How much does a trip to Japan cost?

The cost of a trip to Japan will depend on a number of factors. We'll help you plan your budget.

One of the first things you’ll have to think about when you first decide to book that trip of a lifetime to the Land of the Rising Sun is planning your budget. You’ll find a variety of budgeting tools online, but the vast majority are “one size fits all”, making them all but useless for grabbing a real picture of what your trip is going to cost. We’re not here to tell you exactly how much your wallet is going to suffer. But we will share some tips on how to estimate the costs for yourself, based on your own plans... and maybe we can even save you a few yen on the way!

Factors that will influence the cost of your trip

Listen, guys... How much you spend every day getting your onigiri fix is between you and Family Mart. We don’t have to know! But the biggest part of your budget will be decided even before you set foot in Tokyo. Below is a breakdown of factors that will have major impact on the cost of your Japan trip. Keep them in mind when planning.

1. When you go

When is the best time to visit Japan? You’re probably expecting the answer to this question to be based on the weather or annual festivals. But when you go will also make a huge difference to your overall spend. Once upon a time, the time of year barely made a difference to the price of airline tickets or hotel bookings, because Japan wasn’t a typical holiday destination. Now, though, with Japan experiencing a tourism boom and everybody and their granny meticulously planning their Donki haul, off-season vs peak-season has definitely become a thing. You will save some cash on tickets if you can avoid flying in July and August or in October/November. The worst time to visit Japan if you’re a budget traveller is mid-March to mid-April: demand at this time of the year pushes prices up and you can expect to pay almost double the price of a return ticket in May, for example. Why? Well, first of all you’ve got your cherry blossoms, and secondly, 1 April is the start of the school/business year in Japan and even international airline tickets are snapped up fairly rapidly by Japanese travel groups, companies, etc.

Let’s say you’ve got your plane tickets booked. Now, we’re looking at hotels. The seasonal fluctuations you’ve seen in the cost of getting to Japan will also apply to your accommodation, with both international and domestic demand for hotels peaking in cherry blossom season, koyo (autumn leaf) season and August. Accommodation in areas favoured by the Japanese for short breaks (think Okinawa, onsen towns, Kyoto) can also be expensive during Golden Week (end of April to beginning of May), though you might be able to find some bargains in the big conurbations, since business travel will be relatively low.

And speaking of business travel: if your trip to Japan will involve a few days here, a few days there, it might be worth playing around with the dates so that you avoid weeknights in Tokyo or Osaka, especially if you’re booking a mid-range “business hotel”. Saturday and Sunday nights are often a little cheaper in the cities, since business demand is lower.

2. When you book

There’s a lot of wisdom out there about the cheapest day to fly and how far in advance to book your flights/hotels. A lot of the flight booking platforms or airlines will give you the option of comparing flights at a glance. Google Flights’ date grid feature, for example, shows you the cheaper and best-price options for dates in and around the ones you search for. The general consensus is that, in most cases, it is cheaper to fly mid-week if you can.

And when to book? Most airlines release seats 11 months in advance, so it’s usually not possible to book any further ahead than this. Should you book immediately or hang back in the hope of snapping up a bargain? Unfortunately, our crystal ball is quite cloudy on this one. If you are planning your trip to Japan waaaay in advance (so, like, more than a year ahead), you have the advantage of tracking flight prices this year in the hope that the pattern will be repeated next year. Use Google Flights’ Track Prices feature: put in your departure and arrival airport and Google will send you updates on the prices. If you collect this data over the year, you’ll have a vague idea of when prices were lowest for your dates. BUT, because interest in Japan as a travel destination is exploding, there is no guarantee that what applies this year will still apply next year.

Generally speaking, accommodation is not going to get much cheaper the longer you wait to book, so you might want to have a look early on at the options available. Having said that, mid-range Japanese hotels (the “business hotels” we mentioned above) often don’t release rooms more than 6 months in advance, so don’t be surprised if you find it’s slim pickin’s in Tokyo before that date. You might well find that you have more choice in your price range a little closer to your trip. Again, we’re not throwing out any guarantees here because demand in Tokyo and Kansai in particular has rapidly outgrown supply since Covid, and we have seen the prices of our favourite hotels increase by 300% since 2019. whimper

3. How you get there

This is probably common sense to most seasoned travellers but just in case: direct flights to Japan are, for the most part, much more expensive than flights with a short layover somewhere else. Now, this is our Euro-centric view and it might be different where you live, but a 2-3-hour stop-over shaved 30% and more off the price of our last few flights to Japan. Don’t forget to balance money saved against time invested, though.

You should also look at your choice of departure airport: the closest airport to you may not be the cheapest, especially at certain times of the year (think “staggered summer holidays”). And the destination airport in Japan can also make a big difference. When planning your trip, check out less-popular Japanese airports. Some airlines offer cheaper tickets if you fly into Nagoya, for example, instead of Tokyo. But be aware: you’ll often make a stopover in Tokyo anyway, so it could eat into your Japan-time unless you were planning to visit the Chubu area anyway.

Let’s look at Tokyo while we’re at it. You’re probably already aware that Tokyo has two international airports: Narita and Haneda. Your choice of arrival airport, if you have the choice at all, can also have a significant effect on your Japan-trip budget, even if we assume that the cost of the flight into both is the same. This is because Narita is much further outside the city and the journey from airport to hotel can cost much more. This will depend on what time you arrive, how many are in your party, etc. Check out our Tokyo airport guide for more information.

4. Where you stay

So, your flights are booked and you need to get accommodation sorted. Your choice of hotel will be influenced by a number of factors: for many, budget will be at the top of that list.

When choosing your accommodation, make sure you look not just at the price of the accommodation itself but also how far away it is from the centre of town and how much it will cost you to travel back and forward every day. We’re taking Tokyo as an example here, but the same will apply in any major Japanese city. Let’s say you’ve found a bargain AirBnB “just outside Tokyo” in Mitaka or a fab-looking hotel “right beside Ota station”: the price per night may be attractive but you could well end up paying more in train fares, especially if your nearest train station is a private railway line and therefore not covered by one of the daily metro passes. This can quickly add up for a family of four over the course of a week, for example, and cancel out the difference in price between two hotels in two different parts of the city. Check the price of travelling between your hotel and the city centre using Google Maps: type in the address of your accommodation or the nearest train station and use the “Directions” feature with a central location such as “Shibuya” or “Tokyo station” as a destination. It will display the price you would pay for a one-way train journey.

For more tips on choosing accommodation in Tokyo, have a look at our Where to stay in Tokyo post.

5. How you travel around

Even if you don’t plan on leaving Tokyo, travelling around inside Japan is going to be a big-ass flashing light in your budget. Let’s look first of all at getting around Tokyo.

Luckily, there is quite the range of rail/bus passes available for travel within Tokyo and the greater metropolitan area. They can save you a lot of cash if you’re making a lot of journeys within a day (or two), and we break these down for you in our post on Tokyo rail passes. They also make it easier to plan your transport budget for your Tokyo trip.

If you are planning to see a little more of Japan, you’ve probably already heard of the Japan Rail Pass. Now, the price of the JR Pass has increased dramatically in recent years and is no longer the bargain it used to be. It still could be the most economical way to travel around – purchasing the JR Pass these days just needs a little more consideration than before and we have a post that goes into that in some more detail. Like the Tokyo and regional passes, it can certainly make budget planning a lot easier, but you should be aware that the Japan Rail Pass doesn’t cover all lines and you could well find yourself having to shell out much more than you anticipated for transport within the cities.

If your trip is going to centre around Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka, you could consider flying into Tokyo and out of Osaka (or vice-versa). This should be possible at no or little extra cost, if your airline operates out of both airports anyway, and saves a one-way journey back to your arrival point.

6. What you eat/buy/do

How much you will spend every day of your trip varies so wildly from person to person that any sort of blanket estimate is a complete shot in the dark. We will say this:

Eating

Unless you plan on bothering every Michelin-star restaurant in Japan, your food budget may not have to be as high as you might think, and 1000 yen will get you a decent meal. In many restaurants, you’ll find lunch is much cheaper than dinner, and water or tea is generally free with your meal. Supermarkets and convenience stores will often mark down o-bentos and pre-packaged salads in the evening by as much as 50%.

Activities

A lot of the gardens, temples and museums you might want to visit are free or charge an entrance fee of just a few hundred yen. Many other attractions can be or have to be booked in advance, which makes budgeting easier.

Shopping

Let’s face it: your wallet is not getting out alive, so it’s best to make peace with it and budget in the price of an extra suitcase for the journey home.

We have a free budget planning print-out to help you get an overview of what expenses you can expect. You’ll find it on our Resources page along with other downloads designed to make planning your trip to Japan less hassle and more fun.

If you have any budgeting tips you want to share with other travellers or questions for us on planning your Japan trip, just let us know in the comments below.