Japan in December: What Japanese People Say About Winter, New Year and the Snow, Next to Our Own Price Data

Two Decembers: off-season until Christmas, then New Year

The official calendar explains most of it. Japan has no national holiday in December; the next ones are New Year's Day on 1 January and Coming of Age Day on 11 January 2027. Government offices work until 28 December, because the law on their holidays closes them from 29 December to 3 January, and banks are closed from 31 December to 3 January under banking regulations. JR's reserved-seat calendar for 2026–27 follows the same shape. Every Monday to Thursday from 1 to 24 December is off-peak, on the Tokaido and Sanyo shinkansen and on JR East's lines alike. The peak days run from 28 December to 6 January on JR East's lines and the Hokuriku shinkansen; on the Tokaido and Sanyo shinkansen the peak surcharge falls on 29 and 30 December and on 2 and 3 January, with the days around them marked busy. The money is small, an off-peak reserved seat is 200 yen below the normal express charge and a peak one 400 yen above it, but it is JR's own map of the days it expects to fill.

What December costs: hotel prices by check-in date

The table below is not a forecast. Our tracker prices hotels in eight cities every morning for check-in dates 1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60 and 90 days ahead, so each December night is first priced 90 days before it and then again as it comes closer. The table uses the booking window at which the most December nights have been priced so far. It lists which nights that covers, the median of each city's cheaper end across them, how Friday and Saturday nights compare with the rest of the week, and, where the tracker has enough dates, how December compares with nights from the neighboring month priced the same number of days ahead (the table names which nights). It is recomputed every time the site rebuilds, so the coverage lines and the As of line under it are part of the answer.

If your winter trip is in January rather than December, the same table for January check-ins is below. It fills in the same way, one night per morning, starting 90 days ahead.

• How much are hotels in Japan? The full trackerEight cities, every booking window, both booking sites in separate tables, and the trend at 30 days ahead

New Year: what closes, and why Japanese commenters want it closed

The thread behind the opening quote is the most useful Japanese source we have on New Year opening, because many of the people commenting are the ones who would have to work it. In the top 200 of its 586 comments, supermarket, food-court and retail staff describe the shift directly: “I work in a supermarket, and opening on 1 January is honestly brutal.” (332 likes) Another commenter wants the closures for a reason of their own: “I wish Aeon would close. If they closed I wouldn't have to take the family there.” (294 likes) The practical detail comes from an Aeon supermarket worker, “The other supermarkets around us are shut for all three days. We open from the 1st, just on shorter hours.” (70 likes), and from a commenter who remembers that “Department stores used to be closed for the first three days as well.” (60 likes)

What they do instead is the advice for a visitor. “I stock up at the end of December so I don't have to shop during the first three days.” (2 likes) For anything forgotten, another says “If there's something you want to buy, go to a konbini.” (2 likes), and a commenter who remembers the old, fuller shutdown adds “It's easier now that we have convenience stores” (18 likes). Stock up on food before 31 December, when the banks close until 3 January, and treat convenience stores as the backstop for cash as well: ATMs in them, such as Seven Bank's in 7-Eleven, generally keep running through New Year, although the bank or card you draw on can still pause withdrawals over the holiday.

A year-end crowd Japanese commenters do joke about is at Ameyoko, the market street by Ueno Station, and its New Year fish rush. “People who go to Ameyoko to buy fresh fish for New Year's are, let's say, a special breed.” (292 likes) One commenter argues the year-end crush is the least bad time to buy there: “the crowded year-end rush is actually when it's LEAST bad, because real turnover happens.” (45 likes) The most-liked practical answer in that 2025 thread, in the top 70 of 1,106 comments, is shorter: “Just buy it at Yoshiike.” (1,300 likes)

• Is Ameyoko worth it? Japanese commenters on the fishWhy they say watch, don't buy, and the shop by Okachimachi Station they send you to instead

The cold, and the short days

By the Japan Meteorological Agency's averages for 1991–2020, December in Tokyo runs from a daily high of 12.0°C to a low of 3.8°C, with an average December snowfall of zero. Kyoto is 11.6°C and 3.5°C, with 2 cm of snow over the month. Sapporo is 2.0°C and −4.0°C, with 113 cm of snowfall. January is colder again: Tokyo 9.8°C and 1.2°C, Kyoto 9.1°C and 1.5°C, Sapporo −0.4°C and −6.4°C. The days are short too. In Tokyo the sun sets between 4:28 and 4:37 pm all through December 2026, so plan outdoor sights for the morning.

Kyoto's figures look mild. The people who have lived through its winter disagree. Under a January 2026 TV segment about Kyoto's famously indirect speech, in a 972-comment thread, a commenter from Osaka writes “I'm from Osaka and I lived in Kyoto for about three years. The cold there really is from another dimension.” (428 likes) A resident is blunter: “It isn't cold, it's frozen solid.” (190 likes) Two others describe where it gets you. One writes about the old houses, “In a Kyoto machiya, if you go to the toilet early on a winter morning, the corridor is so damp it's chilled like ice.” (92 likes), and one about the ground: “I've heard there's groundwater under the city on the scale of Lake Biwa. In winter that's what chills you from the ground up” (68 likes). If you are booking a machiya for December, ask how it is heated.

You will also see more masks on winter trains. In a 2022 thread of 11,939 comments on why Japanese people wear them, one commenter notes “In winter there were plenty of people wearing masks before COVID as well” (904 likes), and another explains that “everyone wore them once winter came, so it doesn't feel odd here.” (303 likes) In these comments a winter mask is a seasonal habit, not a sign that someone is seriously ill.

• Japanese politeness, and what Kyoto's winter does to youThe 972-comment thread on Kyoto's indirect speech, and its comments on the cold
• Why do Japanese people wear masks? Japan answersThe 2022 thread, including the winter and hay-fever habits that came before the pandemic

Whether snow stops the trains is the other winter question visitors ask. We are still collecting Japanese threads on it and will list them here as we publish them.

Winter onsen towns: Ginzan, Zao and the crab coast

Ginzan Onsen, the gas-lit Taisho-era hot spring town in Yamagata, now manages its winter crowds. Its official site said in January 2026 that it was running entry control for visitors and a park-and-ride restriction on private cars, and that the town could be reached only by its listed buses and taxi plans or by the shuttle from the Taisho Roman-kan; its rules for the 2026–27 winter had not been posted when we checked on 23 September 2026. In the Japanese thread on the first winter of limits, under a 2024 video with 281 comments, the most-liked of the top 60 we read is about who the rules protect: “by the time the visitors who ignore the rules get bored of the place, the decent visitors will have written it off long ago.” (215 likes) A guest who stayed describes what the night changes: “during the day it's mostly foreign visitors and you can barely move forward, but at night it becomes almost entirely overnight guests.” (5 likes) A Yamagata commenter asks winter visitors to leave the car behind: “Especially in winter they should restrict cars — city people should come by shinkansen, not by car. There's a shuttle bus from Oishida Station to Ginzan Onsen.” (7 likes)

Zao Onsen, also in Yamagata, is the opposite case: a town Japanese visitors describe as half-empty, except in winter. A former Zao worker in the Japanese thread on the town writes “These days inbound visitors come to see the frost-covered trees, so the ropeway operator is posting its highest profits ever.” (8 likes) The town's big bath is the thing you lose: “The big open-air bath, which you can't get into during the winter ski season, is genuinely amazing” (1 like). Zao's ropeway operator says the frost-covered trees start forming in November and December, grow through January and are at their largest in February.

On the Sea of Japan side, winter means crab. Kinosaki's tourism association says the town turns to crab from the opening of the fishing season in early November until the end of March. Under a 2023 TV report on the town, one commenter puts it simply: “Crab season was the best. The public bath circuit is great too.” (30 likes) Under a 2024 report on Kaga Onsen's shuttered hotels, a commenter compares the options for a trip from Kansai: “if you're pairing them with a winter crab tour, the choice comes down to them versus the Kinosaki area or Misasa in Tottori. In that case the roads carry a snow risk depending on the weather, so the train was the safe bet” (26 likes). Further north, a commenter who had Yamadera to themselves in the snow writes “A thin layer of snow had settled and the scenery looked like an ink painting” (98 likes), and in Kanazawa another lists Kenrokuen's winter as “yukitsuri snow-rope trees in winter” (16 likes).

• Is Zao Onsen worth it? Japanese visitors on the quiet townThe thread behind the frost-tree and big-bath quotes
• Is Kinosaki Onsen worth it? Japanese viewers answerWhere the crab-season quote comes from
• Is Kaga Onsen worth it? Japanese visitors on the four townsWhere the winter crab-tour comparison comes from
• Most overrated places in Tohoku? Japanese viewers push backIncluding Yamadera in the snow
• Onsen in Japan: Japanese onsen threads collected on one pageTowns, day trips and the etiquette arguments

Skiing: Japanese skiers say the big resorts have priced them out

Under a November 2025 Japanese ski channel video on resort price rises, with 174 comments, the most-liked reply is about paying more for less: “raising prices every year while some lifts aren't even running, give me a break.” (132 likes) The next is about one number: “A one day pass at Kagura for 7,500 yen is finished.” (124 likes) One skier adds up a weekday of parking, a day pass, lunch and tolls and concludes “Not worth that. I quit skiing.” (40 likes); another finds the slopes “emptier than any year I can remember” (42 likes). One comment turns to visitors: “When I see foreign visitors paying close to two thousand yen for a slope side curry that's only onions, I feel bad about it.” (6 likes)

Their alternative is the small local hill. One commenter writes “I'd like the people who have been going to the resort type places to make the trip out to more local ski areas like Norikura, Nomugi Pass, Yabuhara and Ontake.” (50 likes), and another “Let's go to local ski areas like Suhara, Koshi Kogen, Sakae Club, Yakushi and Hakkaisan Sanroku. In top season they're plenty.” (28 likes)

February: the Snow Festival and the frost-covered trees

If your trip is late winter rather than December, the big fixed date is the Sapporo Snow Festival, which runs from 4 to 11 February 2027 at its Odori, Tsudome and Susukino sites. Zao's frost-covered trees are at their largest in the same month, and Kinosaki's tourism association puts the end of its crab season at the end of March. Winter illuminations are the other thing visitors ask about. We are still collecting Japanese threads on them and will list them here as we publish them.

What this page cannot tell you

Three limits. The price tables cover lodging only, and only the cheaper end on one booking site. They say nothing about food, transport or a daily budget, and nothing about any December before our tracker began on 28 August 2026, so there is no comparison with a previous year. The nights around New Year enter the table only as they come within 90 days, so read the coverage lines under it before reading anything into the year-end. And the Japanese threads here are the most-liked comments under particular videos, read to the depth each thread states, not a survey of Japan.

• Japan trip cost in 2026: is Japan expensive now?Hotel prices in eight cities measured every morning, plus what Japanese commenters say about food, rail and tickets
• Kyoto vs Osaka: where to stayThe daily price comparison near Kyoto Station and Namba, and where Japanese travelers sleep when Kyoto costs too much
• Japan itinerary plannerFour questions, then a route built from the same Japanese threads