What Japanese buyers look for on your pricing page (and what makes them close the tab)

Why Japanese visitors bounce off a USD-only pricing page, what the published rules on tax-inclusive display and 特商法 notices actually say, and what to add.

Published September 23, 2026 · Updated September 23, 2026 · Checked against 6 primary sources · Drafted and checked by our engine

What happened

You translated your marketing site into Japanese. Traffic from Japan went up. Sign-ups did not.

The pricing page is where the drop happens. A founder on r/SaaS described switching a USD-only pricing table to yen and watching conversion move within a quarter — the copy had been in Japanese for months before that, and the copy was not the blocker.

Japanese visitors read a pricing page as a document, not as a pitch. They look for the number they will be billed, the tax treatment, who they are buying from, and how the company will invoice them. A page that answers three of those four reads as a page that is not ready for Japanese customers.

This guide covers what those readers check, what the published Japanese rules say about price display and seller disclosure, and who those rules bind. It does not tell you what your own obligations are. That question belongs to a lawyer or a 税理士 (zeirishi, “licensed tax accountant”).

What’s going on on the Japanese side

Start with the currency. A dollar price asks the reader to guess a rate and absorb card-issuer FX fees; a yen price goes straight into an internal approval request.

Then tax. The National Tax Agency’s circular says the total-price display (総額表示, sōgaku hyōji, “total-price display”) obligation applies where a taxable business shows a price in advance to a consumer counterparty, over any display medium (source). It carves out supplies made solely to other businesses, where that business-only nature is objectively clear. The NTA’s plain-language page on the obligation puts the same rule in one paragraph (source). Which side of the line a page sits on is a question for a 税理士.

Next, seller identity. For mail-order and online sales (通信販売, tsūshin hanbai, “mail-order sales”), the Consumer Affairs Agency lists the advertising disclosures: price, shipping, payment and delivery timing, cancellation terms, the seller’s name, address and phone number, and a company’s representative (source).

That framework is aimed at consumer transactions. Its exclusions cover contracts concluded “for business purposes or as a business” (営業のために若しくは営業として, eigyō no tame ni moshiku wa eigyō to shite), assessed case by case (source). An overseas seller advertising to Japan and selling to a resident of Japan is covered rather than excluded (source).

A trial button marked クレジットカード登録不要 (no credit card required) lowers the bar, and a security page on encryption, subprocessors and data location reads well without a Pマーク (P-māku, “Privacy Mark”) or ISMS certificate. A contact form with a reply window beats a chat widget; Japanese logos read as proof that procurement here cleared you.

What to do next

1. Switch the displayed price to yen. Set a round figure rather than a converted one — 4,800円 reads as a price, 4,732円 reads as an exchange rate.
2. Label the tax treatment on every figure. Write 税込 or 税別 next to the number, and show the yen tax amount on the checkout summary.
3. Add an annual plan and an invoice-billing route. Offer a yearly figure, and a “請求書でのお支払い” (invoice payment) option for companies that cannot use a card.
4. State the payment cycle you will accept. Month-end closing with payment by the end of the following month (月末締め翌月末払い) is the default assumption in most purchasing departments.
5. Drop the card requirement from the trial. Put “クレジットカード登録不要” (no credit card required) on the trial button, and say how the trial ends.
6. Publish a company information page. Company name, representative, address, contact route and business description, in Japanese, linked from the footer.
7. Ask a lawyer whether the 特定商取引法 disclosure rules apply to your sales, then build the page to the item list in the Template below if they do.
8. Replace chat-only support with a form plus a stated reply time. “1営業日以内にご返信します” (we reply within one business day) is a commitment a buyer can quote internally.
9. Add a security page. Encryption, hosting region, subprocessor list, and an email address for security enquiries.
10. Run the page through our price page checker to see which of these items a Japanese reader would not find.

If your invoices are also coming back marked up, read what their accounting team is checking next. The wider sequence is in our pillar on selling to Japanese companies.

Template

The disclosure items the Consumer Affairs Agency lists for 通信販売 advertising (source):

The Agency’s Q&A states that a seller may omit the address and phone number where the advertisement says the disclosure document will be provided without delay on request, and measures are in place to actually provide it without delay (source). A line for that option:

事業者の住所及び電話番号は、ご請求があった場合には遅滞なく電子メールにて開示いたします。

The seller’s address and phone number will be disclosed without delay by email upon request.

When to bring in a professional

Bring in a lawyer or a 行政書士 (gyōsei shoshi, “administrative scrivener”) for the question of whether the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions reaches your sales, and for terms of service and refund terms. Bring in a 税理士 for consumption tax registration and for how prices should carry tax. Writing the yen figures, the tax labels, the security page and the contact form is work you can do in-house.

Common questions

Does the total-price display obligation apply to a B2B SaaS?

The NTA circular frames the obligation around a taxable business showing a price in advance to a consumer counterparty, and excludes supplies made solely to other businesses where the business-only nature is objectively clear (source). Where a specific product sits is a question for a 税理士.

We are a foreign company with no Japanese entity. Do the disclosure rules reach us?

The Consumer Affairs Agency’s Q&A says an overseas seller advertising to Japan whose goods are bought by a resident of Japan is not covered by that exclusion (source). How that applies to a particular service is a lawyer’s question.

Do we have to publish a home address?

The Agency’s Q&A allows the address and phone number to be left off where the advertisement states they will be provided without delay on request and the seller can actually do so (source).

Is “11,000円（税抜価格10,000円）” acceptable?

The circular lists that form among its examples of a total-price display, while noting that over-emphasising the tax-exclusive figure in a way that misleads the reader falls outside it (source).

Will a yen price alone fix conversion?

It removes one obstacle. The invoice route, the tax label and the company information page each remove another, and buyers tend to stall at whichever is missing.

Kit

We’re building a kit for this: a Japanese pricing page checklist, a fill-in 特定商取引法に基づく表記 template in Japanese and English, a security page outline, and yen pricing copy blocks. It is not published yet. Get notified when it ships and we’ll send it the week it goes live, along with the updates we make when the underlying rules change.