If you’re planning on buying an iPhone (it’s a little too late now since they’re already out of stock everywhere in Kanto) and you’re a foreigner, there’s a couple of things you need to be aware of before you head out to the Softbank shop:
- Bring your Gaikokujin Torokusho (Alien Card) + Passport. It seems they now require the passport too.
- Check your visa expiration date, the following rules apply:
From Softbank’s website
本人確認書類を「外国人登録証明書＋外国パスポート」にてお申込される場合、以下項目をご注意ください。
- 在留期限が90日未満の場合は回線契約ができません。
- 在留期限が申込日より15ヵ月以内の場合、割賦購入（あっせん）契約による受付はできません。（店頭一括払いのみの受付となります）
- 在留期限が申込日より15ヵ月超、27ヵ月以内の場合、割賦購入（あっせん）契約による支払回数は12回払いもしくは一括払いのみの受付となります。
- 在留期限が申込日より27ヵ月を超える場合、支払い回数に関係なく割賦購入（あっせん)が可能です。
Which translates to:
- If you’re on a 90 days tourist visa, no soup (or iPhone) for you!
- If you have less than 15 months left on your visa, you wont be able to make a contract, but they’ll sell the phone to you without a plan for ￥80.000
- Between 15 and 27 months left on your visa, you can either pay it cash for ￥80.000 or negociate take a 12 months contract (instead of the normal 24) possibly at the discounted ￥20.000 price-tag, but whether the discount applies or not is not clear in the document
- Over 27 months and you’re clear, you can buy the phone like any native
With my 3 years visa expiring in 27 months and 24 days, I might hurry my purchase plans…
Note: the maximum length visa you can have (apart from being a permanent resident) is 3 years, so you’d better work on your timing or you might have to wait a very long time to get a phone
Update: as John points out in the comments, if you have a Japanese health insurance card or driver’s licence accompanied by a utility bill to your name, then this should suffice and Softbank’s people should not ask you for anything else. That’ll help quite a bit.
