JapanBenri

About JapanBenri

JapanBenri is a small collection of free web tools for people learning Japanese or travelling in Japan. It is run by the JapanBenri team, based in Tokyo, Japan. Each tool does one job, works on a phone, needs no account, and shows its sources.

Our tools

  • Japan Trip Planner & Ticket Release Calendar: Enter your dates and must-dos. Get Ghibli, Disney, Shibuya Sky and Shinkansen release times in your own time zone, plus eSIM, Suica, Visit Japan Web and tax-free reminders as a calendar file.
  • Show-to-Staff Cards: Japanese allergy, diet, taxi, hotel, pharmacy and tax-free cards with furigana. Build your deck, show it full screen, print wallet cards. Works offline.
  • Furigana & Romaji Converter: Paste Japanese and get furigana over the kanji, plus hiragana, katakana and Hepburn romaji. Fix any reading with a tap.
  • Tax-Free Refund Wallet & Departure Planner: Log receipts, see your refund and 90-day deadlines, plan the customs step before bag drop, and track refunds after the trip. Works offline.

How we build and check them

  • Rules come from official sources. Calculators that depend on Japanese law or prices, such as the tax-free calculator, link to the government pages they are based on and show the date we last checked them. If an official page and our summary disagree, the official page is right. The full list is on sources & methodology.
  • Automatic results are labelled. The furigana converter uses an open-source morphological analyser (kuromoji with the IPADIC dictionary) plus our own rules for romaji and counters. It is usually right but not always, especially for names, so you can correct any reading.
  • Every tool is tested. Each one has automated tests that run before every update goes live.
  • Your data stays with you. The tools run in your browser. We never receive the text or numbers you enter.

How the site is funded

The tools are free. To pay for them we may show advertising, and some pages may include clearly labelled affiliate links, for example to rail pass or tour sellers, which pay us a commission at no cost to you. Advertisers do not influence our results or recommendations. See our affiliate disclosure for how affiliate links work, and our privacy policy for how ads and partners use cookies.

Corrections

Found a mistake? See our contact page. We correct errors promptly and update the page’s “last checked” date when the rules behind it change.

Credits

kuromoji.js (Apache License 2.0) and the IPADIC dictionary. Tax-free rules: Japan Customs, Japan Tourism Agency and National Tax Agency. All page text is written by the JapanBenri team.