit card, and for others the provider simply doesn't state it. The "Payment without a Japanese credit card" column shows which is which per carrier — check it before assuming either way. "Yes, with conditions" is not a plain yes at sign-up. TONE Mobile needs a credit card in your name when you sign up, and lets you switch to bank transfer only after the contract has started. For BIGLOBE Mobile, LinksMate, DTI SIM and povo2.0, open the carrier's page to see what applies.

Most carriers we checked don't publish a specific minimum remaining validity for a residence card. The exceptions we found: TONE Mobile (its official FAQ says an application with less than 24 months remaining may be declined; conditions apply, see its page), povo2.0 (at least 90 days), Y!mobile (at least 90 days; conditions apply, see its page), ahamo (it depends on how you pay), UQ mobile (it depends on how you pay). ahamo: If you are a foreign national and your My Number card has less than 3 months of validity left, you must pay by a credit card in your own name (the official page states the condition for the My Number card). UQ mobile: If you buy the SIM or phone outright and pay monthly by bank transfer, at least 90 days must remain on your period of stay. If you buy outright and pay by credit card, the remaining stay is not checked. Instalment purchases can be declined when the remaining stay is below UQ's standard, whichever way you pay, and foreign residents cannot apply for the 60- or 72-payment plans. For every other carrier, we could not find an official minimum stated either way — bring a card with as much validity remaining as you reasonably can, and confirm with the carrier if you're close to expiry.

A few carriers (Daredemo Mobile, Daredemo Sumaho, Sunsyscon) explicitly advertise that they don't run the shared industry credit-history check that most Japanese carriers use, and that a past unpaid phone bill elsewhere won't block you. That said, several of them still reserve the right to decline an application case-by-case (for suspected resale, fraud, or organized-crime ties) — "no credit check" isn't the same as "no screening at all." We quote each carrier's own wording on its page rather than summarizing it away.

At our standard comparison usage (3GB/month, 20 minutes of calls a month averaging 3 minutes/call, 12-month cost horizon including setup fees), the cheapest plan among carriers that confirm they accept foreign residents is Rakuten Mobile's 3GB–Unlimited plan at ¥1,078/month (as of November 5, 2026).

5 carriers we checked don't state clearly, on their own official site, whether they accept foreign residents. 3 of them (Nihon Tsushin SIM, BB.excite Mobile, Rocket Mobile) accept only a My Number card as ID, so a residence card alone does not get you a contract there; for the rest, the official pages simply don't address it. We list them separately below rather than guessing them into (or out of) the ranking.