Do I need a Suica or Pasmo card to ride trains in Japan?

No. Every JR and private-railway station in Japan still has ticket vending machines that sell single-ride paper tickets in cash. You can ride the entire network without ever buying an IC card. Most residents and frequent travelers use Suica or Pasmo because it is faster and works for buses, vending machines, and convenience stores, but paper tickets remain a fully supported parallel system.

Why does Japan still print paper tickets when IC cards are everywhere?

Three reasons. First, foreign tourists arriving without an IC card need a same-day way to ride. Second, IC cards have minimum top-up amounts that do not always make sense for a single short ride. Third, JR's accounting and tax handling for limited-express and shinkansen tickets has historically required a printed ticket as the legal record of travel. Removing paper would also strand passengers whose IC card runs out of balance mid-trip.

What is the difference between Suica and Pasmo?

Functionally almost nothing. Suica is issued by JR East and Pasmo is issued by the Tokyo metro and private rail association, but the two are mutually accepted across nearly every gate, bus, vending machine, and konbini in Japan that takes IC cards. The same is true of regional cards like Icoca (Osaka), Toica (Nagoya), and Kitaca (Sapporo) — they all interoperate nationwide.

Today I Learned

Japan, apparently, still sells paper train tickets right next to its tap-to-pay IC card readers

Suica and Pasmo handle most Tokyo commutes, but every JR and metro station still prints orange paper tickets from a vending machine. The two systems run in parallel — by design.

Published 2026-04-30 · 2 min read · By Daichi

◇ A pair of small orange paper train tickets next to a green Suica IC card on a JR ticket gate, with the contactless reader glowing blue

Two systems, one ticket gate

Stand at the ticket gate of any major Tokyo station — Shinjuku, Tokyo, Shibuya — and watch the flow. Most commuters tap a green Suica or pink Pasmo card on the reader and walk through without breaking stride. But every fourth or fifth person feeds a small orange paper ticket into a slot at the front of the gate. The ticket is sucked through, processed, and pops out the back, where the passenger picks it up and continues.

The same gate, the same second, two completely different fare-collection systems. Both fully supported. Neither retiring the other.

The fact

Japan’s IC-card system — Suica (JR East), Pasmo (Tokyo private rail), Icoca (JR West), Toica (JR Central), Kitaca (JR Hokkaido), and several others — has been live since 2001 and now handles the majority of urban commute taps. The cards are mutually interoperable nationwide and work for trains, buses, vending machines, and konbini purchases.

But every JR and metro station still operates traditional ticket vending machines that print magnetic-stripe paper tickets in cash. The ticket gates have a slot for these tickets next to the IC reader. Both interfaces are first-class — neither is a fallback. JR East publishes route fares as both an IC tap rate and a paper ticket rate, sometimes with a one-yen difference between the two.

The two systems have run in parallel for roughly 25 years, with no announced sunset for paper.

Why it works this way

Several constraints stack:

Tourists without an IC card. A first-time visitor stepping off a Narita Express needs a way to ride the trains today, not after registering for a card. The paper machines stay because the alternative is stranded passengers.
The minimum-balance problem. IC cards require a positive balance at tap-in. For a single 150-yen ride by an occasional rider, topping up a card to do so is friction. Paper tickets handle the long tail of one-off journeys.
The legal-record problem. Limited express and shinkansen tickets have historically been printed as the legal travel record, with seat numbers and reservation details. Even when these are now sold via apps and IC, the paper version remains the canonical artifact.
Failure modes. When an IC card has an insufficient balance mid-trip, the passenger uses a fare-adjustment machine and walks out with a paper supplemental ticket. The paper system is also the IC system’s safety net.

Where to see it

Any major JR station. The orange paper machines line one wall; the IC top-up machines line another. Look for the small printed ticket slot on the front of every gate — that is the paper interface.
Tokyo Metro stations. Same dual interface. The metro lets you buy a paper day-pass that no IC card equivalent fully replicates.
Shinkansen gates. Reserved-seat travel still issues a paper ticket as the formal record, even when payment is via app or IC.

Closing

Most rail systems treat paper tickets as a legacy artifact that should have been retired a decade ago. Japan keeps them next to a tap-to-pay reader that processes a billion taps a year, and treats both as live products. Apparently the future and the past can share a turnstile.