Updated: 2026-09-10 15:28:05
Three months is the shortest committed term on CDJapan Rental's monthly pocket WiFi plans, and that one fact shapes most of what follows: what happens when those three months run out, and how the plan handles a change of schedule.
For context, a three-month minimum is not a rule of the Japanese market. Some providers sell monthly pocket WiFi with no minimum term at all. Others price in committed tiers, where the rate falls as the commitment lengthens and there is a floor. We're in the second group, and everything below describes how our plans work.
Most people who take a 3-month plan aren't certain they'll stay three months. Short assignments get extended. A language-school trial term turns into full enrolment. A "let's go see what it's like" trip becomes a year.
Line those cases up and the uncertainty almost always runs in one direction: longer. That's the direction a monthly plan is built for. When the minimum term ends the contract simply continues month to month — no new order, no device swap, no gap in service, no change in rate. Staying longer costs you nothing in effort and nothing extra in admin.
The direction worth settling before you order is the other one. If there's a real chance the stay comes in under about 60 days, a monthly plan is the wrong starting point and a short-term rental is the right one. This article covers both sides, with the numbers laid out so you can check them.
Still deciding between pocket WiFi, a SIM, an eSIM, and a Japanese domestic carrier? Start with our complete guide to internet in Japan for 3–12 month stays, then come back here once you've settled on a monthly pocket WiFi rental.
A Japanese domestic carrier will ask you for a residence card with roughly three years of validity remaining, a Japanese bank account, and a Japanese-issued credit card. If you're arriving for three months, you will have none of those things, and you won't have them by the time you leave either.
A monthly pocket WiFi rental from CDJapan Rental works differently. There is no residence card requirement at all — tourist visa, student visa, working holiday visa and business visa holders can all order. Payment is by credit card, and foreign-issued Visa, Mastercard, JCB and AMEX are accepted, so you can complete the whole order from home before you fly. The device can be shipped to an airport post office, a hotel, or an Airbnb address, which means you're online the day you land rather than a fortnight later.
Those four points are CDJapan Rental's own terms rather than an industry standard — other providers set their own requirements, so check before you assume they transfer.
This is the single most useful thing to know if you're coming on a tourist visa and planning to stay the full permitted period. The shortest pocket WiFi contract and the longest tourist stay are essentially the same length, which means you are never signing up for a connection that outlives your permission to be in the country.
One detail worth planning around: with CDJapan Rental, billing runs on calendar months rather than on a rolling 90-day counter. You're charged for the full month regardless of which day of the month your rental starts, and each subsequent month is billed on the 1st. The practical consequence is straightforward — a rental starting on the 3rd of a month gets you nearly a full month of use for that month's fee, while one starting on the 25th gets you about a week for the same fee. If your arrival date is flexible by a few days, starting early in a calendar month is better value.
If your flight lands late in a month and you'd rather not pay a full month for a few days, there are two ways around it.
When your arrival falls in the last few days of a month, the simplest approach is to place your order as normal with your actual usage start date, then email us afterwards. We can move the contract start date to the 1st of the following month, so the device still reaches you in time and you're online from the day you land, while those final days of the month aren't billed.
For a longer gap, such as arriving mid-month, cover the remainder with a short-term rental and begin the monthly plan on the 1st. A daily rental suits a handful of days; past a week or so the 100GB per month package usually costs less than the same number of days at the daily rate. Email us when you want to move onto a monthly plan and we'll set it up — no need to re-apply from scratch.
Plan your months, not your days. Count your contract in billing months against your visa dates, and set your rental start date as close to the beginning of a calendar month as your flights allow.
With CDJapan Rental, when your minimum term ends the contract does not terminate automatically. It continues month to month at the same monthly rate until you actively cancel it.
Depending on your situation, that's either the best feature of the plan or a trap. If your stay gets extended — and it often does — there is nothing to do. No new order, no new device, no gap in service, no re-verification. You keep the same router and the billing simply continues. From month four onward you can cancel at any time with no early-termination fee at all, because the minimum term is behind you.
If your stay ends on schedule, on the other hand, you have to tell CDJapan Rental to stop. Which brings us to the part that costs people the most money.
Cancellation is submitted through My Page on the CDJapan Rental site. There is a deadline each month, and it is earlier than most people expect: 3:00 p.m. Japan time on the 20th.
| When you submit | Contract ends | Next month's charge |
|---|---|---|
| Before 3:00 p.m. JST on the 20th | End of that same month | Not charged |
| After 3:00 p.m. JST on the 20th | End of the following month | Charged |
Miss the cutoff by a day and you pay for an entire additional month. If you know your departure date, submit the cancellation as soon as you know it — there is no advantage to waiting, and the contract still runs to the end of the month you nominate.
Important: posting the device back is not a cancellation.
If you return the router without submitting a cancellation request through My Page, billing does not stop. Your card keeps getting charged on the 1st of each month for a device that is already sitting in the warehouse. Submit the cancellation first, then return the hardware. Everything that was shipped to you goes back — router, AC adapter and charging cable.
The full step-by-step is on the pickup and return page. The 20th at 3:00 p.m. and the My Page procedure are both CDJapan Rental's own rules.
You're not locked in. Cancelling inside the minimum term is allowed, and with CDJapan Rental it costs a fee of roughly one month's rent. Working through what that means is mostly reassuring, because it shows how small the downside is.
| You leave at the end of | You pay | Versus riding out the full term |
|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | 1 month used + 1 month fee = about 2 months' worth | Poor value for one month of use — a stay this short wanted a short-term rental from the start |
| Month 2 | 2 months used + 1 month fee = about 3 months' worth | Break-even — keep the router until you fly, you're paying for it either way |
| Month 3 | Full term, no fee | Nothing to gain by cancelling early |
Because the fee is about a month's rent, cancelling early rarely returns much. From month two onward it makes no difference at all, so the sensible move is to keep the router until you fly rather than post it back early and go without. The one row that looks like a saving, month one, isn't really one: paying two months for a month of use means the stay was always short enough to belong on a short-term rental.
That is a much smaller downside than the domestic-carrier alternative, where breaking a two-year contract runs into five figures. For anyone genuinely unsure about their length of stay, the practical advice is: take the 3-month plan. The worst case is a wash. These figures are CDJapan Rental's own.
Monthly plans are priced for months. If your actual stay is going to come in under roughly 60 days, a monthly contract is the wrong product — you'd be paying three months of billing for two months of use, with no mechanism to get the difference back.
CDJapan Rental has two short-term options for exactly this. A daily pocket WiFi rental charges only for the days you book, with no minimum term and no cancellation deadline to remember. For a stay of a few weeks up to a month or two, the 100GB per month package usually works out cheaper than the same period at the daily rate, and it carries no minimum contract either — the trade-off is a monthly data ceiling rather than unlimited data, which is fine unless you're streaming heavily.
Around 60 days our daily and monthly structures cross over, and past that the monthly plan pulls ahead. If you're right on the line, the deciding factor is certainty rather than price: a monthly plan absorbs an extension without you doing anything, and a short-term booking doesn't. If a short-term rental turns into a long stay, email us and we'll move you onto a monthly plan.
For a full breakdown of how the two price structures compare, see our guide to long-term pocket WiFi costs in Japan.
Both unlimited plans are priced identically at every contract length, so price can't decide this for you. Both are genuinely unlimited with no monthly data cap. The difference is entirely hardware and network.
| SoftBank Unlimited | WiMAX+5G Unlimited | |
|---|---|---|
| Device | FS030W | Speed Wi-Fi 5G X12 |
| Weight | 128 g | 174 g |
| Network | SoftBank 4G LTE | 5G (Sub6/NR) / 4G LTE / WiMAX 2+ |
| Max downlink | 150 Mbps | 2.7 Gbps |
| Simultaneous devices | Up to 5 | Up to 16 |
| Battery | About 490 minutes | About 490 minutes (4,000 mAh) |
| Suits | One person, mostly urban, carrying it all day | Multiple devices, heavy streaming, video calls, shared housing |
Speeds quoted are theoretical maximums under best-effort terms; real throughput depends on location, time of day and congestion. 5G coverage in Japan is still concentrated in urban areas, so a WiMAX+5G device will fall back to 4G LTE in much of the countryside.
For a three-month stay the practical read is this: if you're one person with a phone and a laptop working mostly in Tokyo, Osaka or another major city, the lighter SoftBank device is easier to live with. If you're sharing accommodation, running several devices, or doing video-heavy work, take WiMAX+5G. There is a third option too — a SoftBank 100GB plan on the same hardware as the SoftBank unlimited plan, for lighter users who want a lower monthly cost.
| Minimum term | Monthly rate (both unlimited plans) | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| 3 months | ¥6,600 / month | Uncertain length of stay, tourist-visa stays, trial terms |
| 6 months | ¥6,000 / month | Confirmed half-year stays, exchange semesters |
| 12 months | ¥5,500 / month | Working holiday, full academic year |
Reference: CDJapan Rental published monthly rates for WiMAX+5G Unlimited and SoftBank Unlimited. Both plans carry identical pricing at every term length. Check the WiMAX+5G and SoftBank product pages for current rates and the first-month discount.
Two other charges are worth knowing about before you order, both of which only apply if something goes wrong at the end:
| Charge | Amount | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Late return | ¥1,200 per day | Device not received after your contract ends |
| Loss or damage | ¥24,000 per device | Also applied if the device isn't received within 5 days of contract end |
Both are charged to the card used for the order. If you know you'll be late returning it, contact CDJapan Rental in advance rather than letting the clock run.
Yes. CDJapan Rental's monthly pocket WiFi plans have no residence card requirement and no minimum visa validity, so tourist visa holders can order. This is one of the main structural differences between a rental plan and a Japanese domestic carrier contract.
No. Foreign-issued Visa, Mastercard, JCB and AMEX cards are accepted, and the monthly fee is charged to that card automatically. Confirm with your issuer that the card is enabled for overseas online payments before you order. If you're planning to open a Japanese account later, our guide to getting internet without a Japanese bank account covers the sequencing.
Orders are accepted up to 3:00 p.m. Japan time three days before your rental start date. A week ahead is safer, since it guarantees the device you want is in stock and leaves room for a delivery problem.
With CDJapan Rental, nothing to do. The contract rolls over month to month at the same rate with the same device, and you can cancel any time after the minimum term without a fee. If you already know before ordering that you'll stay six months or more, order the longer plan instead — the monthly rate is lower from the start. If you're booking elsewhere, confirm that their plan rolls rather than ending on its end date.
Contact CDJapan Rental within two days of your rental start date and return the device for a refund. Express shipping fees aren't refundable. If the problem turns out to be a settings issue rather than a fault, support can usually sort it out without a replacement, so get in touch before returning anything.
Yes. Everything that was shipped to you goes back: the router, the AC adapter and the charging cable. Missing accessories are treated as loss or damage.
Three months in Japan, online from day one.
CDJapan Rental's monthly pocket WiFi starts at a 3-month minimum with no residence card, no Japanese bank account, and no two-year lock-in — order from home and pick it up at the airport when you land.
For use over 90 days (Monthly Plan)
