East Japan Railway (JR East) announced a 10-year plan Tuesday to dramatically revamp Suica services, including functions such as automatic walk-through ticket gates, cashless payments of over ¥20,000 and person-to-person money transfers. The company also plans to offer a subscription service.

Dubbing the initiative the “Suica Renaissance," the transport IC company plans to expand Suica beyond just a tool for transportation to becoming one for all payment-related necessities over the next decade.

Within the next 10 years, JR East will develop automated walk-through gate technology so that passengers can enter the train platform without having to tap their Suica card or phone on the ticket gates. For stations in more rural areas where there are no ticket gates, the company plans to use passengers' location information to track their transport fees.

For oversea travelers, JR East plans to launch the “Welcome Suica Mobile” app by March 2025 that will allow tourists to charge their Suica before arriving in Japan so they can use it seamlessly after landing at Narita or Haneda airports. The company says it will expand services over the next couple of years so that by fall of 2025, JR East Shinkansen tickets can be purchased on the app. It hopes to make the walk-through gates available for tourists as well in the future.

By fall 2026, JR East plans to further enhance its cashless payment services, which Suica helped pioneer in Japan. Notably, it will remove the current ¥20,000 limit on one-time purchases, allowing for higher-value transactions through code payment.

It also aims to introduce a function where payments can be made directly from person to person — similar to what can currently be done on services like PayPay or Venmo — which could be used in situations like splitting bills at restaurants.

With these new features, JR East hopes Suica will become a one-stop service that customers can use for most of their daily payments.

JR East is also looking to revamp the Suica app by 2028, most notably by introducing a subscription service where users can pay a monthly fee to get a certain percentage off for travel from their nearest station to other stations.

Over the next 10 years, the company also plans to allow Suica to be connected to a bank account so that payments accrued on the card can be paid after the fact, rather than the current model where it needs to be charged before usage.