This practice has changed, but Japanese mail-order brides still keep marrying Americans and other Westerners. If you consider finding a wife in Japan, you’re already in the right place. Here, you’ll be able to start your dating journey.
3 best sites to meet Japanese brides
Editor’s Choice
Things to know before mail ordering a bride from Japan
Let’s start with the key facts about Japanese mail-order wives and the Japanese segment of the mail-order bride market.
- Japanese brides are real and their number is growing. Over 6,000 Japanese women marry foreigners yearly, and around 30% of them started families with Western partners.
- A Japanese mail-order bride isn’t motivated by financial problems or the desire to migrate to another country as is. It’s about finding a decent partner overseas.
- Most frequently, the decision to immigrate is explained by personal preferences, demographic situation, and cultural impact.
- Most frequently, Japanese women for marriage are searching for foreign partners on niche websites designed for Asian single women and Westerners only.
- The best mail-order bride sites and dating sites in this segment of the market are SakuraDate, Naomidate, and EasternHoneys.
- Men can’t buy a bride. They can only legally marry a Japanese bride after she applies for a visa.
- There’s no such thing as an accurate cost of a bride. But most men spend around $6,000 to find a Japanese mail-order wife.
Want to know more insights before you start your dating journey? Then read on—you’ll find a lot more useful information, from the calculations of the costs of finding a Japanese mail bride to the legal aspects of marrying a woman from Japan below.
Japanese mail-order brides – Who are these women?
Some believe that mail-order brides are different from all other women in their home country, as well as from those foreign ladies who arrive in Western countries on marriage visas. It’s not exactly true. Take a look at the definition below to find out who the so-called “Japan brides” really are.
“A Japanese bride is a single woman who is intentionally looking for a foreign husband in another country instead of focusing on local guys. That may be explained by multiple factors (we’re going to discuss women’s motivations in more detail below), but a mail-order bride from Japan is never driven by financial expectations or the fact of immigration as is. She wants to find a decent, truly compatible partner and uses niche dating websites to meet her final goal.”
Here are some additional facts about ‘Japan mail order brides’:
- Japanese women outnumber men by around 3 million.
- Most prefer to get married at the age of 25.
- Over 65% of women in their mid-thirties are single.
- Over 54% of Japanese women are employed.
So, a typical Japanese mail-order bride is a single woman attracted to foreigners and ready to migrate to another country if necessary. She’s in her mid-twenties to her late-thirties and she already has a career. As you can see, that differs from the stereotypical image of a typical Asian mail-order wife.
Can you buy Japanese women for marriage?
You can’t buy a Japanese wife. Companies and sites that offer men to literally mail-order Japanese brides are just scams. Moreover, it’s getting harder and harder to find agencies that would connect men with foreign brides. They are just more expensive and harder to find.
Men who want to get a Japanese wife without leaving their home countries usually join niche dating websites. Though they are never free, a user doesn’t pay for a girlfriend but for credits to spend on chatting, video calls, etc. Only you decide when to meet your girlfriend offline, and you’ll need to arrange an independent trip. Most dating sites don’t provide such services anymore.
Is it legal to mail-order a Japanese bride?
It depends on what is meant by “mail order”. As we’ve noted previously, there’s no way to order a Japanese woman from a catalog, pay a fixed price, and just get married. But in the modern industry, the term “mail order” actually means finding a wife on a niche website with foreign women for marriage. Considering that, the answer is yes. A man can mail-order a Japanese bride.
How to get a Japanese mail-order wife?
There may be strategies, but one of them will still be more effective than others. Below, we share the step-by-step algorithm, but you can improve or adapt it based on your preferences, needs, and relationship goals. Even if you don’t change it though, it’s likely to work quite well:
- Do deep research on Japanese culture. Due to technology, every man can find a Japanese wife quite easily. The question is whether you need it or not. If you don’t want to go wrong with the choice, read articles, research, and books about Japan. That will help you develop realistic expectations. If you aren’t ready to invest that much time, focus on the personality traits and qualities of Japanese women and their views of family.
- Analyze the Japanese segment of the online dating market. Try to find 5-10 niche websites—platforms where you can mail order a Japanese bride or dating sites for Asian women and Americans/Europeans. Once you make sure that you have enough platforms with the right target audiences on your list, move on to the next step.
- Do background research on top dating sites. At this stage, you can just check the sites’ reputations. Read some reviews, see the sites, and read the FAQs. That will allow you to see which sites won’t work, which are just scams, and which may be worth using.
- Join the 2-3 best websites to see what they have to offer. Registration is always free, and most top platforms give some bonuses, so once you set up an account, you’ll be able to use both free and premium features. Just browse profiles, chat with someone, and see how the systems work. That will allow you to choose the best website that suits your needs.
- Set up a competitive profile. At this stage (when you are just testing the site, profile quality isn’t so important), you should make every effort to attract Japanese girls. Your account is your Japanese wife finder. Share photos, write a detailed bio, and add all the details. Do everything to ensure that a Japanese woman who browses your page will get all the most important information about you and even more.
- Search for the best matches. If you choose a high-quality site, there’ll be matching and search features aimed at helping you find a compatible long-term partner easily. Use them, read all the information on members’ profiles carefully, and don’t focus on photos only. The pickier you are, the fewer credits or coins you’ll spend on communicating with incompatible people.
- Communicate until you find a girlfriend. Chat with Japanese women, use different communication tools to build deeper emotional connections, make video and phone calls, and focus on your best matches. If something goes wrong, move on. The final goal is to find the one, a special woman, and start a long-distance relationship first.
- Meet your girlfriend offline. Once you both feel ready, meet each other! In most cases, it’s a man who goes to Japan. Book the tickets and keep in mind that though trips are more expensive, a real date is the only thing that will help both of you understand where this relationship is going.
- Build a relationship and propose. At this stage, couples just keep dating. Most maintain long-distance relationships and meet from time to time. Of course, in the mail-order bride world, this period doesn’t last for too long. We’re sure that once you feel ready, you’ll simply propose to a woman and take your relationship to a fundamentally new level.
- Help your bride to apply for a visa. You can’t just marry a foreign citizen as easily as you would marry someone from your home country. For example, if you’re an American and you and your bride want to get married in the US, you’ll need to file the petition for an Alien Fiance(e), and your partner will need to apply for a K-1 visa.
- Make your relationship official. Once the visa is approved, your bride will be able to go to the US, marry you within 3 months, and stay to build a family (after the wedding, she’ll be able to apply for adjustment of status).
That’s how the system works. You can find a Japanese wife online, but you’ll need to build a genuine relationship. And that’s the good news. After all, that’s the main reason why modern mail-order bride marriages last over decades, and most never end with divorce.
How much does it cost to mail order a Japanese Bride?
How to get a Japanese wife? Now you know the answer. Another important question, however, is how much that journey will cost you. As we’ve noted previously, it’s impossible to calculate the accurate price for every man just because there are too many variables, and a lot will depend on personal choices.
Still, we can distinguish major expenses and estimate the average cost of getting a mail-order bride.
| Expenses | Min. Cost |
| Niche online dating sites (credits for around 6 months) | $600 |
| Round trip flight to Japan (New York-Tokyo) | $800 |
| 2 weeks in Japan (mid-range hotel, meals, entertainment, transportation) | $1,600 |
| Visa for a bride | $1,000 |
| Total: | $4,000 |
Again, it’s a minimum price. In reality, it’s rarely that low. It usually ranges from 6,000-8,000 mostly because of longer or more frequent trips. How to cut costs or at least not spend more? You’ll find some tips below.
- The cost of online dating services. On niche sites, you can’t just get a monthly plan. You need to buy credits, and you’ll spend them on various services. Hence, the total cost will depend not only on the time you spend on the platform but also on your choice of communication features, number of women you are chatting with, gifts you send, etc. $100 is the price paid by an average user who doesn’t contact random women just to chat with them but is still communicating with members to find the one.
- The costs of trips. Of course, if you prefer luxury hotels and fancy restaurants, staying in Japan will cost you much more than $1,600 for two weeks. Also, we’d recommend considering the time when you are buying the tickets, as well as the frequency of your trips. Fewer longer trips are cheaper than shorter yet more frequent trips overall.
- Additional spending on romance. That’s the additional expenditure. You don’t have to buy a lot of pricey gifts, but we’d still recommend adding at least $1,000 that you can spend on gifts for your girlfriend during the long-distance period.
Note that the cost of a visa is nearly fixed. It’s around $1,000 in the United States (we’re talking about a K-1 visa), but it can get higher if your partner has children and they are migrating with her.
Why is Japan one of the best Asian countries to find a wife?
A lot of men agree that Japan is actually the best Asian country to find a wife. Isn’t it all because Japanese girls are really beautiful? Well, of course, that matters. But it’s definitely not the main reason why Americans and Europeans often choose to live their lives with Japanese women.
There are more important things, namely:
- A more serious attitude towards love and strong family values. For Japanese women, love is often more rational, and that’s not a bad thing. It has nothing to do with hormones or only passion and nothing but passion. It’s a deeper feeling, and it makes relationships last longer. Family values at large are very strong. Most local girls are ready to invest in relationships to make them stronger and healthier.
- Femininity, ability to compromise, manners. That’s not only about that Japanese charm (we’re not going to deny it makes local women even more irresistible) but also about wisdom. Many Japanese girls know when it’s time to stand on their own, when it’s time to give up certain things, and when it’s time to compromise. Don’t expect them to be submissive though.
- Strength, intelligence, and self-awareness of local women. Speaking of submissiveness, Japanese women are often the living opposite of it. They are smart, well-educated, and more independent than most Westerners think.
Is that what you were looking for in a relationship? If yes, maybe you should find a Japanese wife.
Why do Japanese women become mail-order brides?
The motivation of men is clear. But why are Japanese women looking for American men or other Westerners? Most often, the reasons are as follows:
- They can’t find a partner in Japan. As we’ve noted previously, there’s a gender imbalance in Japan. Also, the number of herbivore men (guys, who don’t want to have relationships, sex, and families) is growing. Sometimes, Japanese girls see intermarriage as an easy way to solve the problem.
- Curiosity, rebellious nature, and adventurousness. Japanese society is rather conservative, or its older generation is rather conservative, to be exact. Younger people want to try something new, have a desire for modernity, and consider relationships with someone from another culture.
- Attraction to foreigners. Dating foreigners isn’t as trendy in Japan as it is, for example, in China, but there are still quite many local women who believe foreigners are attractive, manly, and reliable.
Of course, the motivation of every girl is explained by her personal experiences, too.
Meet Japanese brides for marriage!
Everyone can find a wife in Japan, and now you know exactly how to do it. Choose the site, set up an account, and start your exciting dating journey!
Written byJohn Millerstone, Author
We decided to create this project because we’re tired of the situation in the industry. 10 years ago, there were like 40% good sites and 60% bad ones. Today, the ratio is more like 10% to 90%, and that’s not how I want it to be. I mean, it kills me that when an American man types “mail order brides” on Google, there is a 90% possibility that he won’t even find a good dating site, let alone find a bride. I want to change that.
Edited byPhilippe Berry, Contributing Editor
I'm going to tell you everything I know, mes amis. We'll spot online dating charlatans, test the dating sites together, and, of course, with me, you'll learn everything about traveling—I have had 33 trips since 2009, and I think traveling is the best part of online dating. I'll tell you how to save money, how to enjoy a trip, and how to have a good date in a foreign country. I know something about that, too!
