Do people accessing any NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) content through their smartphones have to pay NHK's reception fees? No, that's not true: Simply owning a smartphone and having access to NHK's online content does not mean you have to pay for NHK's reception fees. The fees are only required if you have a television or a device directly connected to NHK's broadcast signal.
The claim appeared on TikTok (archived here) in a video by @hayashi_money on March 5, 2024. The video comments on the amendments to the Japanese Broadcasting Act proposed in March 2024 and states that smartphone owners are now required to pay for NHK's reception fees. It began (translated from Japanese to English by Lead Stories staff):
Tax increase glasses man [nickname for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida] gets real! Pay NHK fees just by owning a smartphone! ... It's been decided that those who access NHK's content through smartphones now have to pay NHK's reception fees.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Mar 7 21:31:58 2024 UTC)
While it is true that a bill to revise the Japanese Broadcasting Act (archived here) was submitted to parliament on March 1, 2024, to make NHK's internet broadcasts a "fundamental" component of their operations, it is not true that merely owning a smartphone and accessing NHK's contents through the internet warrants a paywall. Those who already paid the NHK's fees do not have to pay, and the newly proposed amendments to the Broadcasting Act were still being examined (archived here) at the time of writing to also either agree or disagree on a subscription system for NHK's internet content such as the news.
According to NHK's official site (archived here), owning a smartphone and having internet access does not automatically mean having to pay NHK's reception fee: The fees only apply to customers who own a television or any device that can receive NHK's broadcasting signals such as computers with built-in tuners or devices with 1seg tuners (archived here), which is a type of terrestrial broadcasting in Japan solely for mobile phones. Most iOS devices do not host 1seg tuners (archived here), and many smartphones do not operate 1seg tuners, meaning not all smartphone owners have to pay the NHK fees unless they meet the above-mentioned requirements.
