About this site

Japan Proxy Cost is an independent calculator that works out what buying from Japan through a proxy shopping service actually costs, once every fee and the import tax at your end are counted. It covers FROM JAPAN, Buyee, ZenMarket, Neokyo, and 9 destination countries.

Why it exists

Proxy services publish their service fee prominently and everything else somewhere else. The fee is ¥300–800; the parts that decide the bill are packing, weight-based postage, deposit fees charged as a percentage, and the tax your own country charges on arrival. Because the companies charge on different units — per item, per order, by weight, as a percentage — no single one of them is cheapest for every order. Which one wins genuinely changes with what you buy, how heavy it is and where you live.

The existing comparisons are mostly lists of service fees, which is the one number that does not settle the question. This site runs the whole calculation instead.

Who runs it

It is written and maintained by kakuni, an independent developer based in Japan. It is not operated by, affiliated with, or endorsed by any of the proxy services it compares. Being in Japan is the reason the source material is usable: the fee pages, Japan Post's rate tables and the prohibited-item lists are read in Japanese, where they are fuller and more current than the English versions.

How it is paid for

The site carries advertising, and some outbound links to shops and services may earn a commission if you buy. That money never changes the ranking. The calculation is run first and the results are ordered by what you would actually pay, with items that cannot legally be exported pushed down regardless of price. It is routinely the case that the cheapest result is a company that pays us nothing, and we publish that result. A comparison that sold its ordering would not be worth reading, and would not survive contact with anyone who checked it.

Where an item does not need a proxy at all — something new and in stock that a Japanese retailer already ships overseas — we would rather say so, because that saves you the entire proxy fee.

What it will not tell you

It is an estimate, not a quote. Companies change their pricing, exchange rates move, and your customs authority has the final say on what you owe. Domestic postage inside Japan depends on the individual seller and is a figure you supply. The method page sets out exactly what is counted and what is deliberately left out.

It is also not a shop. We do not buy anything, hold anything, or ship anything. If an order goes wrong, the company you paid is the one who can help.

Corrections

Fee pages change without notice. Every number here records the date it was checked, and if you find one that no longer matches the company's own page, please tell us — see contact.