Tokyo Transport Guide (2026): Passes, Fares & How to Actually Get Around

Tokyo raised the price of getting around three separate times in 2026, and most guides still quote the old numbers. JR East revised its fares on 14 March 2026 — an average rise of 7.1%, with regular fares up 7.8% — and abolished the discounted "Yamanote Line area" and "Tokyo special zone" fare bands that had made central hops cheap for decades. Short central journeys therefore rose far more than the headline: Tokyo to Shinjuku went from ¥208 to ¥253 (+21.6%) on an IC card, while the JR minimum fare moved only from ¥146 to ¥155. Subway passes rose the same day — the 72-hour Tokyo Subway Ticket jumped from ¥1,500 to ¥2,000, a 33% increase — and on 20 April 2026 Tokyo's 23-ward taxis took a 10.14% effective rise. The practical answer for most visitors is still cheap and simple: tap an IC card, and buy the 72-hour Tokyo Subway Ticket (¥2,000) only if you will make about ten subway rides across three days. Budget ¥800–¥1,200 per person per day. The maths for every pass is below.

Tokyo Transit Passes Compared (2026)

Prices are adult fares from the operators' own pages, current as of 29 August 2026. Break-even is the number of rides at which the pass starts beating pay-as-you-go — calculated honestly against a ¥210 subway ride, which is one stop above Tokyo Metro's ¥178 IC minimum and reflects a typical cross-town trip. Short hops cost less, so if your day is all two-stop rides, every break-even below rises. Value rates each pass against the realistic alternatives, not in the abstract.

Pass	Valid for	Price (adult)	Break-even	Value	Best for
Tokyo Subway Ticket 72h	72 consecutive hours from first tap	¥2,000 (child ¥1,000)	10 rides (~3.4/day)	★★★★☆	Three-day, subway-heavy trips. Cheapest per day of any unlimited option
Tokyo Subway Ticket 48h	48 consecutive hours	¥1,500 (child ¥750)	8 rides (~4/day)	★★★☆☆	Two-night stays with a dense itinerary
Tokyo Subway Ticket 24h	24 hours from first tap	¥1,000 (child ¥500)	5 rides in one day	★★★☆☆	A single packed day
Tokyo Metro 24-hour Ticket	24 hours, Metro only	¥700 (child ¥350)	4 Metro rides	★★★☆☆	Anyone who cannot buy the tourist ticket, or a day entirely on Metro lines
Metro + Toei Common One-Day	Calendar day, not 24h	¥1,100 (child ¥550)	6 rides	★★☆☆☆	Residents. Eligible visitors should buy the 24h ticket — ¥100 cheaper and it lasts longer
Tokunai Pass (JR, 23 wards)	Calendar day	¥870	4–6 JR rides, depending on distance	★★★☆☆	JR-heavy days inside the 23 wards
Tokyo Combination Ticket	Calendar day	¥1,720 (child ¥860)	~8 rides	★★☆☆☆	Metro + Toei + JR + Toei bus + tram in one day. Rarely earned back
JR TOKYO Wide Pass	3 consecutive days	¥16,000 (child ¥8,000)	Two substantial Shinkansen day trips — see below	★★★★☆	Karuizawa, Nikko, Echigo-Yuzawa and similar

Five things that table hides, and they matter more than the prices.

The tourist ticket is cheaper than the resident one — but you may not be able to buy it. The Tokyo Subway Ticket 24h costs ¥1,000 and runs 24 hours from first tap; the Metro + Toei Common One-Day Pass costs ¥1,100 and expires at midnight however late you bought it. Same two networks. The catch is that the Tokyo Subway Ticket is restricted to visitors — foreign travellers must show a passport, and Japanese residents qualify only if they live outside the Tokyo area. Critically, it is not sold from ordinary subway ticket machines: you buy it at the airports, at travel service counters, and at selected hotels, electronics retailers and travel agents. Plan to buy it on arrival rather than assuming you can pick one up at the station downstairs.

"Subway" in Tokyo does not mean "all trains." Every Tokyo Subway Ticket and Metro pass excludes JR entirely, so the Yamanote line is not covered. If your day is Shibuya → Shinjuku → Ikebukuro, you are on JR and the pass in your pocket does nothing. Buses are excluded too — only the ¥1,720 Tokyo Combination Ticket includes Toei buses and the tram.

The 72-hour ticket's advantage over Metro-only passes is thinner than it looks. At ¥2,000 it is about ¥667 a day, against ¥700 for a Metro-only 24-hour ticket — but three separate Metro 24-hour tickets cost ¥2,100, so the 72-hour ticket saves just ¥100 if your trips never touch Toei. Its real value is the Toei coverage and the single purchase, not a dramatic discount.

The 72 hours are consecutive and they do not pause. The clock starts at your first tap and runs through your airport day, your walking day and the day you take the Shinkansen out of town. A three-night stay with one day out of Tokyo often does not reach ten subway rides.

The QR version is not universally accepted yet. A QR-code format launched on 25 March 2026 alongside the physical ticket. Not every gate reads it, and some stations still route QR holders to a staffed window — so the "no more ticket machines" convenience is partial.

Did Tokyo train fares really go up in 2026?

Yes — on 14 March 2026, and central Tokyo was hit hardest. The structural change matters more than the percentage. JR East had long run three parallel fare tables: a cheap "Yamanote Line area" (山手線内) rate, a slightly less cheap "Tokyo special section" (電車特定区間) rate, and the standard mainline (幹線) rate charged everywhere else. The March revision abolished the first two and folded central Tokyo into the standard mainline table.

The average traveller saw about 7.8%. Riders inside the loop saw much more — but not uniformly, and the spread is the point:

Journey (JR, IC card)	Before	After 14 Mar 2026	Change
Minimum fare (up to 3 km)	¥146	¥155	+6.2%
Tokyo → Shinagawa	¥178	¥209	+17.4%
Shinjuku → Shibuya	¥167	¥199	+19.2%
Tokyo → Shinjuku	¥208	¥253	+21.6%
Tokyo → Shibuya	¥208	¥253	+21.6%

Note the range: +6.2% at the bottom and +21.6% at the top. Anyone telling you "Tokyo JR fares went up about 20%" is quoting the worst case. Commuter passes rose more steeply again, up 12.0%, and the flat-rate Yamanote loop commuter pass was discontinued outright. JR East cited platform screen doors, fleet renewal, energy and labour costs.

Two things did not change, and guides confuse them. First, Tokyo Metro's ordinary fares were untouched by the March revision — the Metro minimum is still ¥178 IC / ¥180 paper. The only Metro fare that moved was the short Chiyoda line section between Ayase and Kita-Senju (¥146 → ¥155 IC), which is priced under a JR-linked special arrangement. Metro has said it is considering a comprehensive review for March 2028 or later, which would be its first full overhaul since 1995, but nothing is filed. Second, the private airport railways are separate companies and were not part of the JR revision at all.

Metro and Toei share a minimum fare but diverge above it. Both start at ¥180 paper / ¥178 IC, then Metro runs ¥210 / ¥260 / ¥300 / ¥330 while Toei runs ¥220 / ¥280 / ¥330 / ¥380 / ¥430. On paper that makes Metro cheaper on longer trips — but do not try to game it. The two networks reach different stations and measure distance over different routes, so the cheaper table is not always available to you. What is worth knowing is that transferring between the two networks attracts a ¥70 discount rather than a clean second minimum fare, so a Metro-to-Toei journey is not as punishing as the separate-company structure suggests.

Should you buy a pass or just tap an IC card?

Tap an IC card unless you will make roughly ten subway rides across three days. That is the whole decision for most itineraries, because Tokyo distances are short: a typical sightseeing day is three to five rides at ¥180–¥260, or about ¥600–¥1,100.

Work it through at ¥210 a ride:

• Two rides a day. About ¥420. No pass earns that back. Tap.
• Three rides a day for three days. Nine rides is ¥1,890 — still less than the ¥2,000 pass. Three-a-day is not enough, despite what most guides claim.
• Three to four rides a day for three days. Ten or more rides, ¥2,100 and up. Now the 72-hour ticket at ¥2,000 wins, and it removes the fare-machine friction.
• Five or more rides in a single day. The 24-hour ticket at ¥1,000 pays off that day.
• A JR-heavy day inside the 23 wards — the Yamanote loop plus a Chuo line run out to Nakano — the Tokunai Pass at ¥870 needs about four long hops at ¥253, or six shorter ones at ¥155–¥199. Check the actual station pairs before buying. (Note that Kichijoji is in Musashino City, outside the 23 wards, and is not covered.)
• Two substantial day trips in three days — the JR TOKYO Wide Pass at ¥16,000 is the only pass here that saves real money. A Tokyo–Karuizawa round trip in a reserved seat is roughly ¥12,000, which leaves about ¥4,000 still to recover — so the second trip has to be a real one, not a short hop. It covers JR East lines and the Tohoku, Joetsu and Hokuriku Shinkansen within set limits; it does not cover the Tokaido Shinkansen, which rules out Odawara, Atami and points west.

The trap is buying a pass that does not cover your trains. A visitor with a 72-hour Tokyo Subway Ticket who spends the day on the Yamanote line has bought nothing. Sketch tomorrow's route first, check whether each leg is Metro, Toei or JR, then choose.

Which IC card should tourists get in 2026?

Get a Welcome Suica if you land at Narita or Haneda, or an ordinary Suica or Pasmo otherwise — the difference barely matters. Both work on every train, subway and bus in Tokyo and at most convenience stores, and both deduct the IC fare, a few yen below the paper fare.

The distinction is administrative:

• Welcome Suica — sold at Narita Terminals 1 and 2·3, Haneda Terminal 3, and JR EAST Travel Service Centers. No ¥500 deposit, so you pay only what you load, but it expires 28 days after issue. Unused balance is not simply lost: JR East accepts refund requests at its offices during a short window after expiry — confirm the current terms at the counter when you buy.
• Ordinary Suica / Pasmo — a ¥500 refundable deposit and no practical expiry. Unregistered cards returned to sale on 1 March 2025 after the two-year chip shortage, so the "you can't buy a Suica any more" advice circulating since 2023 is out of date. A refund at the end of your trip returns the deposit but a handling fee is deducted from any remaining balance, so run the card down rather than reloading at the end.
• Mobile, on an iPhone — you can hold a Suica in Apple Wallet without a Japanese address. Plan for one failure mode: some foreign-issued cards are refused at the Apple Pay top-up step. Carry a second card. Cash top-up options for mobile cards are narrower than for plastic ones, so do not assume any convenience store will do it.

Two limits worth knowing: an IC card holds a maximum of ¥20,000, and Suica and Pasmo are functionally identical for a visitor — Suica is JR East's, Pasmo the private railways' and buses', and each is accepted on the other's network nationwide. Buy whichever machine you are standing in front of.

One thing an IC card does not do is find you the cheapest route. JR, Metro and Toei are separate companies with separate gates. Tapping guarantees the correct fare for the route you took, not the cheapest combination available — and a journey that leaves JR for Metro mid-way is charged as two fares, less the transfer discount where one applies.

When is a taxi actually worth it in Tokyo?

After the last train, with luggage, or when the alternative costs you a transfer at Shinjuku — but rarely on price alone. On 20 April 2026 the fare for the 23 wards plus Musashino and Mitaka was revised for the first time since November 2022, at an official rate of 10.14%. The revision was engineered to be invisible: the ¥500 flag-fall did not change, but the distance it buys shrank from 1.096 km to 1.0 km, and the ¥100 distance increment shortened from 255 m to 232 m. The slow-traffic time charge tightened from 1 minute 35 seconds to 1 minute 25 seconds below 10 km/h.

So "Tokyo taxis still start at ¥500" is true and misleading at once. A short central hop now runs about ¥1,000–¥1,500, and a cross-town trip in traffic can pass ¥4,000. A 20% surcharge applies between 22:00 and 05:00, on top of those rates, and booking fees, tolls and the flat-rate airport fares are all separate. These figures cover the 23 wards and Musashino/Mitaka only — the wider Tama area is priced differently.

Do the sum before you assume a group taxi is cheaper. Four people at ¥210 each is ¥840, against roughly ¥1,200 for a short cab — the taxi loses. It wins when the train legs are longer (four fares at ¥253 is ¥1,012 and closing), when you are hauling suitcases through a station like Shinjuku, and above all after the last train, when the alternative is not a cheaper train but no train at all.

FAQ

How much does a day of transport cost in Tokyo in 2026? Budget ¥800–¥1,200 per person per day for three to five rides. A 72-hour Tokyo Subway Ticket caps subway spending at about ¥667 a day, but does not cover JR or buses.

Is the Japan Rail Pass worth it for a Tokyo-only trip? No — it covers almost nothing you use inside Tokyo. From 1 October 2026 the 7-day ordinary pass rises from ¥50,000 to ¥53,000 when bought through overseas agents; the official online reservation service is reported to be holding the old price. Only consider it for trips spanning Tokyo, Kyoto and beyond.

Does the Tokyo Subway Ticket cover the Yamanote line? No. It covers Tokyo Metro and Toei subway only. The Yamanote, Chuo and all other JR lines are excluded, as are buses — the single most common mistake visitors make.

Where do I buy a Tokyo Subway Ticket? At Narita and Haneda airports, travel service counters, and selected hotels, electronics stores and travel agents — not at ordinary subway ticket machines. Foreign visitors must show a passport.

What time does the last train run in Tokyo? Most central lines stop somewhere between 00:00 and 00:30, with first trains from about 05:00, but this varies sharply by line, direction and day — outbound suburban services can finish much earlier. Check your specific station and direction rather than trusting the range.

Last updated: 2026-08-29