Tokyo Attraction Tickets: What Each Sight Charges (2026)

The five passes below are the ones with an official price on an operator's own page. Prices from Toei's own ticket overview and Tokyo Metro's ticket pages, read in Q3 2026. The break-even column is our arithmetic, not the operators': a Metro single is $1.15 to $2.10 (¥178 to ¥324 on an IC card) depending on distance, and a Toei single runs to $2.79 (¥430).

Three things decide whether any of that is worth buying. The Tokyo Subway Ticket is sold to overseas visitors and to domestic travellers from outside the greater Kanto region, so it is not a resident product, and it does not touch JR, which means the Yamanote line, the airport trains and the run to Chiba for Disney all stay outside it. The 72-hour version at $12.96 (¥2,000) is the one that usually pays, because three days of Tokyo sightseeing is comfortably nine subway rides. And the Greater Tokyo Pass at $42.10 (¥6,500) for five days is a regional product covering thirteen railway operators and thirty-one bus companies, which only makes sense if you are leaving the city on most of those days.

What none of them do is get you into anything. Not one of the entries in the table above is included in any official Tokyo transport pass, so a pass reduces the fares between the sights, never the admission. That is the opposite of Osaka or of the museum cards common in Europe, and it is the single most misunderstood thing about buying tickets here.

The rule people arrive with, that buying at the window is always cheaper, is wrong here in both directions, and the amounts are small enough to be worth stating precisely.

Tokyo Skytree charges ¥500 more at its fourth-floor counter than on its own website for the same Tembo Deck ticket, which is the largest printed online saving in the city. Shibuya Sky charges ¥300 more at the 14th-floor counter, on both its time bands. Tokyo Tower charges ¥200 more at the counter for the Top Deck Tour, $22.70 (¥3,500) against $21.40 (¥3,300) online, and nothing extra for the Main Deck. Abroad-facing platforms then sit around these numbers rather than above them: the Tokyo Tower listing at $9.74 is two cents from the counter price, and the Skytree listing at $14.28 sits above the website but below the counter.

Going the other way, one ticket in the city is materially dearer through an intermediary and it is worth naming. A guided Ghibli Museum booking is listed at $64.93 against the museum's own $6.48 (¥1,000), because what is being sold is a reservation service for a sale most visitors cannot reach, and its own listing states that a ticket is not guaranteed. That is a legitimate product for someone who cannot be online at 10:00 Japan time on the 10th, and an expensive one for anyone who can. The mechanics of that sale are on the Ghibli ticket page.

Where no listing exists at all, there is nothing to compare: Shinjuku Gyoen, the national museum, Ueno Zoo and the tournament seat are all counter-only, and the platforms sell guided experiences around them rather than the entry itself.

Age is the biggest lever. The Tokyo National Museum is free for anyone under 18 and anyone over 70, on proof of age. Shinjuku Gyoen is free for 15 and under and half price at 65 and over. Ueno Zoo is free up to sixth grade and $1.94 (¥300) at 65 and over. Skytree is free under 6, and Shibuya Sky is free at five and under, including a six-year-old who has not started school.

Whole free days exist. The national museum's collection galleries are free on 19 May, 21 September and 3 November 2026. Ueno Zoo is free on 20 March, 4 May and 1 October, and free for anyone over 60 with a companion during Senior Citizens' Week, 15 to 21 September.

Disability rates are near-universal but Japan-issued. Tokyo Tower gives half price on every deck with a certificate plus one carer, Shibuya Sky refunds half of what a certificate holder paid at the counter and does the same for one companion, and the national museum admits a certificate holder and one carer free. teamLab Borderless is the exception worth knowing: it accepts a disability certificate from any country, at $11.66 (¥1,800).

And two-thirds of the city charges nothing at all. The temples, the shrines, the palace gardens, both markets, the parks and the two observation decks in the Metropolitan Government Building are free every day they are open. The full list is on free things to do in Tokyo.

A missed teamLab slot is gone. Both venues sell non-refundable dated tickets and the Toyosu museum states that a late arrival is not refunded. Planets admits you within the first thirty minutes of the slot; arrive inside that window and you are fine, arrive after it and you are relying on the desk's discretion, which is not a published policy. If the date itself is wrong, the priority pass at $77.80 (¥12,000) is the only product at either venue that carries no slot.

A Disney date cannot be improvised. There is no gate booth, and the sale for a given date can be suspended when the daily cap is reached and reopen without notice, so refreshing the official store is a real strategy rather than a joke. Change and refund terms are the resort's own and are set per ticket type at purchase.

A platform booking usually has the softer terms. The Skytree listing cancels free up to 31 days and 8 hours before, which is generous by Tokyo standards; the Disneyland passport refunds in full up to 14 days before, DisneySea up to 15. The teamLab and Tokyo Tower listings refund nothing at all. That gap is the honest reason to buy a dated ticket through a platform rather than at the venue, and it is worth more than the few dollars either way.

A sold-out tournament has no legal second market. Resale of honbasho tickets is officially prohibited, so a sold-out basho is sold out. What still runs nightly is the show format, which is not a bout: what the nightly sumo shows actually are.

And for a Ghibli month you missed, the museum simply sells the next month on the next 10th. Guided bookings exist for the dates already gone, at many times the face value and with no guarantee, which is the trade being made.