Credit card statements and ETC usage certificates under Japan's Electronic Books Preservation Act — can they stand in for a receipt?

If you paid a business expense with a credit card, is the card company's statement enough without a receipt? Do you have to collect every ETC usage certificate for tolls? This page sets out what National Tax Agency documents say, and how to name the files you keep.

Updated 2026-10-10. The National Tax Agency documents and the ETC usage inquiry service notices were checked up to this date.

Summary

A credit card statement generally does not count as a qualified invoice. To claim input tax credit, you must keep invoices or receipts separately from the statement.
The statement data you view on the card company's website is itself electronic transaction data, so it is kept under the Electronic Books Preservation Act's requirements.
For expressway tolls paid with an ETC credit card, keeping the statement plus one usage certificate for any single transaction per expressway company can be enough.
If you qualify for the small-amount special rule, tolls under ¥10,000 including tax need only be entered in your books.

A statement alone cannot stand in for a receipt

The National Tax Agency's Q&A on the invoice system (Q103) says a credit card statement generally does not count as a qualified invoice. It is not a document the seller prepares and hands over, and it does not show the content of the transaction or the tax rate applied.

That does not make the statement data unnecessary. The National Tax Agency's Q&A on electronic transactions (Q5) explains that credit card statement data is itself electronic transaction information and must be kept. If you received invoice or receipt data for individual transactions, keep that too, separately from the statement.

Input tax credit requires keeping invoices and similar documents. Only transactions specified by law can be handled with books alone (Q5).

You may not need every ETC usage certificate

For expressway tolls paid with an ETC credit card, the rule is to download the usage certificate from the ETC usage inquiry service once the toll is final, and keep it. When there is so much use that keeping all of them is hard, the following is accepted (Q103).

Keep the credit card statement (it must show each expressway use one by one; statement data showing the date, content and amount is fine), together with a usage certificate for any single transaction per expressway company.
If you repeatedly use roads of the same expressway company within the period the service lets you download from (15 months), you do not need to download a usage certificate; keeping the credit card statement alone is enough.

You do not need to get a usage certificate every month; once per company is enough (provided the expressway company does not stop its registration). If you pass through another company's road on the way, keep the certificate of the company that issues it for the whole trip, which is the company of the toll gate where you exit. For a company whose use is more than 15 months apart, you do need to download one.

A usage certificate for a single transaction that you download is kept under the Electronic Books Preservation Act's requirements (Q46). You do not need to have certificates issued, and keep them, for tolls you have not received them for.

Amounts that carry no consumption tax, such as the airport access bridge usage tax, are not eligible for input tax credit.

Cards other than the ETC credit card

This handling applies to ETC credit cards. For ETC corporate cards and ETC personal cards, the invoice issued once a month is in a format that supports the invoice system (ETC usage inquiry service notice, 2023-09-15). For corporate cards, check the details with the issuing road company.

The small-amount special rule (under ¥10,000 including tax, until 30 September 2029, for businesses whose taxable sales in the base period are ¥100 million or less, and so on) is judged per transaction. If you qualify, tolls under ¥10,000 need only be entered in your books.

On 2026-08-13 the ETC usage inquiry service reported that usage certificate PDFs may not display correctly in Google Chrome. It advises clearing the cache, or using a browser other than Chrome, such as Microsoft Edge.

File names for what you keep

When you save a statement PDF or an ETC usage certificate, put the transaction date, counterparty and amount in the file name, in the same order for every file. Example: 20260930_EastNipponExpressway_2400.pdf

A statement PDF is one file per billing unit, not one transaction. Decide beforehand what to use for the date and amount (the closing date or the payment date; the billed amount), and keep it the same every month.

Dencho Rename reads the date, amount and counterparty inside a PDF and gives every file a name in the same order. We have not yet tried statement PDFs or ETC usage certificates. Reading is not perfect, so check the table before you save.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just keep a printout of the statement on paper?

The statement you view on the card company's website is electronic transaction data, so keeping only a paper printout is not enough. Keep it as data (Q5).

How many files can I process at once?

On the free plan, up to 5 files can be in the table. After saving, clear them from the table and process the next 5. The paid plan (480 yen a month or 3,980 yen a year) has no limit, and you can line up a few hundred files at once.

Is anything needed besides the file name?

The file name covers the search requirement. Keeping electronic transaction data also requires measures against tampering, such as setting internal rules and following them (the search requirement explained, file naming rules).

Try Dencho Rename

No sign-up needed. For PDFs with embedded text, you can read and rename up to 5 files at a time for free.

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