Category: Practical Japan

Japanese drugstores are full of small, cheap, very good remedies. They are also full of things that are illegal to carry into some countries. Both halves of this matter.

The call

Buy the topical stuff. Cooling forehead sheets, Salonpas and ROIHI-TSUBOKO patches, cooling leg sheets, throat lozenges. Cheap, effective, hard to find abroad, and legally uncomplicated.

Be careful with cough and cold medicine. Several common Japanese cold remedies contain dihydrocodeine, which is a controlled substance in the UAE, Singapore and elsewhere. This is the one genuine legal risk on a Japanese pharmacy run.

And don’t bring your own stimulants in. Pseudoephedrine and Adderall are prohibited under Japan’s Stimulants Control Act, with no simple import route.

What’s worth buying

Cooling forehead sheets (Netsusama Sheet)

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical. About ¥470–650 for 16 adult sheets. Gel patches you stick on your forehead for fever or a hangover; they stay cold for hours. Every Japanese household has a box and most visitors have never seen them.

Salonpas and ROIHI-TSUBOKO patches

Salonpas (Hisamitsu) is the famous one: ¥555 for 40 sheets, ¥821 for 80. ROIHI-TSUBOKO — the little round brown ones — is made by Nichiban, not Hisamitsu as half the internet claims. Around ¥1,320 for 78 sheets at list, often much less. These are the single most-bought item by returning visitors, and the reason is that they work and the equivalent abroad costs several times more.

Cooling leg sheets (Kyusoku Jikan)

Lion. You stick them on your calves overnight after a day of walking 25,000 steps around Kyoto. Roughly ¥900 for a pack. Note some formats may be discontinued — check what’s on the shelf.

Ryukakusan throat lozenges

A herbal powder and lozenge line that’s been made since the Edo period. Expect roughly ¥350–500 for a bag. Good for the dry-aeroplane-throat problem.

Ohta’s Isan stomach powder

Made by Ohta Isan — an independent company, not Sato Pharmaceutical. About ¥657 for 75g, or tablets from ¥583. For the specific problem of having eaten too much. Note the original powder formulation was reworked around late 2025, so the box may look different from older recommendations.

Seirogan

Taiko Pharmaceutical, ¥1,100 for 100 pills. An anti-diarrhoeal that has been sold since 1902 and smells overwhelmingly of creosote. Perfectly legal to carry; just be aware your suitcase will smell of it if the bottle isn’t sealed.

Cabagin Kowa

A stomach remedy built around cabbage extract. ¥1,780–2,180 for 200–300 tablets. Popular with people who are drinking their way through Japan.

Motion sickness tablets

Travelmin (Eisai) comes in several versions including a less-drowsy formula and a children’s one, from about ¥600 for six. Worth having for winding mountain roads to Hakone or a rough boat to Miyajima.

Eye drops: a note of caution

Japanese eye drops, especially the strongly mentholated Rohto ones, are a famous souvenir. Two honest points.

First, the cooling sensation isn’t the treatment. Rohto’s own research materials acknowledge that higher menthol increases irritation, and describe developing technology specifically to reduce it. Japanese health media and clinicians make the same point: menthol doesn’t treat eye fatigue.

Second, over-the-counter drops contain more preservative than prescription ones, and using them many times a day over long periods carries a corneal-irritation risk. So: don’t exceed the stated frequency (usually five or six times a day), and don’t read “stings more” as “works better.”

The legal part. Please read it.

Taking Japanese cold medicine home

Several widely sold Japanese cough and cold products — including items in the Benza Block and Pabron ranges — contain dihydrocodeine phosphate. In Japan this is ordinary over-the-counter stock. Elsewhere it is not:

• Singapore — dihydrocodeine is a Class B controlled drug. Unlicensed import can bring fines up to S$10,000 and up to two years’ imprisonment
• UAE — codeine-type drugs are Schedule 2 and require a permit from the health ministry plus the original prescription. Undeclared possession is treated as unauthorised possession of a controlled drug, with imprisonment and substantial fines
• Greece — codeine is handled strictly; bringing it in generally requires prior authorisation or a Schengen certificate for controlled medicines

The rule to follow: check your destination’s own health ministry or customs page — not a travel blog — before carrying any Japanese cough or cold remedy home. Keep it in the original box, and declare it if in doubt. A ¥900 box of cold tablets is not worth a customs problem.

Bringing your own medication into Japan

The mirror image, and it catches more people. Pseudoephedrine and amphetamine-based medicines such as Adderall are prohibited under Japan’s Stimulants Control Act. That includes the original formulation of some common Western decongestants. There is no easy exemption.

For prescription medicines generally — and for anything narcotic or psychotropic — you may need a Yakkan Shoumei (import certificate) from the Ministry of Health, arranged in advance. If you take regular medication, look this up before you fly, not at the airport.

The pharmacist counter

Some Japanese medicines are classed as yō-shidō iyakuhin — requiring guidance — and can only be sold face to face by a licensed pharmacist, not by the ordinary registered seller who staffs most drugstore aisles. These are typically newly switched prescription-to-OTC products.

Practically: if a product is behind the counter and someone in a white coat wants to talk to you about it, that’s the system working, and the conversation is worth having. Rules here were being reformed through 2025–26, so what’s available online versus in person is in flux.

What tourists get wrong

• Assuming Western dosing. Japanese OTC doses are often calibrated to a lower average body weight. Don’t double up on your own initiative — ask the pharmacist
• Buying supplements thinking they’re medicine. The shelves sit side by side and the packaging looks similar
• Not being able to read the label. Use your phone’s camera translation on the box before you buy, not after. Osaka Prefecture publishes an official multilingual pharmacy-counter manual precisely because this is a recognised problem
• Treating strong sensation as strong medicine. See eye drops, above

FAQ

What’s the one thing to buy?
ROIHI-TSUBOKO. Small, light, cheap, and people ask you to bring more next time.

Is any of this cheaper at Donki?
Not reliably — compare. Donki guide here.

Can I claim tax-free on medicine?
Yes, medicines count as consumables. Until 31 October 2026 that means a sealed bag you mustn’t open; after 1 November the sealed-bag rule goes and you claim the tax back at the airport instead. Details.

Where do I find an English-speaking pharmacist?
Larger Matsumoto Kiyoshi and Welcia branches in tourist districts. Failing that, translate the box and point.

The bottom line

Load up on patches, cooling sheets and lozenges — they’re the best-value souvenirs in Japan and nobody regrets them. Read the ingredients on anything for coughs and colds, and check your own country’s rules before it goes in the suitcase.

See also: the wider drugstore shortlist and skincare worth buying.

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Prices are typical retail as of September 2026, not manufacturer list, and vary by shop. This is general information, not medical or legal advice — verify drug rules with your destination country’s own authorities and speak to a pharmacist about anything you intend to take. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.

You have two hours at Narita or Haneda and a nagging feeling you forgot something. Here’s what’s actually worth buying airside, what you’re overpaying for, and the rule that ruins people’s last hour.

The call

Buy alcohol, tobacco and premium fragrance airside. Duty-free genuinely excludes both consumption tax and customs duty on these, so the saving is real.

Don’t buy electronics or general souvenirs airside. Bic Camera and Yodobashi in town are cheaper on the former; the latter are marked up.

Don’t leave your tax-free paperwork to the airport if you’re departing on or after 1 November 2026. From that date the refund step happens before bag drop, and missing it means losing the money.

Duty-free and tax-free are not the same thing

This confuses almost everyone, and the distinction matters because the two systems behave differently.

	Airside duty-free	In-town tax-free
What’s excluded	Consumption tax and customs/liquor/tobacco duty	Consumption tax only
Where	After security and immigration	Shops in the city
Minimum spend	None	¥5,000 before tax
Paperwork	Passport and boarding pass at the till. Done	Passport at purchase, plus an airport step from Nov 2026

The practical upshot: the 1 November 2026 tax-free reform does not affect airside duty-free at all. Duty-free shopping works exactly as it always has. It’s your in-town purchases that now need attention at the airport.

The step you cannot skip (from 1 November 2026)

If you bought anything tax-free in town on or after 1 November 2026, you paid the full price and the tax comes back to you only after customs verifies the goods left with you. That happens at a tax-free procedure terminal in the departure lobby — before you check your bags in.

Once the suitcase is on the belt, you can’t produce it for inspection, and the refund is gone. Terminal first, then check-in. At Narita, Haneda and five other major airports you can do the first part through Visit Japan Web in the designated Wi-Fi zones instead of queueing at a kiosk. Full walkthrough: what changes on 1 November.

Where the shops are

Narita

Terminal 1 has Narita Nakamise in the South Wing — the airport’s own description is Japan’s largest airport duty-free and brand mall — strongest on traditional goods: lacquerware, crafts, kimono-print items. Landside gift shops (open roughly 7:00–21:00) are accessible before security, which matters if someone is seeing you off. Airside there are Japan Duty Free outlets in both the North and South wings plus an ANA duty-free shop. The 5th floor has an observation deck with shopping attached.

Terminal 2 splits duty-free by category — separate cosmetics/perfume, liquor/tobacco and general outlets, plus JAL Duty Free. Note that some duty-free shops at Narita are arrivals-only, for people landing; easy to walk into by mistake when departing.

Hours run roughly 6:30/7:00 to 21:00/22:00. Narita is not a 24-hour shopping airport — a very early or overnight departure may find things shut.

Haneda

Terminal 3 (international) is the better airport for this. Edo Koji on the 4th floor is a recreated Edo-period streetscape with two food alleys, and it’s genuinely pleasant rather than merely a shopping concourse. The 5th floor has Tokyo Pop Town for anime and character goods, a 24-hour observation deck, and a Don Quijote nearby for the things you forgot.

Haneda T3 also has real 24-hour options — a 24h Air LAWSON on 1F, a Seven-Eleven airside, and a handful of restaurants including an Edo Koji ramen shop. Most retail keeps normal hours, so check the per-store listing, but if your flight is at 6am Haneda is far kinder than Narita.

Terminal 2 is primarily domestic, with maker counters (Tokyo Banana, Royce’, regional specialities) and a 5F observation-deck shopping area.

What’s worth buying airside

• Alcohol — the duty exclusion is real. Japanese whisky, sake, umeshu. Note the checked-baggage limit below
• Tobacco — same logic
• Premium fragrance and prestige cosmetics — competitive, and no ¥5,000 minimum to worry about
• Crafts and traditional goods at Narita Nakamise — a genuinely good selection you won’t have seen in a convenience store
• The thing you forgot. Convenience has a value and it’s fine to pay it once

What’s overpriced airside

• Electronics. Bic Camera and Yodobashi in town, with their own tax-free desks, are the answer
• Snacks and standard souvenirs. A supermarket, a station depachika, or Donki with the coupon all beat the airport
• Drugstore items. Buy these in a drugstore. Shortlist here

The liquid rules, which is where people lose things

No single container over 100ml in your carry-on, all of them fitting in one one-litre resealable bag. This applies to international departures from Japan and it is enforced.

So: that 500ml bottle of hatomugi lotion, the 230ml cleansing oil, the sake you bought in Kyoto — checked baggage. If you’ve already checked in and it’s in your hand luggage, you will be surrendering it.

The exception: liquids bought airside, after security, can exceed 100ml. They’re sealed in a tamper-evident bag with the receipt. Keep the seal intact — if you’re connecting through another country and the seal is broken, or that airport doesn’t recognise the bag, you can lose it at the second checkpoint.

Alcohol in checked baggage: up to 5 litres per person for anything between 24% and 70% ABV, in unopened retail packaging. Under 24% isn’t limited by this rule. Over 70% cannot fly at all. Airlines can be stricter, so check yours.

How much time do you actually need

No airport publishes a “leave this long for shopping” figure. The workable version: three hours before an international flight as the baseline, and if you have in-town tax-free receipts to process from November 2026, add an hour. The tax-free terminal is new, nobody has done it before, and the queues in the first months will be the worst they’ll ever be.

Most of the interesting shops are airside, so the sequence is: tax-free terminal → check bags → security and immigration → shop.

FAQ

Can I claim the in-town tax refund on something I bought at the airport?
No. Airside purchases are already duty-free at the till — there’s nothing to refund. The two systems are separate.

Is Haneda or Narita better for last-minute shopping?
Haneda T3, comfortably. Better hours, better atmosphere, some 24-hour options.

I have a 6am flight from Narita.
Assume the shops are shut. Buy what you need the day before.

Where do I put my suitcase while I shop in town on my last day?
Here are the options — though if you’re flying out, checking in early and shopping bag-free is the cheapest version.

The bottom line

Alcohol and fragrance airside, everything else in town. Liquids over 100ml in the hold. And if you’re departing on or after 1 November 2026 with tax-free receipts in your pocket, do the refund terminal before you hand over your suitcase.

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Shop hours and terminal details as of September 2026 and subject to change; confirm on the airport’s own site before relying on them. Corrections via the contact page.

Japan is genuinely world-class at two things in skincare and merely fine at the rest. Buying the first group is a bargain. Buying the second is paying airfare for products you can get at home.

The call

Buy sunscreen and cleansing oil. These are the two categories where Japanese products are both better regarded and dramatically cheaper here than abroad. A ¥800 bottle of Biore UV Aqua Rich sells for three times that as an import.

Buy sheet masks by the box if you use them — the per-sheet price collapses.

Skip cica products and Western luxury brands. Much of the “cica” on Japanese shelves is imported Korean stock, and global prestige brands aren’t meaningfully cheaper here.

Sunscreen: the one to actually stock up on

Japan invented the PA rating you see next to SPF. SPF measures UVB protection; PA measures UVA, from PA+ to PA++++. Roughly: PA+ is a PPD of 2–4, PA++++ is 16 or above. If a sunscreen says SPF50+ PA++++, it’s the top of both scales.

The reason people fill suitcases with it is texture. Japanese sunscreens are formulated to feel like nothing, which is why people actually reapply them.

Product	Size	Typical price
Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence	70g	¥700–900
Anessa (Shiseido)	~60ml	¥2,500–3,300
Skin Aqua (Rohto)	70–110g	¥1,000–2,000

Biore is the value pick and the one to buy several of. Anessa is the premium one and is reported to run 30–40% cheaper in Japan than abroad.

Cleansing oils and balms

The other genuine bargain. A 230ml bottle of Biore cleansing oil runs ¥700–900 in a Japanese drugstore against $12–15 as an import. Softymo and DHC are in the same territory. If you wear sunscreen daily — and after reading the section above you should — you need one of these to get it off.

Sheet masks

Buy the box, not the packet. Lululun is ¥385–550 for seven sheets but ¥1,650–1,980 for thirty-two. Saborino, the morning mask that claims to replace your whole routine in 60 seconds, is about ¥1,300 for twenty-eight. These are the classic “buy an extra duffel” items.

Lotions and the hatomugi thing

Naturie Hatomugi Skin Conditioner, 500ml for about ¥650, is a long-running bestseller for a reason: it’s a huge bottle of a light, cheap hydrating lotion that people also use on their bodies and as a mask. It’s the single most Japanese purchase on this list.

Hada Labo Gokujyun hyaluronic lotion is the more famous name and sits at a similar drugstore price point — noticeably cheaper than the $15–19 it costs as an import.

If you have sensitive skin: Curel

Kao’s Curel line is the one genuine specialist recommendation here — ceramide-focused, fragrance-free, built for reactive skin, and stocked in every drugstore. The Intensive Moisture Cream is around ¥1,700 for 40g. There isn’t a direct equivalent at that price in most countries.

Vitamin C, cheaply

Melano CC (Rohto) is the drugstore vitamin C serum that keeps winning comparisons against products five times the price. 20ml, and it sells abroad for $14–18. Prices move, but it’s well under that here.

What to skip

• Cica. A lot of what’s on Japanese shelves is imported Korean product. If cica is what you want, Korea or your home market is the place. Japan-made cica lines exist but they’re blends rather than a national specialty
• Western luxury brands. Import costs mean they’re the same or more expensive here
• Anything you saw on TikTok and haven’t matched to your skin. The drugstore aisle is a bad place to experiment at scale
• Bulk-buying what your local shop already stocks. Weigh the saving against the checked-baggage allowance

Where to buy

Chain	Good for	Not good for
Matsumoto Kiyoshi	Everywhere, multilingual staff, widest tourist range	Lowest prices
Sundrug	Consistently cheap staples, frequent discounts	Tourist service
Welcia	Broad range, many open late	Prime tourist locations
@cosme store / Cosme Kitchen	Discovering what’s trending	Cheap basics
Loft	Gift-boxed sets	Everyday prices

Japan uses an “open price” system — there’s no manufacturer RRP — so the same box can differ by ¥300 between two shops on one street. Locals price-check. So should you.

Two rules that will bite you at the airport

Liquids over 100ml go in checked baggage. That 500ml bottle of hatomugi lotion and your 230ml cleansing oil cannot travel in your carry-on. Plan the packing before you plan the haul.

Tax-free changes on 1 November 2026. Until then, cosmetics count as “consumables”: sealed in a bag you must not open until you leave, capped at ¥500,000 a day. From 1 November, the sealed bag and the cap both disappear — you’ll be able to buy skincare and use it in your hotel that night — but you’ll pay full price at the till and reclaim the tax at the airport. Full detail: what changes on 1 November.

FAQ

What’s the single best-value item?
Biore UV Aqua Rich sunscreen. Buy three.

Is Japanese sunscreen really better?
Better regarded on texture and cosmetic feel, and Japan has filters approved here that aren’t available in some markets. “Better protection” is a stronger claim than the evidence supports — SPF50+ PA++++ is SPF50+ PA++++ wherever you buy it.

Drugstore or Donki?
Drugstore for range and pharmacist advice, Donki for a one-stop late-night haul with the coupon. Donki comparison here.

How much can I take home?
Most countries apply a “reasonable personal use” test rather than a fixed item limit, but they do apply value thresholds — see the customs section in the tax-free article.

The bottom line

Sunscreen, cleansing oil, a box of sheet masks, a big bottle of hatomugi lotion, Curel if your skin is difficult, Melano CC if you want vitamin C cheaply. That’s the list. Everything else is optional, and cica isn’t Japanese.

See also: the wider drugstore shortlist.

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Japan has no manufacturer RRP, so prices vary by shop and are indicative only, as of September 2026. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.

Somebody built that. A person decided the wall of animal-face masks should go there, at that price, in that order. And that person is quite possibly a part-timer who has never asked a manager’s permission for anything.

The call

Get the coupon before you go in. Free, thirty seconds, worth 5% over ¥10,000 or 7% over ¥30,000 on top of the tax exemption. No signup.

Buy snacks, kitchen tools, character goods, cosmetics. Skip electronics, groceries, clothes, whisky and — people really do this — a suitcase.

Go after midnight if your body clock is still somewhere over the Pacific. Most city branches never close, and at 1am the place is yours.

The thing to understand about Donki

Every guide describes Don Quijote as chaotic. Almost none explain why, and the why is the most interesting fact about Japanese retail.

At Donki, the person who decides what a shelf sells, what it costs and how it looks is the staff member who works that section — including the part-timers, who the company calls Mates. They own a category: home appliances, snacks, cosmetics. They do the buying. They set the prices. They build the display. Some of them negotiate directly with manufacturers.

There is no planogram handed down from head office telling them where the shampoo goes. A Nikkei Business piece on the company was headlined, flatly, “there is no manual in the stores.” Another described the internal rule that a display may not repeat last year’s. Copying yourself is the one thing you are not allowed to do.

So when you stand in front of a hand-lettered sign in three colours, mounted above a pyramid of instant noodles and a bin of novelty socks, you are not looking at corporate strategy. You are looking at one person’s opinion about what will sell in this neighbourhood this week — written by hand, because they wrote it.

The founder, Takao Yasuda, built the company on this. It now turns over more than ¥2 trillion a year and is Japan’s fourth-largest retailer. The chaos is not a failure of discipline. It is the product.

Which is also why every branch is different, and why locals have a favourite one. You are not shopping in a chain. You are shopping in someone’s shop, and the someone changes when you cross town.

Practical consequences of a store built like this

You cannot scan it from the door. That is deliberate — the technique is called atsuryoku chinretsu, compression display. You have to walk it, and while walking it you find the thing you didn’t know existed. It works on everyone, including us.

Don’t bring a suitcase in. The aisles fit one person, not a person and a large case, and the queue behind you will be far too polite to mention it. Park the bag first.

The tax-free counter may be nowhere near the tills — 7F at the Shibuya flagship. Budget for the lift.

Ask someone. This is the part visitors never try. The staff member in that aisle chose the stock in that aisle. They know exactly which of the four sunscreens moves fastest and why. It is the best product advice available in Tokyo and it is free.

The song

You will hear it four seconds after entering. “Miracle Shopping,” written and sung in 1999 by a woman who worked for the company, playing on loop in every branch since.

It has become genuinely iconic — enough that in 2024, Bruno Mars made a commercial for the chain. Four bars, twenty-five years, one former employee’s song. Japanese retail does not usually produce folk music.

The coupon, and the arithmetic nobody does

People assume 10% tax-free plus 7% coupon is 17% off. It isn’t. Tax-free doesn’t take 10% off the shelf price — it removes the tax already inside it, about 9.1% — and the coupon then applies to what’s left.

Spend (pre-tax)	Coupon	Real total saving
¥10,000–29,999	5%	about 13.6%
¥30,000+	7%	about 15.5%

Rules, each of which has ruined somebody’s evening:

• A screenshot won’t work. The page must be live. Donki provides free in-store Wi-Fi, which tells you how often this happens
• Show it before scanning starts. Afterwards it’s void
• One use. It dies when you tap “Used”
• Excluded: alcohol, tobacco, prepaid cards, games consoles, single items over ¥100,000 — and excluded items don’t count toward the threshold. ¥9,000 of snacks plus a ¥4,000 bottle of whisky earns you nothing
• No stacking with a majica card or other in-store offers

Tax-free separately needs ¥5,000 before tax and your physical passport. Not a photo of it.

And if you’re here after 1 November 2026: the tax comes back at the airport now, not at the till. The coupon is unaffected. What changes.

What’s worth buying

The snack wall. Regional and limited-run KitKats — wasabi, matcha, sake, prefecture editions that exist for six weeks and then never again. ¥300 a small pack, ¥900–1,000 a gift box. The one souvenir that has never disappointed anybody’s colleagues.

Kitchen tools. Onigiri moulds, sesame grinders, a device whose sole function is to make a boiled egg square. Cheap, genuinely used at home afterwards, and nobody plans for it.

Character goods and gacha. Budget forty minutes you hadn’t allocated.

Cosmetics — big range, competitive, but not automatically cheapest. Price-check against Sundrug or Matsumoto Kiyoshi. What’s worth the suitcase space.

Second-hand luxury at some branches, notably Shinjuku Kabukicho — used Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, authenticated through the industry anti-counterfeiting association. Two catches: single items over ¥100,000 lose the coupon, and your own country’s duty can erase the whole saving.

What to buy elsewhere

Not here	Here instead
Electronics	Yodobashi or Bic Camera — cheaper, better tax-free desks
Fresh food and daily groceries	A supermarket, or a convenience store
Japanese whisky	Compare first — markups on Yamazaki and Hibiki are widely reported, and alcohol is coupon-excluded anyway
Basic clothing	Uniqlo or GU
A suitcase	It will get you home and no further

MEGA or standard

MEGA branches add a full supermarket floor and several merchandise floors. For a souvenir haul, go MEGA. More floors, more of everything, and a properly staffed tax-free counter.

FAQ

Which branch?
MEGA Shibuya for range. Shinjuku Kabukicho for second-hand luxury. There’s one in Asakusa’s Ekimise building since June 2026, useful if you’re already at Senso-ji.

Worth the coupon under ¥10,000?
It does nothing below that. Just do tax-free above ¥5,000.

Coupon and tax-free together?
Yes, same counter, same passport. Coupon first.

Cheaper than a drugstore for medicine?
Not reliably. What’s worth buying, and what’s illegal to take home.

The bottom line

Coupon open, suitcase elsewhere, arrive late, buy snacks and kitchen tools and one item you cannot justify.

And when you get to a display that stops you — the one built like a shrine to a single flavour of Pocky — remember that somebody’s shift went into it, and they were told not to do what they did last year.

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Coupon terms, store details and hours as of September 2026 and subject to change — confirm on the coupon page before you shop. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.

Shibuya has close to a thousand lockers and is still the hardest station in Tokyo to store a bag. Two reasons: everyone tries the same bank, and the station has been a building site for a decade.

The call

Skip the Hachiko Exit lockers. They’re the most convenient, which is why they’re full from morning. Every guide sends people there and they’re all fighting over the same doors.

Go to Shibuya Mark City instead — specifically the 4F and 5F banks near the restaurants and the highway bus terminal. They’re the least contested lockers at Shibuya and still have large sizes free on weekends. 5F is also where the airport limousine bus leaves from.

Got a suitcase and a Shibuya Sky ticket? Solve storage first. Shibuya Sky bans large luggage on the deck and its own lockers only take day bags.

Where the lockers are

JR

Outside the Hachiko gate: small ¥400, medium ¥500, large ¥600, IC cards accepted. Same tiers near the South gate. There’s also a cheaper ¥300 cash-only small bank down a stairway near the Central gate that most people walk past.

Tokyo Metro (Ginza / Hanzomon / Fukutoshin)

Metro confirms lockers on the Hanzomon and Fukutoshin concourses but doesn’t publish a floor map. In practice the clusters are at B1 Exit A2 (near Shibuya 109 — many large lockers), B1 Exit A4, B2 near Exits A1–A4, a B2 walkway bank near the information centre, and B2 near Exits B3–B4. The A2 bank runs small ¥400 / medium ¥500 / large ¥700.

Shibuya Mark City — the answer

• 1F, outside the gates at street level, including a golf-bag-size locker near the Keibunsha bookstore by the West Exit Inokashira gate
• 2F, inside and outside the Inokashira Line gate
• 4F and 5F — by the restaurants and the highway bus terminal. This is the bank to aim for

Keio runs a live availability map for these at keiochika.co.jp.

Shibuya Hikarie, B3F

In the ShinQs locker room, directly connected to the Fukutoshin Line gates. Cheapest in Shibuya at ¥200 small / ¥300 large — but small sizes only, cashless only (no coins), and 10:00–21:00.

Shibuya Scramble Square, 1F

In front of the elevators, 10:00–21:00. Worth knowing what this isn’t: they’re slim and refrigerated lockers for shopping, not suitcase lockers. A separate cluster near B1 by the Kinokuniya supermarket (Exit B7) is the closest bank to the Shibuya Sky entrance.

Two staffed counters

• Wander Compass — B1 underground walkway next to Shibuya 109, near Exit A2. ¥900 per item per day, 10:00–19:00. Takes the things lockers can’t: strollers, instruments, oversized cases
• shibuya-san — inside Shibuya Fukuras (Tokyu Plaza) 1F, right at the airport limousine bus stop. 10:00–19:30, small ¥700 / large ¥1,000, same-day pickup only

Shibuya Sky: read this before you go up

The observation deck does not allow travel luggage. Also barred: food and drink, loose hats, earphones, tripods and selfie sticks. Phones, glasses and a camera on a strap are fine.

There are lockers at the 46F entrance, but they’re sized for a small bag or backpack (about 32 × 37.5 × 43cm) and cost a returnable ¥100. A suitcase will not go in one. Sort it at the station or a booked spot before you arrive — the Kinokuniya/B7 bank is the nearest.

The redevelopment problem

The Shibuya station-area rebuild is a joint Tokyu, JR East and Tokyo Metro project running in phases from around 2030 to 2034. Concourses have already been reshaped and locker banks move without announcement. No operator publishes “we relocated X lockers.”

Practical consequence: treat any Shibuya locker map, including this one, as approximate, and check a live availability map before committing to a walk. The Keio map above is the most useful.

Timing and time limits

Reported pattern: the Hachiko banks are effectively full from the morning, every day, worse at weekends. The Mark City 4F/5F banks are the ones still open. Most operators cap storage at three to four days before clearing the locker; the operator’s phone number is posted on the unit.

One Shibuya-specific risk: shutters on several station-area banks close after the last train (around 00:30). A bag left during the day may be unreachable until morning. If you’re out late in Shibuya, check the posted hours before you rely on picking it up at 2am.

FAQ

Cheapest locker in Shibuya?
Hikarie B3F at ¥200–300, if your bag is small and you have an IC card. Then the ¥300 cash bank near the JR Central gate.

Where do I put a big suitcase?
Mark City 1F or 4F/5F, or Wander Compass at ¥900. Not Scramble Square.

I land at Haneda and want to see Shibuya before check-in.
The limousine bus drops at Shibuya Fukuras, and shibuya-san’s counter is in the same building. That’s the tidiest version of this plan.

The bottom line

Everyone goes to Hachiko; go to Mark City. Hikarie if the bag is small and you want to pay ¥200. Wander Compass if it’s oversized. And whatever you do, don’t turn up at Shibuya Sky towing a suitcase.

See also: the full Tokyo guide, Shinjuku, Tokyo Station.

While you are here: the best yakitori in Shibuya

An aside, because the bag is in a Mark City locker and the whole point of a locker is the hours it gives you back.

Forty seconds from those lockers, immediately right of the Keio Inokashira west exit, is Toritake — a three-floor charcoal yakitori and eel house that has been on that slope since 1963. It is on Tabelog’s Top 100 Yakitori list and it is entirely invisible to visitors, because it looks like an old building on a busy hill.

Three things make it the right answer for someone who has just stowed a suitcase:

• It opens at noon, every day of the year. Almost every other good yakitori shop in Tokyo opens at five and closes on Sundays
• No reservation needed under five people. You walk in
• It takes cards, which in this category of shop is unusual

Skewers run about ¥333–383 and are grilled on eel skewers, which is why they arrive looking faintly absurd. Around ¥2,500 a head with a large bottle of lager.

Read nextToritake, Shibuya: the only yakitori shop you need in Tokyo →What to order, why the skewers are the wrong size on purpose, and the eel they butcher in the building.

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Prices and locations as of September 2026. Shibuya is under active redevelopment and locker banks relocate — check a live availability map. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.

One correction first, because almost every English guide still gets it wrong: the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center stopped storing luggage on 31 March 2026. If your plan was to leave a suitcase at the desk opposite Kaminarimon, it no longer exists.

The call

Asakusa is locker-poor. Four small station buildings serve one of Tokyo’s busiest tourist areas, and the banks are reported full by late morning at weekends and in peak season. Go straight to Tobu Asakusa Station, 2F, behind the main stairwell — the biggest bank in the area — or use a staffed counter.

Ueno is better supplied, and the reason people need it is the museums: none of them will take a suitcase. Store at the station, carry a daypack into the park.

ASAKUSA

Where the lockers are

• Tobu Asakusa Station, 2F behind the main stairwell — the largest bank in Asakusa. From outside, enter via the Central Exit, up the stairs, then turn away from the gates. Mix of old key lockers and touch-screen units, ¥300 / ¥400 / ¥500 / ¥700. Coins for the key type, coins or IC card for the automatic ones. A second, smaller bank sits between platforms 1 and 2 toward the north exit — small sizes only
• Tokyo Metro Ginza Line Asakusa — by the elevator near Exit 1. Key-type, ¥300 / ¥500 / ¥700
• Toei Asakusa Line — small banks at both the Kaminarimon and Komagatabashi gate areas. Touch-screen, multilingual, ¥300 / ¥500 / ¥700
• Tsukuba Express Asakusa — B1 near Exit A1, under the stairs. The widest price range in the area, up to ¥800–1,200 for genuinely suitcase-capable sizes, accepting coins, ¥1,000 notes and IC cards. Worth the walk if the others are full

Large lockers here measure about 355mm wide, 645mm deep and 868mm tall — the same standard spec as at Tokyo Station — a normal suitcase fits, a 30-inch case probably won’t.

Staffed counters

• Yamato Transport, Ekimise 1F (the building above Tobu Asakusa Station) — 10:00–19:00, ¥500 per item per day. The cheapest staffed option in the area, and they’ll courier a bag to your hotel
• Sagawa Express, Asakusa Kaminarimon Service Center — near Kaminarimon, 9:00–19:00, ¥800 per item per day. Also does hotel delivery

Note the distinction: the Tobu Tourist Information Center (Tobu’s own desk, near Ekimise) is a different place from the Taito City-run Culture Tourist Information Center that closed its storage service, and Tobu’s desk does offer bag storage. The two get confused constantly.

Continuing to Skytree?

Tokyo Solamachi at the base of Tokyo Skytree has its own lockers throughout the building, in five sizes: ¥300 / ¥500 / ¥600 / ¥800 / ¥1,000. If Asakusa’s lockers are full and Skytree is next on your list, that’s a genuine release valve — the two are one stop apart on the Tobu line.

The river cruise

Boats to Odaiba and Hamarikyu leave from Azumabashi pier, five minutes from Kaminarimon. The operator publishes rules for bicycles but no explicit suitcase restriction. That said, boarding involves a gangway and stairs and the decks are compact — take the bag to a locker first regardless.

UENO

Where the lockers are

• Shinobazu Exit (mezzanine) — lockers in the connecting passageway, ¥400 / ¥500 / ¥600, key and automatic. This is also the closest exit to Ameyoko and to Keisei Ueno
• Park Exit (3F) — automatic lockers just outside the gates, ¥400 / ¥500, plus more near the Panda Bridge exit toward the museums. Best large-locker odds
• Central Gate (1F) — lockers just inside and near the gates
• Iriya Exit (3F) — a few key lockers only. The thinnest of the four
• Ameyoko — a bank inside the vending-machine corner of the market concourse, plus a separate locker room about two minutes from Keisei Ueno

Around 300 lockers in total. Suitcase-capable sizes cluster at the Park Exit and Central Gate.

The museums won’t take your bag

This is the real reason to store at Ueno, and it surprises people:

• Tokyo National Museum — coin-return lockers (¥100 back) in the Heiseikan entrance hall, behind the central stairs, and on Heiseikan 2F. Sized for daypacks, not suitcases
• National Museum of Nature and Science — coin-return lockers in the Japan Gallery B1 and Global Gallery 1F, in three sizes, the largest of which can take a case — but they fill fast during special exhibitions
• Ueno Royal Museum — coin-return lockers in the vestibule, before the entrance. No cloakroom
• Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum — free coin-return lockers in the lobbies of both wings. For special exhibitions, oversized items are checked at the exhibition entrance by staff

None of the four offers a general checked-baggage cloakroom. Leave the case at the station.

Arriving on the Skyliner from Narita

Keisei Ueno is a small station with a modest locker bank, and it will not absorb a peak arrival. The walk to JR Ueno is about 300 metres — three minutes empty-handed, allow ten with a suitcase, because there are stairs and an underground arcade section. Aim for the Shinobazu or Park Exit banks, or book ahead.

Time limits

Standard across Tokyo Metro, JR East and by extension Toei, Tobu and TX: three consecutive days. After that the operator empties the locker and holds the contents for 30 days, then treats them as abandoned. The authoritative version is on the sticker on the locker itself.

FAQ

Can I still leave a bag at the Asakusa tourist centre?
No. That service ended 31 March 2026. Older guides saying otherwise are out of date.

Cheapest way to leave a suitcase in Asakusa?
Yamato at Ekimise 1F, ¥500 a day, if you’re there between 10:00 and 19:00.

When do Asakusa’s lockers fill?
No operator publishes data. The reported pattern is mid-to-late morning at weekends, and much earlier during cherry blossom season, the summer festivals and New Year.

Museum-hopping in Ueno with a suitcase — what’s the plan?
Store at the Park Exit, walk in through the Panda Bridge exit, use the museums’ own ¥100-return lockers for your daypack.

The bottom line

Asakusa: Tobu 2F first, Tsukuba Express B1 if that’s full, Yamato at Ekimise if you want certainty for ¥500. Ueno: Park Exit for large, Shinobazu for Ameyoko, and don’t expect the museums to help.

See also: the full Tokyo guide, Tokyo Station, getting in from the airports.

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Prices and hours as of September 2026. The Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center’s luggage service ended 31 March 2026 per Taito City’s own notice. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.

Tokyo Station has over a hundred locker banks and roughly 5,000 lockers, and people still walk out unable to find one. That’s a navigation problem, not a supply problem. Here’s the map.

The call

If you need a large locker, go straight to the B1 GRANSTA bank (inside the gates) — it has around 900 lockers including 40 large ones, the biggest single cluster in the station. If that’s full, go deeper: the B4 Sobu/Yokosuka platform level and the Keiyo Line passage stay free longest precisely because they’re a long walk.

If you’re outside the ticket gates without a ticket, your options shrink a lot — head for the Yaesu North Exit bank or the Marunouchi North free passage.

If your suitcase is 30 inches or you’re carrying skis, don’t hunt for a locker at all. Use a staffed counter.

The one thing to check first: inside or outside the gates

Tokyo Station’s locker banks are split between the paid area (inside the ticket gates) and the free area. This is the detail that ruins people’s afternoons: the biggest and best banks are inside, and if you’ve already exited, or you arrived by subway, you can’t reach them without buying a ticket.

So decide before you tap out.

The banks worth knowing

Inside the gates

Bank	Roughly	Notes
B1 GRANSTA	728 S / 152 M / 40 L	The big one. Follow GRANSTA mall signage after any underground central or north gate
B4 Sobu / Yokosuka platform level	Several hundred, many large	Deep underground, long walk, best large-locker odds
Keiyo Line passage	78 S / 33 M	JR East’s own guide calls it “comparatively uncrowded.” Past the third moving walkway, on the left
Marunouchi central gate	40 S / 19 M	Most visible, therefore first to fill
Marunouchi underground central/north	91 S / 37 M	B1, small and medium only

Outside the gates

Bank	Roughly	Notes
Yaesu North Exit	80 S / 51 M	Nearest to the Shinkansen transfer gates
Marunouchi North free passage	39 S / 26 M	Use this if you haven’t tapped in yet
Yaesu bus terminal (new)	Reported ~283, incl. ski-size	Opened March 2026 under the Yaesu bus terminal. Time-based pricing, not daily

Prices

Standard JR East sizes: SS ¥300, S ¥500, M ¥700–800, L ¥900–1,000 per day. During peak travel seasons the app-linked “Multiecube” lockers add a ¥100–200 surcharge on medium and large.

Newer machines take Suica, PASMO, PayPay, WeChat Pay, Alipay and contactless cards. Some older underground units are still ¥100 coins only, so keep a few.

You can reserve a locker in advance through Multiecube (multiecube.com) — up to a month ahead, for an extra ¥500 per box. For a tight connection with a big case, that ¥500 buys certainty, which is the whole problem at this station.

Will a 28-inch suitcase fit?

A large locker measures roughly 35cm wide × 65cm deep × 87cm tall (355 × 645 × 868mm is the common spec). A typical 28-inch case is about 75cm tall and 48cm wide, so it fits — but only if you turn it and the wheelbase isn’t unusually wide. Hardside spinners are the ones that don’t.

A 30-inch case usually will not fit any standard locker here. Nor will skis, golf bags, or a bike box. That’s what the counters are for.

Staffed counters (when lockers won’t do)

• JR East Travel Service Center — Marunouchi North Exit, 1F, outside the gates. 8:30–20:00. ¥500 (under 100cm total) / ¥1,000 (under 200cm) / ¥2,000 (over). Max 250cm and 30kg. Same day only.
• GRANSTA Cloak — B1 inside the gates. 8:30–21:00, drop-off until 20:30. Same prices. Same day only.
• Sagawa Express Tokyo Service Center — Nihonbashi exit, in Tokyo Ekimae Ichibangai 1F. 7:00–21:00 and priced per day, so this is the one that takes bags overnight: ¥1,000 (under 100cm) to ¥2,000 (over 161cm). Also does same-day delivery to hotels and to Haneda.

The pattern is worth internalising: JR’s counters are same-day; Sagawa’s is multi-day. If you need to leave a bag until tomorrow, there’s only one answer.

Before you board a Shinkansen

Relevant to almost everyone storing a bag here. On the Tokaido–Sanyo Shinkansen, luggage with a three-side total of 160–250cm counts as “oversized” and needs a reserved seat with oversized baggage space — the last row of each reserved car, which has a rack behind it. The seat costs no more than any other reserved seat, but if you turn up with an oversized case and no reservation, staff can charge a ¥1,000 handling fee. Over 250cm isn’t allowed on board at all.

Under 160cm, ignore all of this. Strollers, sports equipment and musical instruments are also exempt from the reservation rule regardless of size.

How long can you leave it?

Three days. On day four the locker is opened, your things go to a JR East Smart Logistics storage facility, and the daily rate keeps accruing while they sit there. After 30 days unclaimed, they’re disposed of.

Finding an empty one without walking

• Multiecube (multiecube.com) — JR East’s own system. Real-time vacancy by station and size, plus advance reservation. Japanese-first but navigable
• Station Navi — Tokyo Station’s own app, and since 2025 a web version reachable by QR codes on the in-station floor maps. Shows live Suica-locker vacancy and routes you there
• LuggageSnap — English, free, updated every 15–30 minutes, with a Tokyo Station page. It’s an independent project rather than an official service, but it’s the easiest one to read in English

FAQ

When are the large lockers gone?
No operator publishes occupancy data. The consistent pattern is that the convenient banks — Marunouchi central, Yaesu North — go first, from mid-morning, and worst of all during Golden Week, Obon and New Year. The far banks (B4, Keiyo) are the reliable fallback, which is why JR East promotes advance reservation rather than “arrive early.”

Can I leave a bag overnight?
Lockers: yes, up to three days. JR’s staffed counters: no, same-day only. Sagawa: yes.

Is there anywhere for a bike box or skis?
The counters, or the new Yaesu bus terminal hub, which reportedly includes ski-length lockers.

I’m going to Disney.
Then the Keiyo Line passage lockers are directly on your route, and they’re the least contested in the building.

The bottom line

Decide inside-or-outside the gates before you tap out. Head for B1 GRANSTA first, B4 or the Keiyo passage if it’s full, and a counter if the case is genuinely large. If the day matters — a Shinkansen to catch, a flight after — spend the ¥500 and reserve.

More broadly: all the ways to leave a bag in Tokyo, and how to send it ahead instead.

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Locker counts, prices and hours as of September 2026 and subject to change; the Yaesu bus-terminal locker figures are as reported by local media rather than the operator. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.

Shinjuku has more lockers than any station in the world — somewhere around 3,600 — and finding one is still mostly luck if you don’t know which staircase to take.

The call

Need a large locker? Go underground on the West Exit side. That corridor is the biggest single cluster in the station and the reason Shinjuku is, despite the chaos, an easier station to store a bag than Shibuya or Asakusa.

Catching a highway bus to Fuji, Hakone or Nikko? Use the New South Exit banks on the 2nd floor, next to Busta. Do not leave a bag in Busta’s own lockers for a whole day — see below.

Everything full? There are four staffed counters here, which is unusual and genuinely useful.

Where the lockers are

• West Exit, underground (B1–B2) — the big one. From the JR West Exit gates head toward the Odakyu department store basement escalators and into the long corridor. Hundreds of lockers in all sizes
• East Exit, street level (near the old Hato Bus office, close to Studio Alta) — around 15 SS / 77 S / 47 M / 64 L. The best concentration of large lockers on this side. Note the East Exit layout has been reshuffled through 2025–26 as construction moves things around
• East Exit, B1 underground passage — a handful of small banks just outside the Central-East and East gates
• South Exit, 2F inside the gates — 80 S / 85 M / 76 L, near the JR–Odakyu transfer gate
• New South Exit, 2F outside the gate — two banks, one by the Suica Penguin Square (15 S / 13 M / 41 L), one by the platform 13/14 escalators
• B1 corridor toward platforms 5–6 (the Narita Express platforms) — JR East’s own guide calls this an anaba, a spot likely to still be free, because it’s off the main walking route. Inside the gates
• Keio Line and Inokashira Line — ten separate locker locations on B1, with their own live availability map at keiochika.co.jp
• Odakyu South Gate, 2F — two banks. Note Odakyu’s West Gate has none

Kabukicho has no locker bank of its own. If you’re heading out for the evening there, the East Exit banks are your storage.

While you are here: the best standing soba in Shinjuku

An aside, because the bag is in a locker and you have an hour.

Two minutes from the West Exit lockers is Omoide Yokocho — “memory alley” — a lane of tiny post-war eating houses wedged under the railway. Most visitors photograph the lanterns and walk on. Go into Kameya instead.

Order the ganso tenmatama soba, ¥570. Buckwheat noodles in hot broth, a kakiage fritter of onion, shungiku and carrot fried to order, and a soft onsen egg on top. It has been the house dish for over fifty years.

Now the part that should not add up. The noodles are made in their own factory every morning, that day’s quantity only. The broth uses hon-karebushi bonito and kombu from Hakodate. The kaeshi — the soy base — is aged at least 45 days. None of the three contains any MSG. That is the specification of a restaurant, and it is being served at a standing counter for the price of a coffee, to people who eat it in nine minutes on their way to work.

The writer of this site has eaten at a great many standing soba counters in Tokyo. This is the best bowl of the lot. Not the most famous, not the cheapest — the best.

Practical

• ¥570 for the tenmatama. Plain tempura soba ¥500, tororo kombu ¥450. Nothing on the menu passes ¥1,000
• 06:00–23:00, closed Sundays. It used to run 24 hours and the sign may still say so — that was suspended in June 2026, so do not plan a 3am bowl
• Eight places, standing, no reservations. You order, you eat, you are out in ten minutes. Nobody expects conversation
• Cash only — no cards, no IC, no QR. In this category of shop that is a good sign rather than a bad one, and the correlation is real
• There are English, Chinese and Korean menus. A 1971 standing soba counter in an alley under the tracks has translated its menu, which tells you something about who has been coming
• Opened 1971. The Shinjuku shop is the original; there are now branches in Kanda and Shimbashi

Break the egg into the broth before you start. That is the entire point of the dish.

Read nextKameya, Shinjuku: the best standing soba in Tokyo, for ¥570 →Why the specification of a ¥570 bowl reads like a restaurant’s, how to order it without Japanese, and the hours that changed in June 2026.

Prices

JR’s Multiecube lockers: SS ¥300, S ¥500, M ¥700, L ¥900, plus a ¥100–200 surcharge on M and L in peak seasons. Older non-Multiecube banks: SS ¥300, S ¥500, M ¥800, L ¥1,000.

Modern units take coins and IC cards; old key-type ones are coin only. You can reserve a Multiecube locker up to a month ahead for ¥500 extra.

The Busta Shinjuku trap

Busta’s own lockers on the 4th floor look convenient, and for a two-hour wait they are. But they’re priced by time, not by day, and the meter resets every six hours:

Size	First block	Then
Small	¥100 / 60 min	¥500 per 6 hours
Medium	¥100 / 40 min	¥600 per 6 hours
Large	¥100 / 30 min	¥900 per 6 hours

Leave a large bag there for a day and you’re looking at roughly ¥3,700 for a full 24 hours (¥100 for the first half hour, then four six-hour blocks) against ¥900–1,000 in an ordinary station locker fifty metres away. Maximum stay is 72 hours, they’re card and e-money only, and you unlock with a QR code on a printed receipt — lose the receipt and you have a problem.

Use Busta’s lockers while you wait for a bus. Use the New South Exit banks for anything longer.

Four staffed counters

• Sagawa Cloak & Delivery — inside the Tokyo Tourist Information Center, Busta 3F (the bus gates are 4F; the counter is a floor below). 6:30–23:00, the longest hours of anything here. Around ¥800–1,500 by size. Also ships to your hotel, Haneda or Narita if you check in by 11:00
• Keio Nekonote — underground by the Keio New Line gates, under Lumine 1. 8:30–21:00, ¥1,000 per item, and can arrange courier shipping
• Odakyu Sightseeing Service Center — West and South Exit branches, by the Romancecar gates. Up to 160cm and 25kg, up to three days. West Exit check-in 8:00–16:00, South Exit until 18:30, pickup by about 19:00. If you’re going to Hakone this is also where luggage forwarding to your ryokan is arranged
• ecbo cloak at Keio Department Store 2F — ¥800 a day, but online prepayment only, no walk-ups, and store hours (10:00–19:00)

Timing

No official occupancy data exists. The reported pattern is that large lockers at the obvious banks are mostly gone by 10am, while the awkward ones — the B1 corridor toward the Narita Express platforms, the deep West Exit stretch — hold out much longer. JR East effectively confirms this by labelling that corridor a likely-vacant spot in its own guide.

FAQ

How long can I leave a bag?
Station lockers bill per 24 hours with caps of roughly three to four days depending on the operator. Busta is a hard 72 hours. Odakyu’s counter takes three days. Sagawa’s counter is the one to ask about longer.

I’m catching an early highway bus.
Sagawa’s 6:30 opening at Busta 3F is the earliest staffed option in the station.

Is there anywhere near Shinjuku Gyoen?
Use the South or New South Exit banks — they’re the closest side of the station to the garden.

Can I leave a bag overnight and collect it after a night in Golden Gai?
Yes, but note that many station-area banks are behind shutters that close after the last train. Check the posted hours on the bank you use before you rely on a 2am pickup.

The bottom line

West Exit underground for capacity, East Exit street level or New South for large lockers, Busta’s own lockers only for a short wait, and Sagawa on Busta 3F when everything else is shut or too big. Of Tokyo’s big stations, this is the one where persistence actually pays off.

See also: the full Tokyo storage guide, Tokyo Station, and the Fuji day trip that starts at Busta.

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Locker counts and prices from JR East’s own station guide (August 2025 data) and operator sites, current as of September 2026. Shinjuku’s East Exit area is under construction and banks move. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.

On 1 November 2026, Japan stops taking the tax off at the till and starts refunding it after you leave. If your trip straddles that date, this changes what you pack, what you can open, and how early you need to be at the airport.

The call

Travelling before 1 November 2026? Nothing changes. Show your passport, pay the lower price, keep the sealed bag sealed.

Travelling after? You’ll pay the full price including 10% tax, then get that 10% back after a customs check at the airport. Budget for the cash-flow gap, and add half an hour to your departure plan.

The genuinely good news, which is getting lost in the coverage: the new system abolishes the sealed-bag rule and the ¥500,000 daily cap on consumables. You’ll finally be able to buy skincare in Ginza and actually use it in your hotel that night. For most tourists that’s a real improvement, paid for with one extra queue.

How it works now (until 31 October 2026)

You show your passport, the shop deducts the consumption tax, and you walk out having paid the tax-free price. Two categories, two sets of rules:

• General goods — clothes, electronics, bags. Use them freely in Japan.
• Consumables — cosmetics, medicine, food, drink. Sealed in a tamper-proof bag you must not open until you’ve left Japan, capped at ¥500,000 per person per day, and must leave the country within 30 days.

Minimum spend: ¥5,000 before tax, per shop, per day.

How it works from 1 November 2026

You show your passport, and you pay the full price, tax included. The refund comes later, and only after customs confirms the goods actually left with you.

What changes:

Rule	Now	From 1 Nov 2026
When you save the 10%	At the till	After departure
Sealed bags for cosmetics/food	Required	Abolished
Consumables vs general goods	Two categories	Abolished — one rule
¥500,000 daily cap	Yes	Abolished
Deadline to take goods out	30 days (consumables)	90 days
Minimum spend	¥5,000 per shop/day	¥5,000 — unchanged
Airport step	None	Required

How you’ll be refunded depends on the shop: bank transfer, credit card refund, an e-money or QR app, or in some airport arrangements cash. There’s no single national method, so ask at the till how that shop refunds you — for a large purchase, this is worth knowing before you hand over the card.

The airport step, which you cannot skip

This is the part that will catch people out, because no one has ever had to do it before.

1. Go to the tax-free procedure terminal in the international departure lobby — before you check your bags in. Once the suitcase is on the belt, you can’t get it back for inspection, and that’s the refund gone.
2. Scan your passport. The system pulls up your purchases and gives you one of two answers.
3. Green: done, no inspection, go and have a coffee.
   Red: take the actual goods to the customs inspection area.

At Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Chubu, Fukuoka, New Chitose and Naha, you can do the first step through Visit Japan Web in the designated Wi-Fi zones of the departure lobby instead of queuing at a kiosk. Set that up in advance.

Three things worth burning into memory:

• Each receipt is checked as a unit. If one item from a receipt is missing or has been consumed, the whole receipt’s refund is refused.
• Do it at your final departure point from Japan. Domestic connection to an international flight? It happens at the international airport.
• Nobody holds your flight. Officials have said plainly that if you don’t finish in time, you lose the refund — and no one compensates a missed flight over it. Arrive early. In the first months, arrive very early.

If your trip crosses the date

There’s no overlap period: the old system runs to 23:59 on 31 October, and the new one starts at midnight.

What matters is when you bought, not when you fly. Buy on 28 October and depart on 3 November, and that purchase was handled under the old rules — you already got the discount, nothing further to do. Buy on 2 November, and it’s a refund.

Which means one genuinely useful piece of planning: if your trip spans the changeover, do your big shopping in October. You get the money immediately and skip the airport step entirely.

The other tax: customs duty when you get home

A lot of people reading this are planning a big purchase — a bag, a watch, a camera — because Japan’s prices plus the weak yen plus tax-free make it look irresistible. It often is. But the 10% you save here can be handed straight back at your own border, and the shop won’t warn you.

Every country sets a personal allowance: the value of goods you can bring in without paying import duty and local VAT/sales tax. Above it, you declare and pay. The published figures, as of 2026:

Arriving in	Duty-free allowance	Notes
United States	US$800 per person	Families can combine allowances
EU (by air or sea)	€430	Then VAT at your country’s rate, plus duty on some goods
United Kingdom	£390	Above it, VAT at 20% on the full value, not just the excess
Australia	A$900 per adult	Families can pool
Canada	C$800 after 48 hours away	Shorter trips have lower limits
Singapore	S$500 after 48 hours away	GST at 9% above it

These change and have exceptions. Check your own customs authority before relying on a number here.

The maths that matters: a ¥400,000 handbag is roughly US$2,700. Tax-free saves you about ¥36,000. If you then declare it in the US, duty on leather goods can run 8–10% of the full value — about the same amount you just saved. In the UK, 20% VAT on the whole price wipes the saving out several times over.

Three honest points:

• Not declaring is a gamble with real downside. Customs officers know what a Ginza shopping bag looks like, and penalties are a multiple of the duty owed.
• Wearing it doesn’t exempt it. A watch on your wrist bought last week is still a new import.
• Where the deal still works: mid-range purchases under your allowance, and countries with generous limits. A ¥100,000 haul of cosmetics, clothes and small electronics clears most allowances with room to spare. That’s where tax-free earns its reputation.

Why Japan is doing this

Because the old system was easy to abuse. Goods bought tax-free were meant to leave the country, but nothing verified that they did — so a resale trade grew up around it. One audit found nine ineligible buyers alone purchased ¥3.3 billion of tax-free goods in a single year, dodging around ¥340 million in tax; one individual’s purchases topped ¥1.3 billion.

Moving the check before the money closes the loophole. It’s also how most of the world already does it — anyone who has claimed VAT back at a European airport will find the new Japanese process familiar.

What this means for you, practically

• Carry more headroom on your card. Everything costs 10% more at the moment of purchase. On a ¥200,000 camera that’s ¥20,000 of float.
• The refund isn’t instant. Money moves after customs confirmation, on the shop or refund agent’s timeline.
• Watch the exchange rate and fees. Refunded to a foreign card, your 10% comes back in yen converted on a later date, possibly minus a handling fee. What you get back may not exactly match what you “saved.”
• Keep receipts and goods accessible until the airport step is done. Not in the checked bag.
• Some small shops may stop offering tax-free entirely. Retailers have to front the refund and handle the admin, and industry commentary expects some independents to walk away. Department stores and chains will be fine.

FAQ

Is the tax rate changing?
No. 10% standard, 8% on food and non-alcoholic drinks. Only the mechanism of getting it back changes.

Can I still buy cosmetics and use them in Japan?
From 1 November, yes — and this is the biggest practical win of the reform. No more sealed bag, no more travelling with an unopened parcel of skincare.

What if I use something and then can’t claim?
Only that receipt is affected. Tell a customs officer rather than trying the kiosk and hoping.

Do the department store tax-free counters disappear?
No. They’ll continue, and any service fee they charge is their own, separate from the government refund.

Can I post things home and still claim?
No. Separate shipment was abolished back in March 2025. Goods leave with you, in your luggage.

How much time should I allow at the airport?
No official figure has been published. Treat the usual three-hour international check-in advice as a minimum, and if you’ve bought a lot, add an hour. The first few months will be the worst.

The bottom line

Same 10%, later. You trade an instant discount for one queue at the airport, and you get back the freedom to open what you bought — which, for most people spending an afternoon in a Tokyo drugstore, is the better deal.

Related: airport shopping and how duty-free differs, the Don Quijote coupon.

The single mistake to avoid: doing the tax-free step after you’ve checked your bags. Terminal first, then check-in. In that order.

Related: what’s actually worth buying in a Japanese drugstore.

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Based on Japan Tourism Agency and National Tax Agency guidance as of August 2026. Operational details, particularly refund methods, are still being finalised by individual retailers — confirm at point of purchase. Corrections via the contact page.

Checkout is 10am, your flight is at 9pm, and you have a large suitcase and eleven hours. Here’s the whole decision, in order of what to try first.

The call

Ask your hotel first. It’s free, it’s standard practice in Japan, and it works both before check-in and after checkout. Most travellers skip straight to hunting for a locker and pay ¥800 they didn’t need to spend.

If you have no hotel that day: book a storage slot online (¥500–800 per bag) rather than trusting you’ll find an empty locker. Big lockers in central Tokyo on a weekend are a genuine lottery.

If the bag needs to be somewhere else — your next city, the airport, tomorrow’s hotel — that’s not storage, that’s luggage forwarding, and it’s a different (better) answer.

Option 1: your hotel (free)

Japanese hotels and ryokan will hold your bags on the day you check in and the day you check out, as a matter of course, at no charge. You don’t need to negotiate it — the phrase is “nimotsu wo azukete kudasai,” but “can you hold my bag?” works fine at any hotel with foreign guests.

Limits worth knowing: it normally covers that day, not several days. Larger chain hotels will often hold bags for longer on request; a small ryokan may not. And this only applies if you’re a guest — hotels don’t store bags for the general public, so if you checked out yesterday, this option is closed.

Option 2: coin lockers (¥300–1,000/day)

Still the cheapest paid option, and Tokyo has an enormous number of them — roughly 3,600 at Shinjuku, over 1,500 at Tokyo Station.

Size	Fits	Price/day
Small (~35×31×64cm)	Backpack, tote	¥300–500
Medium (~35×54×64cm)	Cabin bag	¥400–700
Large (~35×83×64cm)	Large suitcase	¥600–1,000

Most central Tokyo lockers now take Suica or PASMO, and newer machines accept QR payments. Some older ones are still ¥100 coins only, so keep a few.

The catch: large lockers fill up. On a weekend morning at Tokyo, Shinjuku, Shibuya or Ueno, and during Golden Week, Obon or peak blossom season, assume the big ones are gone by mid-morning. Before you drag a suitcase around a station guessing, use a vacancy checker — Locker Concierge and Coin Locker Navi show real-time availability, and several stations have Suica locker-search kiosks with colour-coded maps.

The other catch: the limit is three calendar days, not 72 hours. After that staff empty the locker and your things go to a storage facility, which is a bad afternoon to have.

Option 3: booked storage (¥500–800/bag/day)

You book online, drop your bag at a partner shop, café or hotel, and collect it later. The advantage over a locker is certainty: you reserved a space, so it exists, and the price is flat regardless of how absurd your suitcase is.

• ecbo cloak: ¥500/day for bags under 45cm, ¥800/day for suitcases. 2,500-plus locations nationwide. Since late 2025 this includes several hundred 7-Eleven stores — a meaningful upgrade, because convenience stores are everywhere and some are open around the clock.
• Radical Storage: flat rate from around ¥600/day per bag in most of Tokyo, any size, with insurance included. Good coverage across the tourist wards.

The one thing to check: your bag lives inside someone else’s business, so you’re bound by that shop’s opening hours. Book a café that closes at 6pm and you have a 6pm problem. Read the hours before you book, not after.

Option 4: staffed counters

For genuinely oversized things — skis, a bike box, the suitcase that defeats large lockers — use a counter.

• Tokyo Station, JR East Travel Service Center: around ¥500 (small) to ¥2,000 (over 200cm total dimensions), roughly 8:30am–7pm. Same-day only — this is not overnight storage.
• Sagawa Express service centre near Tokyo Station: flat ¥800/day, open 7am–11pm. Better hours than the JR counter, and worth knowing about.
• Haneda Airport: ¥300 (under 120cm) to ¥900 (200–300cm) per item per day, up to two weeks.
• Narita Airport: from roughly ¥520/day at manned counters, up to eight days.

Station by station: where the lockers actually are

The general advice above is fine until you’re standing in Tokyo Station with a 28-inch case and no idea which of 26 locker banks to try. So here’s the specific version.

Station-by-station deep dives: Tokyo Station · Shinjuku · Shibuya · Asakusa & Ueno. The summaries below are the short version of each.

Tokyo Station

Roughly 5,000 lockers spread across about 26 locations — and still the hardest station in the city to find an empty large one. The reason is geography: the Marunouchi side (Imperial Palace, tourists) has relatively few lockers and mostly small ones, while the Yaesu side (Shinkansen, buses) holds most of the capacity. If Marunouchi is full, walk through to Yaesu before giving up. A new locker hub under the Yaesu bus terminal reportedly added a few hundred units in 2026, including XL sizes.

Staffed options if the lockers defeat you: the JR East Travel Service Center at the Marunouchi North Exit (8:30–19:00, roughly ¥500–2,000 by size, same-day only), GRANSTA Cloak inside the Yaesu underground central gate (open until 21:00), and the Sagawa Express service centre in First Avenue near the Nihonbashi Exit (7:00–21:00). Suica locker-search kiosks in the station show which banks have space — use them before walking.

Shinjuku Station

The largest locker inventory in Tokyo, which is why it’s the one station where wandering usually works. The biggest single cluster is underground at the West Exit (B2, via the JR West Exit gates). Large suitcase-size lockers are concentrated around the East Exit near Studio Alta. Two more clusters sit by the New South Gate on the 2nd floor, right by Busta Shinjuku — convenient if you’re catching a highway bus to Fuji or Nikko.

Inside Busta itself (4F) the lockers are time-based rather than daily, and the price climbs quickly — fine for a two-hour wait, poor value for a full day. No dedicated staffed baggage counter that we could confirm, so if you need one, Tokyo Station or a booked-storage shop is the answer.

Shibuya Station

Close to a thousand lockers across the JR, Metro and Keio stations, and yet the ones by the Hachiko Exit are full from mid-morning on any weekend. Two reliable fall-backs: the locker bank on the 1st floor of Shibuya Scramble Square (in front of the elevators) and B3 of Hikarie, next to the restrooms. Shibuya also has among the densest booked-storage coverage in the city — cafés and shops that take bags via app — so on a Saturday it’s often faster to reserve than to hunt.

Ueno Station

Around 300 lockers. The Shinobazu Exit has lockers just inside the gate and more in the connecting passage; the Park Exit has a bank right after the gates facing the park. Cited prices here run ¥500 small / ¥800 large. The practical reason people need Ueno storage: the museums. The Tokyo National Museum has free lockers but they’re small and often full — leave the suitcase at the station, take a daypack into the park. Shinobazu Exit is also the one that faces Ameyoko market.

Asakusa

Locker-poor for how many visitors it gets. The largest bank is on the 2nd floor of Tobu Asakusa Station; Toei Asakusa has touch-screen lockers by both gates at ¥300/500/700. Expect them to be full by late morning in high season. Staffed alternatives: the Yamato counter on the 1st floor of Ekimise (the Tobu station building, 10:00–19:00, about ¥500 a bag) and the Sagawa service centre near Kaminarimon (9:00–19:00, ¥800 a bag). Asakusa is also one of the best-covered areas for booked storage, which for a temple-and-lunch afternoon is the least stressful option.

Narita and Haneda

Haneda is straightforward: temporary baggage storage counters in every terminal (T1 and T2 at B1, 8:00–19:30; T3 counters run 24 hours), priced ¥800 small / ¥1,000 medium / ¥2,000 large per day, up to two weeks, max 30kg. Narita has JAL ABC and Sagawa counters in T1 and T2 (1F before security, roughly 6:30 until the last arrival) — note there’s no staffed storage in Terminal 3, so budget LCC passengers should walk to T2. Prices vary by operator and size; expect ¥500–1,100 a day.

German readers: yes, these are the Schließfächer — same system, and the vacancy tools below work in any language.

Finding an empty locker before you walk

• LuggageSnap — real-time coin-locker availability by station, in English, updated every few minutes. Has a Tokyo Station page
• Suica locker-search kiosks — touch screens at Tokyo, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro and Shinagawa showing colour-coded availability maps. Only useful once you’re there
• ecbo cloak app — not lockers, but real-time availability at partner shops and 7-Elevens, bookable in English. Since late 2025 that includes several hundred 7-Eleven stores, some open around the clock

Storage or forwarding? The dividing line

Simple rule: if the bag needs to end up where you started, store it. If it needs to end up where you’re going, ship it.

Takkyubin courier forwarding runs roughly ¥1,600–3,700 depending on size, and typically arrives next day (same-day only for short local routes if you drop off in the morning). It’s more per bag than a locker — and completely worth it when the alternative is hauling two suitcases through Shinjuku Station at rush hour to reach a Shinkansen.

One thing worth knowing before you assume forwarding is a faff: you can hand a suitcase over the counter at a 7-Eleven or FamilyMart, at any hour, including sending it to Narita or Haneda. It is not a hotel-front-desk-only service, and that changes when it is useful. How to do it without Japanese.

Full breakdown in our guide to sending luggage ahead in Japan.

What actually goes wrong

• “All the big lockers were full.” The single most common complaint, and entirely predictable at weekends. Check vacancy online, or book storage instead.
• “I couldn’t find the lockers.” Shinjuku’s are scattered across multiple exits and levels. Note which exit you used, or take a photo of the locker bank and its number. People do lose lockers.
• “My suitcase didn’t fit the large locker.” Oversized hard cases sometimes don’t. Counters and booked storage have no such problem.
• “I left it for four days.” Three-day limit. Use booked storage for anything longer.

FAQ

Can I leave a bag overnight?
Coin lockers: yes, up to three days, paying per day on retrieval. Booked storage: yes. JR staffed counters: no — same-day only.

Is it safe?
Yes, remarkably. Japan’s low-theft reality extends to left luggage, and booked services add insurance on top. Passports and valuables still ride with you.

Do I need cash?
Less and less. Most central Tokyo lockers take IC cards, and booked storage is prepaid online. Carry a few ¥100 coins anyway for older machines.

What about the airport on my last day?
If you’re flying out, don’t store — check in early. Most airlines accept bags several hours before departure, and once your suitcase is on the belt you’re free until boarding, for nothing.

The bottom line

Hotel first, because it’s free. Booked storage second, because it’s certain. Coin locker third, because it’s cheapest when it works. Courier when the bag is going somewhere you aren’t.

And a small piece of advice that saves more hassle than any of the above: on the day you leave Tokyo, decide where the suitcase sleeps before you check out — not while standing outside the hotel with it.

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Prices as of August 2026 and subject to change. Corrections via the contact page. Some links here are paid affiliate links.