Last updated: July 12, 2026 — Fee data verified July 2026
I live in Japan and use these proxy services regularly — partly to buy things for friends overseas, partly to keep this site’s numbers honest. This comparison is based on the fee schedules on each company’s official pages as of July 2026, cross-checked against what users report on Trustpilot and collector forums.
One thing up front: “which proxy is best?” has no single answer, and anyone giving you one is selling something. Each of the big four is good at a different kind of order — Buyee for auctions, ZenMarket as the transparent all-rounder, Neokyo for cheap multi-item hauls, FROM JAPAN for a single mid-to-high-value store item. This guide is organized around that.
TL;DR: The Comparison Table
| Buyee | ZenMarket | Neokyo | FROM JAPAN | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service fee (as of July 2026) | ¥500 per order (raised from ¥300 in April 2026) | ¥500 per item; ¥800 for Mercari items and JDirectItems Auction bids | ¥350 per item (raised from ¥250 in Sept 2025); domestic shipping included | ¥300 per item plan fee (capped at ¥800 per order from the same store); 0% commission on major stores, 5% on auctions and “other site” requests |
| Trustpilot rating | 3.6 (“Average”) | low-to-mid 4s | 4.6 | 4.4 |
| Best at | Yahoo! Auctions auto-bidding, widest site coverage | Transparent pricing, careful packing, multilingual support | Cheap multi-item hauls, free consolidation | Low fees on single store items ¥10,000+ |
| Worst at | Packaging, shipping-quote accuracy, support | Mercari fees now steep (¥800/item) | Slower interface, smaller operation | Two-payment flow confuses beginners; 5% auction fee adds up |
| US tariffs | DDP; category-based prepaid duty since April 21, 2026 | DDP for US since Dec 17, 2025 (courier only) | DDP via courier options | DDP via courier options |
| Free storage | 30 days | ~60 days | 45 days | 45 days |
Fee sources: Buyee fees · ZenMarket fees · Neokyo fees · FROM JAPAN fees
What Changed in 2026 (and Why Old Guides Are Wrong)
If you’re reading a proxy comparison written before mid-2025, throw it out. The ground has shifted three times since then:
Buyee raised its fee 67% and got acquired. On April 1, 2026, Buyee’s per-order service fee went from ¥300 to ¥500. Its parent company BEENOS was also taken over by LY Corporation (the LINE/Yahoo! JAPAN group) — the tender offer completed in 2025, and Buyee is now effectively the in-house proxy for Yahoo! Auctions. Deeper auction integration is likely; the era of Buyee undercutting everyone on fees is over.
The US de minimis exemption is still gone, and everything moved to DDP. The $800 duty-free threshold for US imports was suspended in August 2025 and remains suspended as of July 2026. After the Supreme Court struck down the original IEEPA tariffs in February 2026, the administration replaced them with a roughly 10% across-the-board surcharge — so US buyers currently pay about 10% duty on Japanese parcels, down from ~15%. All four proxies responded by moving to DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): you prepay the duty at checkout instead of getting a surprise bill from the courier. Buyee charged a flat 15.5% surcharge from August 2025, then switched to category-based duty rates on April 21, 2026. ZenMarket introduced DDP for US orders on December 17, 2025, which requires courier shipping (UPS, FedEx, or ECMS). One caveat: the legal basis for the current 10% rate expires on July 24, 2026, and a replacement rate (a proposed 12.5%) is still being finalized — so treat any duty figure in this article as “current as of publication, check before you pay.”
Mercari launched its own global app. Mercari’s official cross-border app reached the US in June 2026, letting Americans buy from Mercari Japan directly with no proxy fee. For Mercari specifically, that’s now worth checking first — especially since ZenMarket raised its Mercari fee to ¥800 per item and Buyee’s ¥500-per-order fee hits hardest on cheap Mercari finds. Proxies still matter for Mercari when you want consolidation with items from other sites; we break the whole trade-off down in Mercari’s Global App vs proxy services.
Buyee: The Auction Specialist With an Asterisk
Fees (as of July 2026): ¥500 per order. Optional protection plans from ¥0 (Lite, no protection) to ¥500 (Standard/Insured). Consolidation costs extra. A ¥2,800 customs clearance commission applies to shipments over ¥200,000. US orders get category-based prepaid duty added at payment. Official fee page.
Buyee is the biggest proxy by a wide margin — over six million overseas users — and it covers more Japanese sites than anyone else. Its killer feature is the Yahoo! Auctions integration: real automatic sniping with a bid ceiling you set, which fires in the closing seconds. If you hunt auction-only items (out-of-print doujinshi, vintage toys, retro game lots), this tool alone justifies an account. With Buyee now inside the same corporate group as Yahoo! JAPAN, that integration is only going to deepen.
Now the asterisk. Buyee’s Trustpilot rating sits at 3.6 — “Average,” and the lowest of the four. The complaint patterns are consistent enough to call structural rather than bad luck: shipping quotes far above the initial estimate (oversized boxes inflate dimensional weight), packaging that collectors on MyFigureCollection have bluntly called atrocious, consolidation requests not executed as specified, and template-response support that makes claims exhausting to pursue. Most orders complete fine — but when something goes wrong, Buyee is where users report the least satisfying resolution.
Use Buyee when: you need auction sniping, or the item only exists on a site other proxies don’t cover. Skip it when: you’re consolidating a fragile multi-item haul and packaging quality matters.
ZenMarket: The Transparent All-Rounder
Fees (as of July 2026): ¥500 per item for most stores (Amazon Japan, Rakuten, and others). ¥800 per item for Mercari (since October 1, 2025) and ¥800 per bid on JDirectItems Auction (since May 1, 2026). Packing materials free; roughly 60 days of free storage. US orders ship DDP via courier. Official fee page.
ZenMarket, founded by a Ukrainian team and based in Osaka, has built its reputation on exactly the things Buyee gets criticized for: costs shown clearly before you commit, careful packing, photo services, tracking and insurance included on shipments, and responsive multilingual support. Its Trustpilot score sits in the low-to-mid 4s across more than 9,000 reviews. Their public shipping calculator is genuinely useful even if you end up ordering elsewhere.
The 2025–2026 fee changes dented its value proposition for secondhand hunting, though. At ¥800 per Mercari item, a five-item Mercari haul costs ¥4,000 in service fees alone — where Neokyo would charge ¥1,750. And ZenMarket isn’t immune to the standard proxy complaints; a minority of reviewers report the same shipping-estimate gaps and consolidation friction you see industry-wide. The difference is frequency and how disputes get handled, not immunity.
Use ZenMarket when: you want predictable, clearly itemized costs and solid packing across a mix of stores. Skip it when: your haul is mostly Mercari — Neokyo or Mercari’s own global app will beat it on fees.
Neokyo: The Budget Pick for Multi-Item Hauls
Fees (as of July 2026): ¥350 per item, which includes domestic shipping to their warehouse (raised from ¥250 in September 2025). Consolidation is free. Packing fee: ¥500 base, plus ¥150 per kilogram over 2 kg. 45 days of free storage. Official fee page.
Neokyo is the smallest operation of the four and the one most people haven’t heard of — which is odd, because it holds the highest Trustpilot rating of the group at 4.6, with roughly 83% five-star reviews out of about 10,000. The math is simple: the lowest per-item fee, domestic shipping folded into that fee rather than billed separately, and free consolidation. For the classic otaku order — eight small Mercari and Suruga-ya items, none over ¥2,000, all going into one box — nobody else comes close on fees. There’s also an active support Discord with over 7,000 members, which in practice answers questions faster than most proxies’ ticket systems.
The trade-offs are real but modest. The interface is more barebones than ZenMarket’s; some listings require manual Buy Requests rather than one-click checkout, which adds a processing step. It’s a smaller company, so peak seasons (post-Wonder Festival, holiday rushes) can slow purchasing and packing. And the ¥350 fee applies per item, so it scales linearly — on a single expensive item it’s fine, but it’s on cheap-item volume that Neokyo shines relative to Buyee’s per-order model plus consolidation charges.
Use Neokyo when: you’re buying many low-priced items and consolidating. Skip it when: you need hand-holding UI polish or same-day purchasing guarantees during peak weeks.
FROM JAPAN: The Cheapest Route for a Single Big Item
Fees (as of July 2026): a plan fee of ¥300 per item, capped at ¥800 per order from the same store. Commission is 0% for major stores (Rakuten, Amazon Japan, Yahoo! Shopping) and 5% for Yahoo! Auctions and requests from other sites. Payment happens in two steps: Charge 1 covers the item price; Charge 2 covers international shipping, plan fees, and everything else. Official fee page.
FROM JAPAN’s structure looks convoluted next to a flat fee, but for one specific — and common — scenario it’s the cheapest of the four: a single item in the ¥10,000–¥40,000 range from a major store. A ¥15,000 figure from Rakuten costs ¥300 in fees at FROM JAPAN versus ¥500 at Buyee or ZenMarket and ¥850 at Neokyo (fee plus packing). Small differences, but they compound if you order monthly. Its Trustpilot rating of 4.4 is solidly in the trusted tier, and it’s one of the few proxies with smooth Amazon Japan handling.
The weaknesses: the two-charge payment flow regularly confuses first-timers (“why am I paying twice?” is the most common support question), and the 5% commission on auctions means a ¥40,000 Yahoo! Auctions win costs ¥2,000 in commission on top of the plan fee — making it the most expensive of the four for exactly the auction use case where Buyee is strongest. There are also scattered reports of final shipping quotes landing well above initial estimates, a complaint no proxy fully escapes.
Use FROM JAPAN when: you’re buying one mid-to-high-value item from a store. Skip it when: you’re bidding on auctions or want a single combined payment.
What You’d Actually Pay: Three Scenarios
These are rough estimates for a US buyer, calculated July 2026. Assumptions: courier/ECMS shipping at typical published rates for the stated weight, US duty estimated at a flat 10% of item value, and no optional services. Actual shipping depends on box dimensions (this is where proxies differ most in practice — a badly packed box can cost more than any fee difference), and duty rates may change after July 24, 2026. Exchange reference: roughly ¥161 = US$1. If your cart doesn’t look like any of these three, run your own numbers through our proxy fee calculator, which prices all four services against the order shape you actually have.
Scenario 1: ¥5,000 haul — four small Mercari items, consolidated, ~1 kg (est. shipping ¥3,000)
| Service fees | Est. shipping | Est. US duty (10%) | Est. total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neokyo | ¥1,900 (4 × ¥350 + ¥500 packing) | ¥3,000 | ¥500 | ~¥10,400 (≈$65) |
| FROM JAPAN | ~¥1,450 (4 × ¥300 + 5%) | ¥3,000 | ¥500 | ~¥9,950 (≈$62)* |
| Buyee | ~¥2,500 (4 × ¥500 + consolidation) | ¥3,000 | ¥500 | ~¥11,000 (≈$68) |
| ZenMarket | ¥3,200 (4 × ¥800, Mercari rate) | ¥3,000 | ¥500 | ~¥11,700 (≈$73) |
*FROM JAPAN’s on-paper fees are low here, but its shipping quotes for consolidated parcels trend higher in user reports; treat Neokyo as the safer budget pick for this pattern.
Scenario 2: ¥15,000 single figure from Rakuten, ~1.5 kg (est. shipping ¥4,000)
| Service fees | Est. shipping | Est. US duty (10%) | Est. total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FROM JAPAN | ¥300 | ¥4,000 | ¥1,500 | ~¥20,800 (≈$129) |
| Buyee | ¥500 | ¥4,000 | ¥1,500 | ~¥21,000 (≈$130) |
| ZenMarket | ¥500 | ¥4,000 | ¥1,500 | ~¥21,000 (≈$130) |
| Neokyo | ¥850 (¥350 + ¥500 packing) | ¥4,000 | ¥1,500 | ~¥21,350 (≈$133) |
At this price point the fee gap is noise — a few hundred yen on a ¥21,000 order. Choose on packaging reputation and quote accuracy, not fees.
Scenario 3: ¥40,000 Yahoo! Auctions grail, ~2 kg (est. shipping ¥5,000)
| Service fees | Est. shipping | Est. US duty (10%) | Est. total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buyee | ¥500 (Lite plan) | ¥5,000 | ¥4,000 | ~¥49,500 (≈$307) |
| ZenMarket | ¥800 (auction-bid rate) | ¥5,000 | ¥4,000 | ~¥49,800 (≈$309) |
| Neokyo | ¥850 (¥350 + packing) | ¥5,000 | ¥4,000 | ~¥49,850 (≈$310) |
| FROM JAPAN | ¥2,300 (¥300 + 5% commission) | ¥5,000 | ¥4,000 | ~¥51,300 (≈$319) |
Buyee wins on paper and has the best sniping tool — auctions are its home turf. The counterweight: for a ¥40,000 fragile grail, Buyee’s packaging track record is the risk you’re pricing in. Some collectors deliberately pay ZenMarket’s extra ¥300 for that reason. That’s a defensible trade.
The bigger takeaway from all three tables: fees are the smallest line item. Shipping plus the ~10% US duty is typically 40–100% of the item price on small orders. Any proxy choice matters less than consolidating well and picking the right shipping method out of Japan.
So Which One Should You Use?
- Many cheap items (under ~¥3,000 each), consolidated: Neokyo first, ZenMarket if your haul isn’t Mercari-heavy or if you want the slicker interface. For Mercari-only US purchases, check the Mercari global app before paying any proxy fee.
- One mid-to-high-value store item (¥10,000+): FROM JAPAN on fees; ZenMarket if you’d rather pay a few hundred yen more for the simplest checkout flow.
- Yahoo! Auctions bidding: Buyee, for the auto-bid sniper. Set your maximum, walk away, and request careful packing explicitly — in the packing instructions, not just hoping.
- Fragile grails where packaging is everything: ZenMarket or FROM JAPAN over Buyee, even when Buyee is nominally cheaper.
- First proxy order ever, and you just want it to go smoothly: ZenMarket. It’s not the cheapest at anything, but every cost is visible before you commit, which is the thing beginners actually need.
There’s no loyalty prize in this game. Plenty of experienced buyers keep two or three accounts and route each order to whichever service fits it. That’s the correct strategy, not indecision.
FAQ
Do I still pay US customs duties on top of these fees?
Yes, but you now prepay them. Since the US de minimis exemption was suspended (August 2025, still in effect July 2026), all four proxies ship to the US on DDP terms — duty (currently about 10% of item value) is added to your proxy invoice, and nothing extra is collected at your door. Note the current rate’s legal basis expires July 24, 2026, and a ~12.5% replacement has been proposed; check the proxy’s checkout figure rather than assuming.
Why is the shipping quote so different from the final shipping cost?
Initial quotes are based on estimated weight and box size; the final cost uses the actual packed dimensions. Couriers charge by dimensional weight, so a loosely packed large box costs far more than the same items packed tight. This gap is the single most common complaint across every proxy — most severe in Buyee reviews, but nobody is exempt. Mitigation: consolidate, request compact packing in writing, and don’t ship until everything has arrived at the warehouse.
Is Buyee’s low Trustpilot score a reason to avoid it entirely?
No — 3.6 means most orders complete fine, and its auction tooling has no real equal. It’s a reason to use Buyee for what it’s uniquely good at (auction sniping, rare-site coverage) and route fragile or consolidation-heavy orders to services with stronger packing reputations.
Can’t I just buy from Mercari Japan directly now?
If you’re in the US: partially, yes. Mercari’s global app launched there in June 2026 with no proxy service fee. It covers Mercari only, though — no Yahoo! Auctions, Suruga-ya, AmiAmi pre-owned, or store exclusives — and you can’t consolidate Mercari finds with items from other sites. Proxies remain the answer for mixed hauls. Our Global App vs proxy breakdown covers where each one wins.
Which service ships fastest?
Speed is mostly set by the shipping method, not the proxy. Where they differ is processing time: ZenMarket and Buyee purchase quickly; Neokyo can lag a day or two in peak seasons; FROM JAPAN adds a beat if you’re slow to pay Charge 2.
Fees, duty rates, and platform policies in this article were verified against official sources in July 2026 but change frequently — 2025–2026 saw three major fee revisions across these four services alone. Always confirm on the linked official fee pages before committing to a large order.
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