Japanese retailers reportedly ban RTX 5090/5080 GPU sales to tourists

Japanese sellers are frustrated at tourists buying up their high-end RTX GPUs

Nvidia’s RTX 5090 launched in January, and retail stock for this new graphics card remains scarce. In Osaka, Japanese retailers typically have people queue up when RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 graphics cards become available. Now, a seller has reportedly banned GPU sales to “Tourists”, asking buyers to prove that they live in Japan (via MyDrivers).

Being close to China, Japan has a lot of Chinese tourists. For these tourists, buying an RTX 5090 in Japan and selling it in China is highly profitable. Note that Nvidia’s RTX 5090 is not available in China. China only has access to Nvidia’s RTX 5090 D, which has limited AI performance.

Initially, this store stopped offering tax-free purchases for GPUs, but this didn’t deter the tourists. Next, the seller started testing customers to see if they were Japanese residents. Currently, it is unknown how effective these measures have been. The following notice is available in store:

RTX5090/RTX5080 is only sold to customers who use it in Japan. If the purchased product is to be taken out of Japan, it will not be sold.

– Osaka store to customers – Machine Translated

This incident highlights a problem with today’s GPU market. First, it highlights that Nvidia’s high-end RTX 50 series GPUs remain in short supply. Second, it implies that Chinese tourists are bringing RTX 5090 GPUs into China through Japan, evading export US restrictions.

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