Pocket Change in 2026: brilliant for leftovers and coins, mid for plain exchange — full review
⚡ 30-Second Answer: Pocket Change (auto-exchange kiosk) = converts leftover foreign currency and yen into e-money (PayPay/Suica/Amazon gift cards/USD-EUR e-money). Kiosks at Haneda T1-T3, Narita, Kansai and other airports plus city centres, ¥500 minimum, coins from 25+ countries and 30+ currencies accepted. Rate: roughly 1-2% below mid-market — fair for coins and orphan bills (nobody else takes them), far better than an airport counter's 3-6%, slightly behind a downtown shop for plain paper currency. Never for cash yen — you get e-money, not notes. For a handful of Japanese coins at the gate, a vending machine or a Suica top-up is just as good.
Quick Reference
Value
Service
Leftover FX / yen → e-money (no cash out)
Locations
Haneda T1-T3, Narita, KIX, Chubu, Fukuoka + city centres
Min amount
¥500
Currencies
30+ (coins from 25+ countries)
Rate
~1-2% below mid-market (airport counters: 3-6%)
Coins
✅ — the big draw
Last verified
September 2026
✓ Last verified: Sep 2026
📖9 min read
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Contents📖 ~10 min read
Pocket Change is the only service in Japan that takes mixed foreign coins and small bills and turns them into something useful — PayPay balance, Suica top-up, Amazon / Apple / Google gift cards, USD or EUR e-money, even crypto. For that niche it has no real competitor, and the ~1–2% spread below mid-market is fair given the inventory headache they're absorbing. For straight cash-to-yen exchange of paper currency, dedicated shops still beat them by 0.5–1 percentage point. Use Pocket Change for the orphan-currency case it solves; skip it for the mainstream USD→JPY case better tools handle.
TL;DR
Brilliant for: foreign coins (no other Japan service accepts them), mixed leftover currency, very-end-of-trip yen.
Mid for: plain USD/EUR → JPY (use Dollar Ranger or WCS — see article #98).
Avoid for: bulk yen-back conversion at the airport (use in-town shops in advance).
Pricing: roughly 1–2% below mid-market in 2026; varies by currency and kiosk location.
Where to find: kiosks at all major airports (Narita / Haneda / Kansai / Chubu / Fukuoka) plus department stores and some 駅ナカ (in-station) locations.
What Pocket Change actually does
Most currency exchange shops in Japan have two strict rules that catch tourists out:
No coins — only bills. Your €0.20 / $0.50 / £1 coins are worthless to them.
No small denominations of bills below a per-currency threshold (e.g. ≤ $5, ≤ €5).
Result: every tourist arriving in Japan with leftovers from a previous trip has a wallet full of currency that no one will exchange. Pocket Change is built for exactly this. Drop everything — coins, bills, mixed currencies — into a kiosk hopper and within 90 seconds you have:
PayPay / au PAY / d払い — Japanese QR e-money you can spend in any convenience store
Suica top-up — yen on your transit card (the balance stays valid for 10 years, so it's ready for your next trip)
Amazon / Apple / Google / Starbucks gift cards — denominated in JPY, USD, or EUR depending on the brand
USD / EUR / KRW e-money on a prepaid card for people flying home
WeChat Pay (for Chinese visitors)
Crypto (BTC / ETH) — niche, but available
The service launched in Japan in 2017 and accepts coins from 25 or more countries, small bills from many more, Japanese yen in any form, and mixed piles of all of the above.
You don't actually get cash yen back. That's the trade-off and the reason Pocket Change can accept inventory that nobody else will.
The 2026 rate reality
A common confusion: Pocket Change's headline rate looks bad until you compare against what's actually possible for the same input.
Input
Best alternative
Pocket Change
Net verdict
Mixed €/$ coins
(none — nobody else takes them)
~1.5–2% below mid
Win — free money you couldn't otherwise unlock
Single $20 / €20 bill
Dollar Ranger ~0.5% below mid
~1.5% below mid
Lose by ~1pp
Leftover ¥3,000 at airport (end-of-trip)
In-town shop ~1% below mid
~1.5% below mid
Mid — close enough that convenience wins
Bulk $500 USD bills
Dollar Ranger Ginza ~0.4% below mid
~1.5–2% below mid
Lose — go to Dollar Ranger
Random Asian currencies (THB, IDR, VND) leftovers
Most chains refuse
Takes them
Win by default
The pattern: the more "orphan" your currency is, the better Pocket Change looks. The more mainstream and bulky, the worse the comparison gets.
Use cases where Pocket Change is the right call
① You have a coin jar from your last 5 trips abroad
This is the killer use case. Combined €2.40 + ¥150 + $4.75 + £1.20 + ฿20 isn't worth anything anywhere else on Earth except, weirdly, Japan, where Pocket Change will turn it into ¥1,300–¥1,500 of PayPay balance you'll spend at FamilyMart before your flight. A 2% spread on currency that was otherwise ¥0 is infinite-percent better than zero.
② End-of-trip ¥3,000–¥10,000 leftover at the airport gate
You're at Narita, you have ¥3,000, your flight boards in 40 minutes, and there's no exchange counter open (or the queue is 25 minutes). Drop the cash in a Pocket Change kiosk, get Amazon JPY balance you can spend on Kindle books for the flight, done in 90 seconds. Yes the rate is meh, but the alternative is ¥0 yen back home.
③ You want PayPay balance but don't want to link a card
PayPay normally requires you to attach a Japanese bank account or credit card to load it. Pocket Change is one of the only routes that lets you load PayPay with foreign cash directly, no bank account needed. Useful for: short-stay tourists who want one-tap QR payment without the bank-linking dance.
④ You're flying home and want gift-card balance, not foreign currency
Lots of users prefer ending the trip with an Amazon US or Apple US gift card balance rather than carrying random JPY home. Pocket Change is one of the few clean routes — kiosk in JPY, gift card in USD on your home Amazon account.
Use cases where Pocket Change is the wrong call
① You have $1,000+ in clean USD bills to exchange
Go to Dollar Ranger Ginza or Shinjuku-West (see article #98). On a $1,000 exchange the Pocket Change spread vs Dollar Ranger costs you ~¥1,500 — a 30-minute train trip pays for itself many times over.
② You want cash yen, not e-money
Pocket Change doesn't give you cash. If you specifically need ¥10,000 in physical bills for a cash-only ryokan or a rural trip, use a Travelex airport counter or an in-town shop.
③ You're trying to exchange a single big bill ($100 / €100)
The kiosk's bill validators sometimes reject older-series notes or notes with creases. A staffed counter at Travelex / WCS handles these with no friction.
④ You're converting ¥30,000 or more of leftover yen
Above roughly ¥30,000, the 1-2% starts to be real money and an in-town counter's yen-buyback rate is better. Do it the day before, downtown, rather than at the gate.
Where the kiosks actually are
Pocket Change kiosks are concentrated in three categories of location:
Airports — Haneda (T1 arrivals 1F, T2 arrivals 1F, T3 arrivals 2F — the T2 and T3 units run 24 hours), Narita (T1 / T2 / T3), Kansai (T1), Chubu, Fukuoka, New Chitose. Usually inside the terminal pre-security or at arrivals.
Department stores in Tokyo / Osaka — Bic Camera, Don Quijote, LaQua, and similar tourist-dense retailers. The Don Quijote network alone has Pocket Change kiosks at dozens of stores.
Major train stations and sights — Shibuya (station B1), Shinjuku, Ueno, Tokyo, Kyoto Station, Osaka Station, and the Tokyo Skytree observation-deck floor. Often near JR exits or inside connected retail.
Check the official kiosk map before relying on a specific location — they rotate kiosks based on tourist flow.
Leftover coins at the airport: Pocket Change, or something simpler?
Pocket Change is the right tool for foreign coins and for a mixed pile. For a few hundred yen of Japanese coins on departure day, you have cheaper, faster options that don't involve a queue at the kiosk:
Vending machines — a ¥110-150 drink swallows the ¥10s and ¥100s in seconds.
Konbini snacks — the airport 7-Eleven or Lawson takes any amount of coins for a ¥300-500 purchase.
Top up Suica / PASMO — a station or airport charge machine converts coins to IC balance, and the balance stays valid for 10 years, so it is waiting for you next trip.
Donation boxes — UNICEF and similar charity boxes at the gates absorb the ¥1s and ¥5s nobody wants.
What you should never do is hand Japanese coins to a foreign-currency "coin buyback" counter abroad — fees there run 20-50%. Bring them back next time, or let a machine here eat them.
Pocket Change vs each alternative
Pocket Change vs Travelex airport
Pocket Change wins for coins and end-of-trip small leftovers.
Travelex wins for clean paper currency $50+, large denominations, or when you specifically want yen cash.
Rate: Travelex airport is ~3–5% below mid; Pocket Change is ~1.5–2% below — counterintuitively, Pocket Change beats Travelex airport for plain exchange too. The airport scam is real.
Pocket Change vs Dollar Ranger
Dollar Ranger wins anywhere outside the airport — better rate by ~1pp on USD/EUR.
Pocket Change wins the second you have coins or off-brand currencies in the mix.
Pocket Change vs Wise / Revolut card
Wise / Revolut wins if you have time to plan and a foreign debit card — see article #15.
Pocket Change wins for the "I have physical cash in my hand right now" case Wise can't solve.
Practical playbook
Pre-trip: Save your foreign coin jar. Don't try to spend coins in your home country before flying — Pocket Change will absorb them in Japan.
Day 1 in Japan: Get yen from a Seven Bank ATM with a Wise / Revolut card (cheapest route — see article #15) or from Dollar Ranger if you have USD/EUR cash. Don't use Pocket Change for your initial yen-loading.
End of trip: As yen leftovers shrink below ¥5,000 and you're at the airport, drop them in a Pocket Change kiosk for Amazon balance. The rate gets bad on small amounts but the alternative is ¥0 back home.
Bottom line
Pocket Change isn't a currency exchange — it's an inventory-clearance machine for currencies and denominations nobody else will touch. Inside that niche it's brilliant. For anything you could have done at Dollar Ranger or via a Wise card, it's mediocre. Don't make it your default; do remember it exists when you have a coin jar at the airport.
Frequently asked questions
Does Pocket Change accept every currency?
The majors are all there — USD, EUR, GBP, KRW, CNY, TWD, HKD, AUD, CAD, CHF, SGD, THB — plus a long tail of smaller currencies (VND, IDR and so on) at noticeably worse rates. The kiosk screen shows the rate for each currency before you commit.
Can I get cash out of a Pocket Change kiosk?
No. Everything comes out as e-money, gift-card balance or a prepaid card. If you need yen notes, use an ATM or a counter.
Does it take torn or worn notes?
Japanese yen in almost any condition; foreign notes need to be reasonably intact, and coins reasonably clean, or the validator spits them back.
Is there a fee on top of the rate?
No separate fee — the margin is built into the rate shown on screen.
Can I move the USD e-money into Wise?
The USD/EUR option is a prepaid card you spend like a normal Visa; it can't be transferred to a Wise or bank account directly.
Last verified 2026-09-08. Pocket Change rate spreads can shift with FX volatility and per-kiosk pricing; always confirm at the machine before depositing.