Tatsuta Maru undertook her maiden voyage on 15 March 1930,[7] sailing from Yokohama to San Francisco,[4] and subsequently commenced regularly scheduled trans-Pacific services via Honolulu.

In October 1931, she carried members of the American Major League Baseball teams, including Lou Gehrig to Japan for a Japanese-American exhibition tournament.

In January 1940, Tatsuta Maru was scheduled to carry 512 seamen from the German transport SS Columbus, who had been interned in the United States after they scuttled their ship rather than to have it fall into the hands of the British.

In June of the same year, she arrived in San Francisco with 40 Jewish refugees from Russia, Austria, Germany, and Norway who had managed to reach Japan overland via Siberia.

In San Francisco on 20 March 1941, Tatsuta Maru disembarked Colonel Hideo Iwakuro dispatched by Prime Minister Hideki Tojo to assist Ambassador Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura in his negotiations with the United States.

Tatsuta Maru was in San Francisco at the time, and American authorities confiscated a shipment of over nine million dollars in bonds by the Yokohama Specie Bank.

On 30 July, the American government granted Tatsuta Maru a license to purchase enough fuel oil for the voyage back to Japan.

On 15 October, under contract to the Japanese government, she was temporarily designated a diplomatic exchange vessel, and was used in the repatriation of 608 Allied nationals to the United States.

Travelling under total radio silence, she arrived at San Francisco on 30 October, and after embarking 860 Japanese nationals, returned to Yokohama via Honolulu on 14 November.