Forecasting that Japanese yen is going to be stronger through 2026, Nomura Securities analyzed, “Strong yen will become a negative factor to reduce international visitors to Japan, but the rise in income levels of travelers due to the increase in overseas GDP and the fall in crude oil prices will be tailwinds. Therefore, the number of international visitors to Japan is expected to increase slowly through 2026.”

On the other hand, Nomura has forecasted that travel spending per traveler will be down because the strong yen is likely to have a downward effect.

The Japanese government plans to revise entry-visa fee for travelers from the mandated countries or regions, such as China or Philippines, raising ‘single-entry visa’ fee from about 3,000 yen and ‘multiple-entry visa’ fee from about 6,000 yen to the level of U.S. or European countries.

Supposing the fee will be around 23,000 yen based on the average of the visa fee of six G7 counties, Nomura has estimated that the annual number of international visitors to Japan may reduce by 1.7%, and spending per traveler by 2.0%.

Based on the estimated reductions, Japan may lose 284 billion yen in the total spending by international visitors. Nomura, however, analyzed that the negative impact on annual GDP may be about 0.05%, which are very small compared to the Japan’s potential growth rate of 0.5% to 0.6%. 

The Japanese government is considering introduction of Japan’s ESTA for all international visitors in 2028, including those who exempt from entry-visa. Nomura said that it will possibly be a negative factor to reduce international visitors.