Drinking in Japan: Izakaya Basics, Nomikai Etiquette and Getting Home

Quick answer

Hi, I'm Miya, and I help newcomers settle into life in Japan. Drinking here is social far more than it is about the drink. At an izakaya, a small dish called otoshi arrives before you have ordered anything — that's the table charge in the form of food, not a mistake. The table usually orders a first round together, waits until everyone is holding a glass, and nobody sips before the kanpai. People top up each other's glasses rather than their own, food is shared from the middle, and the bill is normally split evenly. Not drinking is completely ordinary: order tea and join the toast. The drinking age is twenty, drink-driving is simply not done, and the end of the night — the split, the last train, the taxi — all runs through your phone.

How an izakaya actually works

An izakaya is a place to drink where the food matters, which is why it feels different from a bar. You'll be asked how many people are in your group at the door, then seated at a counter, a table, or a raised tatami room where your shoes come off. A towel arrives to wipe your hands, and then, before you have ordered anything, a small dish lands in front of each person. That is the otoshi, sometimes called tsukidashi. It is the house's seating charge expressed as food rather than as a line item, it varies from shop to shop, and it usually isn't something you can turn down. Knowing that in advance saves the confusion most newcomers feel on a first visit.

Ordering runs in rounds rather than all at once. Many places now hand you a tablet; others leave a paper menu and a call button on the table, and where there is no button you raise a hand and say sumimasen. Dishes come out whenever the kitchen finishes them, not in courses, and they are meant for the middle of the table. Take a little onto your own small plate rather than eating straight from the shared dish, and order another two or three things when the table starts to look empty. The first round of drinks is usually ordered together, so that everyone is holding something at the same moment — which is what the toast needs.

Toward the end you'll hear a last-order announcement, and at busy times the shop may have told you at the door how long the table is yours. Paying happens at the register by the entrance rather than at your seat: you carry over the slip that has been sitting in a holder on your table, or the staff bring it when you stand. Card and app payments are widely accepted in cities, though smaller and older places are still cash-only, so it's worth having notes on you. If you need a receipt for work, ask for a ryoshusho at the register and say who it should be made out to.

Kanpai, and pouring for other people

Nothing is drunk until the toast. Glasses arrive, someone — the host, the organiser, or whoever is most senior — says a short word, and everyone raises their glass on kanpai. If you take a sip before that moment nobody will scold you, but you'll notice you were the only one. When you clink with someone clearly senior to you, it's a small and well-known courtesy to hold your glass slightly lower than theirs. The same applies to a guest of honour. It takes half a second, and it is noticed kindly.

After that, the table pours for each other. You keep half an eye on the glasses near you, and when one is getting low you lift the bottle and offer. The person being poured for raises their glass to meet it, often steadying the base with a hand. Hold the bottle with both hands when you're pouring for someone senior, and use both hands on your glass when they pour for you. Nobody fills their own glass in a formal setting — that is the whole point of the custom: you get topped up because someone else is paying attention to you. Among friends all of this loosens considerably, and draught beer poured from the tap needs none of it.

Read it as attention rather than as a test. If you're slow and someone pours before you notice, that's fine. When you've had enough, leave your glass full: an untouched glass is the polite universal signal that you're done, and it works better than refusing out loud. You can also rest a hand lightly over the rim, say thank you, and switch to tea or water for the rest of the night. People move on immediately. Keeping one full beer in front of you all evening is a genuinely common strategy, and nobody is counting.

All-you-can-drink courses and splitting the bill

Group bookings are often made as a course: a fixed set of dishes with nomihodai, all-you-can-drink, attached for a set stretch of time. It is booked for the whole table rather than per person, it starts when the party starts, and a last order is called some minutes before it runs out. The drink list included in the course is narrower than the full menu, and you order one drink at a time rather than several at once. A tabehodai course does the same thing for food. It exists mostly to make the bill predictable for whoever is organising, which is why work parties nearly always use it.

The bill is then split evenly — warikan — regardless of who ate or drank what. One person pays the register total and everybody settles with them, and at work parties it's common for the most senior people to quietly cover more and for the newest staff to pay a reduced share. Settling used to mean handing over notes; now it usually means a transfer in a payment app, done at the table in a few seconds. Registers will sometimes split a bill across two or three cards, but don't count on it for a large group. Carrying some cash means you never have to ask.

The work nomikai

A nomikai is a drinking party with your colleagues, and it appears on the calendar at predictable moments: a welcome party for someone new, a send-off, the end of a big project, the year-end party in December. It is not part of your contract and it is not compulsory, but it is where a lot of quiet relationship-building happens, so it's worth going to some of them. Attendance is usually collected in a group chat or on a sheet weeks ahead, and answering promptly helps the organiser, who is often the most junior person in the room and has to book a table for a number they must confirm.

There is a seating order, even at a casual place. The seat furthest from the door is the kamiza and goes to the most senior person or to the guest; the seat nearest the door is the shimoza and tends to be taken by the youngest, because that's where the staff appear and where ordering gets handled. If someone gestures you to a seat, take it. Expect a short opening word and a kanpai before anything is touched, and at the end a closing word, sometimes finished with a single synchronised clap. Then comes the invitation to the nijikai, the second party at another place.

You can decline the nijikai. Almost everyone does at some point, and the last train is the reason nobody ever questions. The same goes for leaving the first party early or skipping it entirely: tell the organiser in advance rather than disappearing, thank them for arranging it, and that is genuinely the end of it. You don't owe anyone a medical explanation or an invented story. If you want a middle path, go for the first hour, make sure you've spoken to the people you came to speak to, and slip out at a natural break with a word to the organiser on your way.

Not drinking, and the lines you don't cross

Not drinking is easy here, and it's far more common than the stereotype suggests. Every izakaya has oolong tea, green tea, ginger ale, and soft drinks on the same menu page as the beer, and non-alcoholic beer, chuhai, and cocktails have become normal stock rather than an apologetic afterthought. Order one for the first round like everyone else and raise it for the toast — the glass is what matters, not the contents. 'I don't drink' is a complete sentence and people move straight on. Pressuring someone to drink has a name here, aruhara, and it is broadly understood as unacceptable rather than as a joke.

Two things, on the other hand, are not negotiable. The legal age for drinking is twenty, and shops and self-checkouts will ask you to confirm it, so carry ID. And nobody drinks and drives: the standard here is that you don't touch alcohol at all if you are driving. The law also reaches the people around the driver — providing the alcohol, lending the vehicle, or riding along with someone who has been drinking each carry penalties of their own. Bicycles count as vehicles too, so leave yours and walk. If you drove to the restaurant, arrange a taxi, a train, or a driver who isn't drinking before the first glass is poured.

Getting home, and the line that makes the night easy

Look at how an evening out actually runs and it is a phone from start to finish. The booking is made online or by calling the shop, and both want a Japanese number to hold the table. The organiser's group chat is where the place, the time, and every change of plan arrive. The split at the end goes through a payment app, and those apps verify you by SMS to a Japanese mobile number before they will move money. Then the last train time, the platform, and the transfer are all in a transit app — and if you've missed it, a taxi app that confirms your ride by phone.

That is the stretch of the night where borrowed wifi stops helping. The shop's connection ends at the door, and you're standing on a street corner at eleven at night deciding between a train you can still catch and a car you need to call. Having your own line means the group chat still reaches you after you leave, the payment app works where you're standing, and the map knows which station you're actually nearest to. Sorting this out is refreshingly simple: you apply online with your residence card, and eSIM-capable phones can often connect the same day, typically in about fifteen minutes.

Have a look at our setup guide for eligibility and the step-by-step, and confirm current terms on the page before you apply. After that the rest is just good habits: check the last train before the second round rather than after it, keep enough cash for a split that goes sideways, and remember that leaving early with a word to the organiser is completely normal. Go for the company, eat well, drink what you actually want, and get home comfortably. I'll be right here if you want a hand setting things up.