By Kiuko Notoya

Reporting from Tokyo

Published Sept. 9, 2025

Updated Sept. 10, 2025

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In Japan, 7-Eleven and its competitors are more than a place to buy a six-pack or pick up a pint of milk. Every day, millions of residents shop for food, send packages and pay their bills at over 55,000 convenience stores in the country.

Japan is a magnet for tourists, and convenience stores are often a highlight of a trip. Thousands of people have posted TikTok videos showing off their Japanese convenience store purchases. One of those videos, by the singer Sabrina Carpenter when she visited Japan on tour in 2023, has received over 600,000 likes.

There are many other convenience store chains in Japan, including FamilyMart and Lawson, but 7-Eleven is the largest and most recognizable. It has nearly 22,000 stores across all 47 prefectures.

But 7-Eleven’s biggest growth is likely to come outside Japan. Seven & i Holdings, the company that operates the chain, plans to invest $13.6 billion in 7-Eleven’s global expansion in the next few years, focusing primarily on North America.

Here is what you need to know about 7-Eleven and Japan’s convenience store phenomenon.

What is 7-Eleven’s history?

It began in 1927 as an American convenience store chain, operated by Southland Corporation, in Dallas. It opened its first store in Japan in 1974 in the Toyosu neighborhood in eastern Tokyo, featuring popular American items like hamburgers. Within two years, it had expanded to 100 stores.

In 1975, 7-Eleven started operating 24 hours at a store in Fukushima Prefecture, a feature that is now standard in most of its locations. The chain continued to expand rapidly, and by 1993 it had 5,000 stores across Japan.

A Japanese supermarket operator, Ito-Yokado, and 7-Eleven Japan acquired 70 percent of Southland’s shares in 1991. In 2005, 7-Eleven became wholly Japanese-o

Over the years, 7-Eleven has continued to expand both domestically and internationally, and now has more stores than any other retailer in the world, with over 83,000 across 19 countries. It has over 13,000 in the United States and Canada.

Exactly what is different about convenience stores in Japan?

For many Japanese people, convenience stores are a lifeline. In addition to 7-Eleven’s vast network of stores, FamilyMart has over 16,000 locations and Lawson nearly 15,000 in Japan. They all offer a range of services. There are the ready-to-eat meals, toiletries and basic clothing you might find in American convenience stores. But in Japan, they also let customers print documents and buy tickets for concerts, museums and long-distance buses.

In rural parts of Japan, aging populations and shrinking work forces have led to the closure of shopping malls, post offices and banks. That leaves convenience stores as often the closest and sometimes the only shops and bank A.T.M.s nearby.

Japanese convenience stores have become places where anyone can visit, even without buying anything, said Gavin Whitelaw, executive director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard.

Dr. Whitelaw’s research focuses on convenience stores, and he has worked at several of them in Japan. He said he had witnessed moments that reflected the stores’ role as part of the public infrastructure. He saw a young child completing a first solo errand, with the help of a store clerk, and a woman who sought safety from a stalker.

When natural disasters strike, convenience stores provide essential supplies and offer refuge and information to the community.

“They are open and willing to go the extra mile and provide a safe space,” Dr. Whitelaw said. “People feel a certain sense of affinity and a sense of relief when they see these stores.”

What is it like inside a Japanese convenience store?

They are clean and bright and meticulously organized. But it’s easy to get distracted roaming a convenience store’s shelves, which are stocked with fresh boxed lunches, sandwiches, onigiri rice balls, salads and desserts. Freezers are packed with dozens of kinds of ice cream.

Hot foods are placed near the cashier: fried chicken, croquettes, steamed buns and, in the winter, stews. Most stores have coffee and smoothie machines, and customers can take a cup of ice or frozen fruit from the freezer and watch as the machine prepares their drink.

Many convenience stores also have tables, as well as hot water dispensers and microwaves, for those who don’t want to go home to eat.

Japanese convenience stores usually offer seasonal and regional items. In spring, there are desserts and drinks with sakura cherry blossom flavors. An example of a regional food is the Okinawa Soba, a thick wheat noodle served in broth and topped with pork, a local specialty stocked at 7-Eleven locations in Okinawa.

Aside from the food, convenience store are typically full of magazines and manga comics, travel-size toiletries, phone chargers and earphones, and stationery supplies.

In Japan, convenience stores are a place to shop. Or a place to kill time.

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