Since the 2023 price rise the pass stopped being an automatic buy, and a lot of advice online never caught up. Here is what it costs today, what changes on 1 October 2026, and how to tell whether it is worth it for your trip.
No. A 7-day ordinary pass is ¥50,000 — a shade over ¥7,100 of JR travel every single day for a week. Tokyo's local JR fares run to a few hundred yen a trip, and the subway you will actually spend most of your time on belongs to Tokyo Metro and Toei, which the pass does not cover at all. Even a Narita Express round trip is only ¥6,280.
Probably not, and this is the case that changed in 2023. The classic Tokyo–Kyoto–Tokyo trip used to be the pass's home turf. Two things spoiled it: the price went up sharply, and the fast trains — Nozomi and Mizuho — were carved out, so using them now costs an extra ¥4,960 each way between Tokyo and Kyoto on top of the pass. Price the individual tickets before you assume.
Quite possibly yes. Tokyo to Hiroshima and back, or a Tokyo–Kyoto–Hiroshima–Fukuoka run, is where ¥50,000 starts to look sensible — especially at 14 or 21 days, where the per-day cost falls to ¥5,714 and ¥4,762. The pass also stops being purely about money at that point: unlimited reserved seats and the freedom to change plans mid-trip have real value.
And before any of that, check the regional passes. The full national pass is the most expensive product JR sells to visitors, and for a lot of itineraries a regional one does the job for a third of the price. The JR TOKYO Wide Pass is ¥16,000 for three days.
Prices rise on 1 October 2026 for Exchange Orders bought overseas. If you are buying through a travel agency outside Japan, an order placed by 30 September 2026 gets the current price; from 1 October a 7-day ordinary pass costs ¥53,000 instead of ¥50,000, and a 21-day Green pass ¥147,000 instead of ¥140,000. If your trip is later in the year and you were going to buy through an agency anyway, buying before the deadline saves ¥3,000–¥7,000.
The official price page applies the rise specifically to overseas Exchange Orders and shows the online price without a date qualifier. If you are buying online, check the price at the point of purchase rather than assuming either way.
| Duration | Ordinary | Child | Green | Child |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 days | ¥50,000 | ¥25,000 | ¥70,000 | ¥35,000 |
| 14 days | ¥80,000 | ¥40,000 | ¥110,000 | ¥55,000 |
| 21 days | ¥100,000 | ¥50,000 | ¥140,000 | ¥70,000 |
| Duration | Ordinary | Child | Green | Child |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 days | ¥53,000 | ¥27,000 | ¥74,000 | ¥37,000 |
| 14 days | ¥84,000 | ¥42,000 | ¥116,000 | ¥58,000 |
| 21 days | ¥105,000 | ¥53,000 | ¥147,000 | ¥74,000 |
Roughly US$307 / $491 / $614 ordinary and US$429 / $675 / $859 Green at ¥163 to US$1, 30 July 2026. "Child" is ages 6–11. Source: JAPAN RAIL PASS — Types and prices.
Buying online has a second advantage beyond price. Reserved seats can only be booked before you collect the physical pass if you bought through the official JAPAN RAIL PASS Reservation site. Buy an Exchange Order from an agency and you cannot reserve anything until you are in Japan and have swapped it — which matters in cherry-blossom season and over Golden Week, when the trains you want fill up.
This is the single biggest reason old advice about the pass is wrong. Nozomi and Mizuho services on the Tōkaidō, Sanyō and Kyūshū Shinkansen are not covered — and that includes their non-reserved seats. They are the fast ones. Turn up at Tokyo Station with only a pass and you cannot board the train most people picture when they picture the bullet train.
You have two options. Take a Hikari, Kodama or Sakura instead, which the pass covers fully — they run the same route with more stops and take longer. Or buy an [ONLY WITH JAPAN RAIL PASS] NOZOMI MIZUHO Ticket, a supplement sold only to pass holders, for each journey.
| NOZOMI / MIZUHO supplement | Price |
|---|---|
| Tōkyō — Nagoya | ¥4,180 |
| Tōkyō — Kyoto | ¥4,960 |
| Tōkyō — Shin-Ōsaka | ¥4,960 |
| Tōkyō — Hiroshima | ¥6,500 |
| Shin-Ōsaka — Hakata | ¥4,960 |
| Hakata — Kagoshima-Chūō | ¥5,150 |
Approx. US$25.65–$40 at ¥163 to US$1, 30 July 2026. The same price applies whether you take a Green Car, a reserved ordinary seat or a non-reserved ordinary seat. Buy from one month before travel up to the day itself, at reserved-seat machines, JR ticket offices (Midori-no-madoguchi), Travel Service Centers or designated agencies. Source: JAPAN RAIL PASS — Use of NOZOMI/MIZUHO trains.
Do this arithmetic before you buy the pass. A Tokyo–Kyoto round trip on Nozomi adds ¥9,920 to a pass that already cost ¥50,000. Two of you, and you have spent ¥119,840 before leaving Kyoto. That is the calculation that flipped this product from "obviously buy it" to "check first".
Also worth knowing: during major peak periods every Nozomi seat is reserved, so the non-reserved option disappears entirely.
Source: JAPAN RAIL PASS — Conditions for use, current as of April 2026.
The Tokyo Monorail inclusion is genuinely useful and widely missed. If you are flying into or out of Haneda while your pass is running, the airport run costs you nothing — and if you are heading to the JR side of the city, the connection at Hamamatsuchō is covered too.
The break-even is simple to state: your JR travel has to exceed the price of the pass. What makes it hard is that the fares you are comparing against are not published in a table anywhere we can point you to.
Why there is no Shinkansen fare table on this page. JR Central publishes Tōkaidō Shinkansen fares through its reservation system rather than as a public table — the fare PDF its English site used to host now returns a 404. Rather than reprint figures copied from a travel site, which is exactly how stale fares spread, we would rather send you to the booking engine to price your own itinerary. It takes two minutes and it is right.
These are useful anchors, all taken from official sources:
| Benchmark | Price |
|---|---|
| 7-day ordinary pass, per day | ¥7,143 |
| 14-day ordinary pass, per day | ¥5,714 |
| 21-day ordinary pass, per day | ¥4,762 |
| Narita Express round trip, Tokyo | ¥6,280 |
| Nozomi supplement, Tokyo–Kyoto round trip | ¥9,920 |
| JR TOKYO Wide Pass, 3 days | ¥16,000 |
Per-day figures are the pass price divided by its duration. All other figures from the sources cited on this page.
A rail pass booking link will sit here once our reseller application is approved. Until then, buy from the official JAPAN RAIL PASS site — it is the cheapest route and the only one that lets you reserve seats before you arrive.
If your trip is Tokyo-and-nearby rather than end-to-end Japan, one of JR East's own passes will almost certainly beat the national one. These are the two that matter for a Tokyo-based trip.
| Pass | Adult | Child | Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| JR TOKYO Wide Pass — Tokyo and the surrounding region, including Nikkō, Karuizawa, Kawaguchiko and the Gala Yuzawa ski area | ¥16,000 | ¥8,000 | 3 |
| JR EAST PASS — the whole of eastern Japan | ¥35,000 | ¥17,500 | 5 |
| JR EAST PASS, longer version | ¥50,000 | ¥25,000 | 10 |
Approx. US$98 / $215 / $307 at ¥163 to US$1, 30 July 2026. Source: JR East — passes.
The Wide Pass in particular is the answer for a very common trip shape: a week in Tokyo with two or three day trips out. Three days of unlimited regional JR for ¥16,000 is a third of the national pass and covers the places most Tokyo visitors actually go.
And if you are not leaving Tokyo at all, the pass you want is not a JR pass. The Tokyo Subway Ticket is ¥1,000 for 24 hours, ¥1,500 for 48 and ¥2,000 for 72, and it covers the network you will genuinely use. Subway passes compared →
The pass is for foreign nationals visiting Japan on Temporary Visitor entry status. Your passport details are registered to the pass at purchase or exchange, it is valid only for you, and it cannot be transferred. You must carry your passport whenever you use it and show it on request. You cannot hold two passes with overlapping validity periods on the same passport.
The pass does not guarantee a seat — it entitles you to book one for free, which is not the same thing. Reserve at a ticket machine, a JR ticket office, a Travel Service Center, or online if you bought through the official reservation site. There is a ceiling of 110 reserved-seat tickets per pass, which nobody sensible will reach, and you cannot upgrade to a reserved seat after boarding.
Misuse is expensive. Breaking the conditions can mean the pass is confiscated and a penalty of twice the fares and charges for everything you travelled on with it. Given the passport registration, "borrowing" someone else's pass is not a plan.
Source: JAPAN RAIL PASS — Conditions for use, current as of April 2026.
Prices verified July 2026. Something outdated or incorrect? Report an error →