# How to buy Pokémon cards from Japan

Cards are light and have no battery. The hard part is the fee, not the cardboard.

Estimates only. Not a quote, not a customs ruling, and not an offer to sell or ship. Confirm fees, prohibitions, and duty with the proxy and with destination customs. Figures can change after the last-verified date.

JapanLanded may later earn a commission when someone uses a referral link. Affiliate enrollments are not in place, so outbound links are public pages, not tracked referrals. We do not sell the goods. Names of proxies and products are used to describe them and are their owners' trademarks.

Data as of 2026-10-15. Dataset 2026-10-15.3.

## Where people buy them

Mercari and Yahoo Auctions do not check out to a typical overseas address, so a proxy buys and forwards the lot. On r/Buyee, trading cards sit with figures and retro games among the purchases people describe. One practical comment in that thread, offered as opinion: postage tends to make more sense for a small parcel, a seller who pays domestic shipping, or several items in one box.

This page does not tell you a fair price for any card, and it does not check fakes. The category note in our research is simply that counterfeits and market prices are the buyer's problem.

- [r/Buyee: what do you buy on proxies](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buyee/comments/129d32z/what_do_you_buy_on_buyeeother_proxies/)

## What the estimator can and cannot price

The sample below uses a price and a weight you could have typed. Buyee's service fee is per order. ZenMarket's partnership page states a per-item fee. Neokyo states a per-item fee plus packing from a minimum with no maximum. Domestic postage is a rough range for Buyee and unpublished for the others. Payment fees are unpublished for all of them.

Japan Post EMS is shown as a reference rate from the table re-read on 2026-10-15, not as the proxy's invoice. The copied table runs through 30 kg for all five zones. The recorded revision date is 1 June 2026.

- [Buyee fees guide](https://buyee.jp/helpcenter/guide/fees/?lang=en)
- [ZenMarket partnership page (Japanese)](https://zenmarket.jp/partnership.aspx)
- [Neokyo service introduction](https://neokyo.com/en/service-introduction)
- [Japan Post EMS rate list](https://www.post.japanpost.jp/send/oversea/charge/list-ems/all_en.html)

## Worked example

8000 yen, 180 g, United States. Export check: nothing in this dataset blocks export to United States. This is not a customs clearance.

| Proxy | Pay now, known | EMS reference |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Buyee | ¥8,650 – ¥10,000 | ¥3,900 |
| ZenMarket | ¥8,800 | ¥3,900 |
| Neokyo | ¥8,850 | ¥3,900 |
| Tenso | ¥8,280 | ¥3,900 |
| FROM JAPAN | ¥8,000 | ¥3,900 |
| White Rabbit Express | ¥8,000 | ¥3,900 |

These partial sums are not a landed total. No cheapest and no fastest proxy. Domestic postage, payment fees, and the proxies' own international rates are missing or ranged, and no transit times are stored. Naming a winner would invent a number.

## Steps

1. **Copy the yen price.** Read the price on the listing yourself. JapanLanded does not fetch the page.
2. **Weigh it, or say you didn't.** Enter grams. If you leave weight blank, the tool uses an unsourced placeholder and labels it.
3. **Read pay-now separately from arrival.** The partial sum is not a landed total. Duty amounts are not calculated.
4. **Check whether it can leave Japan.** Lithium batteries, alcohol, and 100 V gear each have their own note. The result is not a customs clearance.
5. **Order on the proxy's own site.** Outbound links are public pages until affiliate programs are enrolled. We never take payment.

## Questions

### Are Japanese Pokémon cards restricted in the mail?

Nothing in this dataset treats paper cards as restricted. A parcel that also contains a lithium battery is a different shipment.

- [Japan Post lithium battery restriction notice](https://www.post.japanpost.jp/service/send/oversea/attention/restriction/restriction02_en.pdf)

### Will I owe US duty?

The old USD 800 de minimis exemption was suspended. This tool does not calculate the duty and does not convert yen to dollars.

- [CBP factsheet on suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment](https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/factsheet%5Fsuspension%5Fof%5Fduty-free%5Fde%5Fminimis%5Ftreatment.pdf)
- [Federal Register: indefinite suspension of de minimis for mail](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/24/2026-12669/indefinite-suspension-of-the-de-minimis-exemption-for-mail-shipments-and-new-postal-informal-entry)

HTML: https://japanlanded.com/buy/pokemon-cards