Recover Suica and other transit or e-Money cards from a lost or wiped iPhone

The first thing to do if you have lost your iPhone is put the device in Lost Mode from another device using the same Apple ID or iCloud.com. Lost Mode disables Apple Pay on the device. If you find your iPhone, great, but how can you recover your Suica card when your old iPhone is either lost or wiped and you want to add Suica to a new iPhone?

No matter what the situation, Apple Pay iCloud keeps your transit card (Suica, PASMO, ICOCA, Octopus, Clipper, SmarTrip, TAP, HOP, China T-Union) or e-Money card (WAON and nanaco) stored value information safe on iCloud until you are ready to add the card again. The steps below use Suica but apply to all Apple Pay stored value cards.

Remove cards from the device
If iPhone is lost or wiped, remove the cards. If you have another device with the same Apple ID, go to settings > tap Apple ID > select device if is it showing, tap Remove Items in the Wallet & Apple Pay section. If you do not have another device go to Apple ID, and sign in with the same Apple ID used for the Apple Pay device, select Devices > select the lost or stolen iPhone > select Remove Items in the Wallet & Apple section.

Restore Suica
Restoring Suica, PASMO, and ICOCA is exactly the same as transferring Suica to a new iPhone. Once you successfully delete the card on the lost iPhone, or if you have wiped iPhone and want to restore the card to a new iPhone, simply re-add the card: tap Add Card “+” > tap Previous Cards, select the card you want to add and tap Continue.


Troubleshooting

Card Already Exists in Wallet error
If for some reason you are having difficulty re-adding Suica, PASMO, ICOCA, WAON, nanaco to iPhone and see and a Wallet error message, “this card already exists in Wallet,” in the last step of the adding process: sign out of iCloud, restart the device and sign back into iCloud with the same Apple ID. This will clear any problems.

Card Unavailable error
If you see ‘Card Unavailable’ it means the card is fine but there are some issues that the Suica, PASMO, ICOCA, WAON, nanaco systems need to clear during the offline nightly maintenance window. Simply wait for the end of the next maintenance window: 2am~4am Japan Standard Time, or 24 hours, then re-add the card.

Linked Services
Suica, PASMO, ICOCA card ID numbers can change when removed and re-added to Wallet. Linked services like EX App (smartEX and Express Reservation), Eki-net Shinkansen eTickets and Touch and Go Shinkansen stop working when the ID number changes and you need to update the linked IC card registration information to re-link the services.