Japan proxies
Japan differs from most countries on this list in one way: a local address is more often a precondition for getting data at all than a way of getting better data. A large share of Japanese services refuse foreign traffic outright rather than serving a reduced version, so the question here is usually not which type is cheaper but whether you get through at all.
What we have in Japan
Prices are the same as in every other country we cover.
What Japanese addresses get used for
Marketplace price monitoring
Rakuten, Amazon.co.jp, Yahoo! Shopping, Mercari: Japanese storefronts are closed to foreign traffic more often than European ones.
Second-hand and auctions
Mercari and Yahoo! Auctions: both are oriented at the domestic market and treat foreign addresses warily.
Local search and SEO
There are two search engines here rather than one: google.co.jp and Yahoo! JAPAN, and their results differ.
Ad verification
Yahoo! News, Asahi, Nikkei, ITmedia: campaigns bought for a Japanese audience do not render for a foreign address.
What looks different from outside Japan
These serve a Japanese visitor something other than what a foreign one sees, and several of them simply refuse. We sell addresses rather than a way past detection.
Which type to take for a Japanese job
Home connection addresses, billed per gigabyte. Lines here are fast and stable.
Marketplaces, second-hand platforms, services with hard geo-fencing
Consumer registration on datacenter hardware. Static and dedicated for the term.
Accounts and long sessions on Japanese platforms
Addresses in Japanese datacenters, traffic unmetered. The Tokyo hub gives short paths to the US and across the region.
Volume collection where the target ignores address class
Cities people ask for here
Cities are set with the _city_ suffix. Tokyo and Osaka hold the bulk of the pool, the rest are thinner, but country level is almost always enough for Japanese targets.
The setups people take here most often
- 01Residential, country levelThe default: most Japanese targets check the country and the address class rather than the city.
- 02Static ISPAccounts and long sessions: the address holds for the whole term.
- 03Datacenter, TokyoVolume collection where the target is neutral, plus short routes to the US.
- 04Sticky session for the whole flowJapanese sites frequently spread a check across several steps.
Connection strings for Japan
The country code is JP, upper case. The city goes after it with _city_, hyphens instead of spaces, in the order country, city, session, lifetime.
Japanese static addresses take no suffixes: the host is the IP from your dashboard, port 50100, SOCKS5 on 50101.
Japanese exits, four ways
curl -x login_c_JP:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://api.ipify.org
# held for fifteen minutes on session 42
curl -x login_c_JP_s_42_ttl_15m:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://api.ipify.org
# Tokyo explicitly, though country level usually suffices
curl -x login_c_JP_city_Tokyo_s_43_ttl_1h:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://api.ipify.org
# a Japanese static address: no suffixes
curl -x login:password@YOUR-JP-IP:50100 https://api.ipify.orgHere the address is a precondition, not an optimisation
The main difference between Japan and the European countries on this list.
In Europe a foreign address usually still gives you a page, just the wrong one: different prices, a different catalogue, the English version instead of the local one. In Japan a noticeable share of services refuse instead: broadcasters, radio, parts of marketplace services and domestic platforms simply do not admit foreign traffic.
For collection that is oddly convenient: the refusal is visible immediately and cannot be mistaken for success. What is less convenient is that trying datacenter first on the chance it slips through makes less sense here than in Poland or Romania, because the country is checked first and the address class second.
The practical conclusion: for Japanese targets start the test on Japanese residential and try datacenter afterwards if the job is large and the target turned out to be neutral. The reverse order wastes more time here than it saves money.
There are two search engines here, not one
A small thing that regularly spoils Japanese SEO and search-monitoring projects.
In most countries we cover, local search results mean one engine. In Japan a second system holds a noticeable share with its own results and its own advertising, and the two diverge.
For collection that means a Japanese picture built from one source is incomplete, and the second source is a separate run using the same addresses. It adds as much traffic as the first, which is worth planning for rather than discovering on the first invoice.
It does not change the product choice: both treat address class the same way and both rate limit per address.
What actually blocks you on Japanese targets
The same split, but the strict end is wider than in Europe.
Marketplaces, second-hand platforms and domestic services filter both address class and country: expect a refusal from datacenter, and from foreign residential too.
Broadcasters and radio are the strictest group: they check the country hard and refuse outright rather than serving a reduced version.
Publishers and reference sites serve datacenter addresses normally, and Tokyo datacenter is cheap and fast here.
Both search engines are reachable but rate limited per address: more addresses rather than a different type.
Which exits you get here, and how stable they are
The Japanese pool in practical terms, and it is one of the highest quality in our catalogue.
Home connections here are fast and stable, so residential exits behave more predictably than in most countries: less spread in response times, and sticky sessions end early for network reasons less often.
Geography: Tokyo and Osaka hold the bulk of the pool, Nagoya, Yokohama and Fukuoka are noticeable, Sapporo and the regions are thinner. This rarely matters for Japanese targets, because they check the country rather than the prefecture.
Tokyo datacenter inventory is also useful for a reason unrelated to Japanese content: it gives short routes to the US west coast, so it sometimes gets bought as a trans-Pacific base.
Choosing the type for a Japanese target
The order here is the reverse of the usual one, and Japan is the only country we have covered besides Ukraine where that is true.
- Start on Japanese residential at country level. Most Japanese targets check the country first, and this is the shortest route to an answer.
- If the target turns out neutral and the job is large, move it to Tokyo datacenter: $1.15 per address per month with unmetered traffic.
- A refusal with no reduced version means a hard country check. Address class will not help there; you need Japanese residential specifically.
- A 429 after many requests is a per-address rate limit: more addresses, not a different type.
- Accounts belong on ISP: static, dedicated, Japanese consumer registration.
What Japanese sites check beyond the address
A Japanese address opens the first gate; language and timezone decide the rest.
Send ja-JP in Accept-Language. English versions are rarer here than in Europe, but where they exist they will be handed to whoever did not ask for Japanese.
There is one timezone for the whole country, Asia/Tokyo, and a profile copied from a European setup will be several hours out from its own address.
Then the usual: consent banners hide content, and a scraper that does not handle them captures an empty page under a successful status code.
What a month of Japanese work costs
Three scenarios at our prices, so you have something to check a quote against.
- Price monitoring across Japanese marketplaces, 40,000 listings a day with images blocked, roughly 90 KB per page. That is about 3.6 GB a day, around 108 GB a month: $108 on residential.
- Collecting search results from two engines instead of one doubles the traffic for that part of the job. Plan for it rather than discovering it later.
- Twenty Japanese accounts on ISP addresses at $2.10 each on the volume tier: $42 a month, with no traffic billing at all.
The legal part, stated plainly
Japan has its own personal data protection legislation, separate from the European one. Collecting data that identifies people in Japan is governed by it regardless of where your company sits or which address your traffic exits through.
This is general information rather than legal advice. Our terms require lawful use and we act on abuse reports. Where the answer carries commercial risk, ask a lawyer.
Verifying a Japanese exit
Under a minute. The first check earns its keep here: telling a country refusal apart from an address-class refusal.
Three checks
# 1. is the exit Japanese
curl -s -x login_c_JP:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://ipinfo.io/json | grep -o '"country": "[A-Z]*"'
# 2. country refusal or address-class refusal: compare the two
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "residential: %{http_code}\n" -x login_c_JP:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://example.co.jp
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "datacenter: %{http_code}\n" -x login:password@YOUR-JP-IP:50100 https://example.co.jp
# 3. does the sticky session hold
for i in 1 2 3; do
curl -s -x login_c_JP_s_42_ttl_15m:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://api.ipify.org; echo
doneQuestions people ask before buying Japanese addresses
Why do Japanese sites refuse outright instead of serving another version?
Because a large share of Japanese services restrict access by country rather than adapting the content. That is inconvenient but noticeably more honest: a refusal cannot be mistaken for success.
Where should I start testing a target?
On Japanese residential at country level. The country gets checked first here, so the usual datacenter-first order wastes more time than it saves.
Do I need city targeting?
Usually not. Japanese targets check the country rather than the prefecture, and country level is enough.
Is it true there are two search engines?
Yes, and their results differ. A complete Japanese picture takes two runs, and the traffic for that part of the job doubles.
Do Japanese addresses cost more?
No. Prices are the same everywhere: residential from $1.00 per GB, datacenter from $1.15 per address per month, ISP from $1.90.
Why buy Japanese datacenter if the target is not Japanese?
For the routes. The Tokyo hub gives short paths to the US west coast and across the region, and that is sometimes the whole reason.