Seven Bank ATMs Are Coming to FamilyMart Stores Across Japan

A traveller who has already worked out which convenience store takes their card can be forgiven for not noticing when that arrangement quietly shifts. In June 2026, it did. Seven Bank, which runs the ATMs inside every 7-Eleven in Japan, began installing its own machines inside FamilyMart as well, the first branches switching over on June 1. The three chains visitors encounter everywhere, 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and Lawson, go by one shorthand in Japanese: konbini. They overlap enough that most visitors treat them interchangeably, until the reason for walking in is an ATM rather than a rice ball.

The change traces back to a capital and business agreement Seven Bank signed with Itochu Corporation, FamilyMart's parent company, in September 2025, with the ATM installation contract itself finalized the following March. The plan calls for roughly 16,000 Seven Bank machines across FamilyMart's network, replacing the chain's existing e-net and Japan Post Bank ATMs over about four years, and reaching most of the country by around 2030.

Neither company has framed this as a tourism initiative. Seven Bank's own first-quarter earnings, reported in August, described the FamilyMart rollout in the language of cost efficiency and market share, and the wider goal, once installation is complete, is for Seven Bank's combined network across 7-Eleven and FamilyMart to overtake Japan Post Bank as the country's largest ATM operator. For a visitor, the practical result is simpler: a machine already known for accepting foreign cards is spreading into a second major chain, which matters more than the corporate reasoning behind it.

The food counter is what most visitors photograph, and what most articles about konbini dwell on: onigiri wrapped in seaweed with tuna mayonnaise, salmon or pickled plum; sandwiches on crustless white bread; bento boxes; a hot case of fried chicken, pork cutlets and steamed buns; and, in winter, a simmering pot of oden, the fish cakes and daikon that sit stewing near the register.

It is also the least useful thing to plan around. What is actually on the shelf changes by region, by season and by the particular store, a 7-Eleven in Sapporo and one in Naha stock differently, and limited-edition items rotate every few weeks regardless. Better to treat the food case as something to discover on arrival than something to research beforehand. The decisions worth making ahead of time concern money, not food.

All three chains take major credit and debit cards and the IC cards, Suica, PASMO and ICOCA, that most visitors are already using for trains. For a small purchase, the IC card is usually faster than either cash or a card chip: a tap rather than a signature or a wait.

The catch is that an IC card only works with money already loaded onto it, so it fails quietly rather than obviously once the balance runs out, usually at the till rather than somewhere convenient. Carrying a little cash alongside it is less old-fashioned caution than a hedge against the rare shop, generally a small or rural one, that has not caught up to cards at all.

A surprising amount of what a konbini does has nothing to do with food. Many FamilyMart and 7-Eleven branches will take a suitcase for Yamato's takkyubin courier service, a straightforward way to send luggage ahead to a hotel or the airport rather than hauling it onto a train, provided it goes two days before you need it. Oversized bags and same-day requests usually need a hotel desk or a proper shipping office instead.

Lawson's Loppi terminals and FamilyMart's Famiport machines can also print tickets for concerts, sports fixtures and some attractions bought online, a service most first-time visitors never think to look for. What a konbini generally will not do is tax-free shopping: most everyday branches are not registered for it, and a department store, electronics chain or drugstore remains the more reliable stop for that. Japan is also replacing its point-of-sale tax exemption with an after-departure refund system from November 1, 2026, a change our money guide covers in full and one that applies to any eligible purchase, konbini or otherwise.

A konbini earns its place at specific moments rather than constantly: breakfast before an early train, a hot meal when the restaurant queue is too long, cash between bank visits, an IC card topped up at eleven at night. It does not replace a sit-down meal, a pharmacy, or a proper counter for a full-size suitcase, and, as above, it cannot be assumed to be open all night or able to handle a tax-free purchase.

There is a wider context to this that is easy to miss from inside a single shop. Japan Tourism Agency figures show visitors spent an average of about ¥244,000 each in the second quarter of 2026, up 3.3 percent on the year before, even as the Japan National Tourism Organization recorded roughly 21.1 million arrivals in the first half of the year, about 2 percent fewer than the same period in 2025. Visitors are arriving in slightly smaller numbers and spending more once they do, and the convenience store remains one of the places that spending actually happens. Knowing which chain, which machine and which service applies at the store in front of you is a small piece of planning, but it is the piece that saves the ten minutes that matter.