Narita is 60 km from central Tokyo, which is why the choice of train matters more here than at most airports. Four realistic options, with every fare taken from the operator that charges it.
Almost every "Narita to Tokyo" argument online is really an argument about where you are staying. The Skyliner is the fastest train but it arrives in the north-east of the city; the Narita Express is slower but runs straight to the west side. Pick on destination first and speed second.
The only option that reaches Shinjuku, Shibuya, Shinagawa and Yokohama without a change. Fully reserved, plenty of luggage space. Expensive at full price — but the N'EX TOKYO Round Trip Ticket at ¥5,200 undercuts even a one-way-plus-one-way to the nearest of those stations.
The fastest way out of the airport: 36 minutes to Nippori. Reserved seats, dedicated luggage space, three departures an hour. Best if you are staying in Ueno, Asakusa or anywhere the Yamanote line's eastern side serves — and good value even with one transfer.
The locals' option. No limited-express surcharge on top of the basic fare, and the Access Express runs through onto the Toei Asakusa Line, so you can reach Asakusa, Nihombashi, Shimbashi and even Haneda without changing trains. Slower, no reserved seat, and it gets crowded — fine with a carry-on, less fun with two suitcases.
A flat ¥1,500 coach to Tokyo Station, 65 minutes when the roads are clear. The cheapest way in, full stop, and your bag goes in the hold. The catch is traffic: the train times above are timetabled, this one is not.
A rule of thumb that survives contact with reality: if you are staying west of the Imperial Palace — Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro — take the Narita Express. If you are staying east or north of it — Ueno, Asakusa, Akihabara, Nihombashi — take the Skyliner or the Access Express. If you are counting yen, take the bus.
The Narita Express runs from both airport stations to Tokyo Station, then splits: one portion continues to Shinagawa, Shibuya, Shinjuku and on towards Ikebukuro, the other to Yokohama and Ōfuna. Fastest time from Narita Airport Station to Tokyo Station is 53 minutes. Every seat is reserved, each carriage has a locking luggage area, and there are power outlets at every seat.
JR East publishes these fares as round trips — that is how the comparison against the discount ticket is meant to be read.
| From Narita Airport to | Return, Ordinary reserved | Child |
|---|---|---|
| Tōkyō | ¥6,280 | ¥3,120 |
| Shinagawa · Shibuya · Shinjuku | ¥6,660 | ¥3,320 |
| Yokohama | ¥8,960 | ¥4,460 |
| Ōfuna | ¥9,620 | ¥4,800 |
| N'EX TOKYO Round Trip Ticket — any of the above | ¥5,200 | ¥2,600 |
Approx. US$38.50 / $41 / $55 / $59 / $32 at ¥163 to US$1, 30 July 2026. Source: JR East — N'EX TOKYO Round Trip Ticket and JR East — Narita Express.
At ¥5,200 the N'EX TOKYO Round Trip Ticket is cheaper than the standard return to anywhere it covers, and the further out you are going the bigger the gap: ¥1,080 saved to Tokyo, ¥1,460 to Shinjuku, ¥3,760 to Yokohama. It is valid for a round trip within 14 days, and the outbound and return legs do not have to use the same station — you can arrive into Shinjuku and depart from Tokyo.
The one thing that disqualifies you is a trip longer than a fortnight. If you are in Japan for three weeks, you are buying two singles.
Holding a Japan Rail Pass? The Narita Express is a JR East limited express, so the pass covers it, reserved seat included, at no extra charge — you still have to book the seat. That does not make the pass worth buying on its own: a Narita return is ¥6,280 against ¥50,000 for seven days. See when the pass actually pays →
The Skyliner is the fastest train between Narita and Tokyo, running at 160 km/h — quicker than anything in Japan bar the Shinkansen. Non-stop from the airport to Nippori, then Keisei Ueno. Three departures an hour, all seats reserved, dedicated luggage space in every carriage.
| Ticket | Standard | Discounted |
|---|---|---|
| One way, adult | ¥2,580 | ¥2,310 |
| One way, child (6–11) | ¥1,290 | ¥1,150 |
| Round trip, adult | ¥5,160 | ¥4,500 |
| Round trip, child | ¥2,580 | ¥2,240 |
Approx. US$15.80 one way at ¥163 to US$1, 30 July 2026. The discounted column applies when you buy online, through a designated travel agency, or on board certain low-cost-carrier flights. Round trips are online only. Source: Keisei — Skyliner Discount Ticket.
Nippori is the more useful of the two for most visitors: it is a cross-platform-ish transfer to the JR Yamanote and Keihin-Tōhoku lines, which puts Tokyo Station, Akihabara, Shinjuku and Shibuya within one further ride. Keisei Ueno is a short walk from JR Ueno, not the same building — worth knowing if you are hauling luggage.
Book a round trip and you can only exchange it at the airport. Keisei is explicit about this: Skyliner round-trip tickets may be exchanged at Narita Airport Terminal 1 Station or Terminal 2·3 Station only — not at Ueno or Nippori. If you are buying a return before you fly, that is fine. If you are already in the city and want a discounted Skyliner out to the airport, you want the separate Skyliner Value Ticket instead.
Skyliner + Tokyo Subway Ticket is sold as a bundle. Keisei packages a Skyliner leg with the 24-, 48- or 72-hour Tokyo Subway Ticket, which is a genuinely good pairing if the subway is going to be your main way around. Keisei publishes those bundle prices only as an image, so we have not reproduced them here — check the official page for the current figure. The subway ticket on its own is ¥1,000 / ¥1,500 / ¥2,000 — how the subway passes compare →
The Skyliner is not the only Keisei train from Narita. The Access Express and the Limited Express both run the same route on ordinary rolling stock, and neither requires a limited-express surcharge — you pay the basic fare and nothing else. Keisei states this plainly for both services.
The Access Express is the more useful of the two, because it runs through onto the Toei Asakusa Line. That gives you a single seat from Narita to Asakusa, Nihombashi, Shimbashi and Sengakuji — and, on some services, all the way through to Haneda Airport. Toei's own guidance is that no limited-express ticket is needed on any train that continues onto the Asakusa Line, the Access Express included.
The Skyliner does not do this. Skyliners run to Ueno and Nippori and do not connect to the Asakusa Line. If you have found a "direct train from Narita to Asakusa" you have found the Access Express, not the Skyliner — and you need a limited-express ticket for the Skyliner but not for the Access Express.
The trade-off is comfort. These are commuter trains with no reserved seats and no luggage racks designed for suitcases. Between roughly 07:00–09:30 and 17:00–19:30 they fill with people going to work, and standing with two large cases in a Tokyo rush hour is a genuinely bad experience.
A flat ¥1,500 one way between Narita Airport and Tokyo Station, with a fastest scheduled time of 65 minutes. This is the cheapest way from Narita into central Tokyo by any mode. Luggage goes in the hold, so it is also the least physically demanding — no stairs, no lifting cases onto racks, no transfers.
The honest caveat is that a bus timetable is a hope, not a promise. The Higashi-Kantō and Shuto expressways into Tokyo jam, and a 65-minute run can become 100. If you have a specific appointment, take a train.
Approx. US$9 at ¥163 to US$1, 30 July 2026. Source: AirportBus TYO-NRT.
The Airport Limousine network is the other bus option, and it is a different product: instead of one city-centre terminus it runs to a long list of individual hotels and neighbourhood stops across Tokyo, which can mean no transfers at all if your hotel happens to be on the list.
We do not print Airport Limousine fares. The operator publishes them only inside its reservation engine, route by route, with no public fare table. Rather than copy a figure from a travel blog that may be years old, check your own route on the official site — fares vary substantially by destination.
Narita runs an official fixed-fare taxi scheme, so the meter does not run and you know the price before you get in. No reservation is required — join the taxi queue, tell the driver your destination, and confirm the fare. Prices are set by zone, and there are two of them for most zones because the route matters: the Keiyo Road is usually cheaper, the Bayshore Freeway sometimes faster.
| Zone | Via Keiyo Rd | Via Bayshore |
|---|---|---|
| A — Edogawa, Katsushika, Adachi | ¥23,500 | ¥26,500 |
| B — Kōtō, Sumida, Minato (Daiba), Shinagawa (Higashi-yashio) | ¥28,000 | ¥28,000 |
| C — Chūō, Chiyoda, Taitō, Bunkyō, Arakawa | ¥29,000 | ¥31,000 |
| D — Shinjuku, Toshima, Nakano, Shibuya, Meguro, Minato, Shinagawa, Ōta | ¥31,500 | ¥32,500 |
| E — Itabashi, Kita, Nerima | ¥34,000 | ¥36,000 |
| F — Setagaya, Suginami, Mitaka, Musashino | ¥35,500 | ¥38,500 |
Roughly US$144–236 at ¥163 to US$1, 30 July 2026. Expressway tolls are extra, a late-night and early-morning surcharge applies between 22:00 and 05:00, and travel via the Aqua-Line carries an additional charge. If you ask for a non-expressway route the meter is used instead. Source: Narita International Airport — Taxi.
Taxi stands are at Terminal 1 stand No. 15, Terminal 2 stands No. 28 and No. 31-A, and the marked stand at Terminal 3.
For two people the bus is around a twentieth of the price and the Skyliner about a sixth. The fixed-fare taxi earns its keep in three situations: a family of four with luggage where four Skyliner tickets plus a transfer starts to look silly, a very late arrival, or anyone who simply cannot manage stairs and crowds. Otherwise it is hard to justify.
Narita has three terminals and two railway stations, and both stations are shared by JR East and Keisei — the Narita Express, Skyliner, Access Express and local Keisei trains all call at both. What differs is the walk.
| Terminal | Station | Walk |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal 1 | Narita Airport Station | ~5 min |
| Terminal 2 | Airport Terminal 2·3 Station | ~5 min |
| Terminal 3 | Airport Terminal 2·3 Station | ~10 min |
Source: Narita International Airport — Rail.
Terminal 3 is the low-cost-carrier terminal and it has no station of its own. The walk to Terminal 2 is along a marked outdoor-ish footpath with a running track-style blue and red guide line painted on the floor. It is genuinely about ten minutes and it is not covered for its whole length — if you are arriving on Jetstar, Peach or Spring Japan in the rain, allow for it.
Two things are much easier to sort out at Narita than in the city, and one of them people almost always get wrong.
Both Narita stations have JR EAST Travel Service Centers and Welcome Suica vending machines, which makes the airport the single easiest place in Japan to get a transit card. A Suica or PASMO then works on every train, subway and bus in the city, and the fare is calculated for you at the gate — which matters more than usual in Tokyo, where a single journey can cross two or three companies' networks.
Tokyo is navigable without a data connection right up to the moment it isn't — the first time you need to check which of Shinjuku's exits your hotel is behind, you will want a map. Airport SIM counters exist but queue; an eSIM activated before you land is live the moment you turn off airplane mode.
Pre-booked Skyliner and Narita Express tickets, and private airport transfers, will sit here once our applications with Klook, GetYourGuide and Viator are approved. Until then, book direct with Keisei or JR East — the discounted Skyliner fare is only available in advance anyway.
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Fares verified July 2026. Something outdated or incorrect? Report an error →