Japan Hotel Price Tracker
Every morning we record what a night in eight Japanese cities costs for check-ins 1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60 and 90 days out. We keep the median and the cheaper quartile of what was actually bookable — never a single 'best price', because the exact rate is whatever the booking site shows you today. What this page can answer is the shape: how far ahead prices climb, which cities move, and (as the series grows) how this week compares with last month.
As of Sep 1, 2026 JST · 6 days tracked since Aug 28, 2026
Some cells were missing on 2026-08-29; where the latest day has a hole, the table shows the most recent observation and says so.
Booking early vs. late, by city — Rakuten Travel
Median nightly rate (¥) of the cheapest 90 hotels with a room free, within 3 km of the station named, 2 adults, 1 night, room rate incl. tax. 'Rooms' is how many hotels had any vacancy for that night — supply, not a sample size.
| City | 1d | 3d | 7d | 14d | 30d | 60d | 90d | Rooms (30d) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kyotoaround Kyoto Station | ¥6,000 | ¥9,344 | ¥6,870 | ¥7,072 | ¥13,800 | ¥15,674 | ¥16,250 | 656 |
| Tokyoaround Shinjuku Station | ¥17,100 | ¥25,038 | ¥16,074 | ¥16,600 | ¥24,500 | ¥20,006 | ¥17,286 | 164 |
| Osakaaround Namba | ¥5,500 | ¥8,540 | ¥6,000 | ¥6,050 | ¥8,480 | ¥9,100 | ¥7,640 | 409 |
| Sapporoaround Sapporo Station | ¥37,620 | ¥29,336 | ¥20,068 | ¥20,648 | ¥13,900 | ¥39,500 | ¥10,000 | 341 |
| Fukuokaaround Hakata Station | ¥10,070 | ¥18,296 | ¥11,368 | ¥10,000 | ¥17,400 | ¥15,080 | ¥12,240 | 319 |
| Kanazawaaround Kanazawa Station | ¥13,050 | ¥15,750 | ¥13,600 | ¥9,280 | ¥13,050 | ¥16,000 | ¥9,560 | 150 |
| Hiroshimaaround Hiroshima Station | ¥11,718 | ¥18,000 | ¥28,000 | ¥10,480 | ¥13,050 | ¥11,600 | ¥9,974 | 158 |
| Naha (Okinawa)Agoda side covers Okinawa main island | ¥8,220 | ¥10,880 | ¥8,000 | ¥7,500 | ¥9,330 | ¥8,340 | ¥7,500 | 240 |
Source: Rakuten Travel vacant-room search, recorded by us daily. Figures describe the cheaper end of each city's market, not the whole city.
Shape of the curve, city by city
Solid line: median. Dashed: cheaper quartile. Each chart has its own scale — compare cities with the table, not by eye.
The same windows on Agoda
Median nightly rate (¥) across the 30 listings Agoda returns for the city, 2 adults, 1 night, as Agoda defines the rate. A different set of hotels and a different price definition — do not compare these numbers with the Rakuten table.
| City | 1d | 3d | 7d | 14d | 30d | 60d | 90d |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kyotoaround Kyoto Station | ¥3,182 | ¥4,437 | ¥3,383 | ¥3,660 | ¥7,273 | ¥8,194 | ¥8,000 |
| Tokyoaround Shinjuku Station | ¥3,273 | ¥4,800 | ¥3,273 | ¥3,273 | ¥5,670 | ¥6,022 | ¥5,070 |
| Osakaaround Namba | ¥1,682 | ¥2,182 | ¥2,136 | ¥2,164 | ¥2,455 | ¥3,635 | ¥3,635 |
| Sapporoaround Sapporo Station | ¥11,253 | ¥13,636 | ¥6,695 | ¥6,512 | ¥6,961 | ¥12,273 | ¥6,260 |
| Fukuokaaround Hakata Station | ¥4,664 | ¥9,327 | ¥4,671 | ¥5,018 | ¥8,789 | ¥8,133 | ¥6,579 |
| Kanazawaaround Kanazawa Station | ¥5,455 | ¥9,545 | ¥5,001 | ¥4,545 | ¥6,364 | ¥5,787 | ¥4,848 |
| Hiroshimaaround Hiroshima Station | ¥4,909 | ¥9,073 | ¥8,622 | ¥5,455 | ¥6,802 | ¥6,545 | ¥5,696 |
| Naha (Okinawa)Agoda side covers Okinawa main island | ¥4,182 | ¥5,455 | ¥4,051 | ¥4,003 | ¥5,273 | ¥4,818 | ¥4,318 |
Source: Agoda listings, recorded by us daily.
Book now or wait? Read the curve for your dates
Pick a city and how far out your check-in is. We tell you what our own series shows for that window compared with the next-nearer one. It is a reading of recorded medians, not a forecast.
Kyoto, 30 days out: the recorded median is 95% higher compared with the 14-day window. In this series the cheaper rooms for that date were already thinning out; waiting has not been paying.
656 hotels near the station had a room free for that window on the latest reading.
Rakuten Travel set (cheapest 90 hotels within 3 km of the station, 2 adults, 1 night). Reads the latest morning only; it does not predict what a specific hotel will charge.
How much earlier booking costs, by city
Median 90 days out divided by median for tomorrow, Rakuten set. A ratio above 1 means the cheap rooms for far-off dates are already gone or priced up; near 1 means the cheaper end barely moves with lead time.
- Kyoto2.71×
- Osaka1.39×
- Fukuoka1.22×
- Tokyo1.01×
- Naha (Okinawa)0.91×
- Hiroshima0.85×
- Kanazawa0.73×
- Sapporo0.27×
Cheapest to priciest, 30 days out
Order of cities by the Rakuten median for a check-in 30 days from the latest reading. Rank only — the yen gap between cities changes daily.
- 1Osaka409 hotels with vacancy
- 2Naha (Okinawa)240 hotels with vacancy
- 3Kanazawa150 hotels with vacancy
- 4Hiroshima158 hotels with vacancy
- 5Kyoto656 hotels with vacancy
- 6Sapporo341 hotels with vacancy
- 7Fukuoka319 hotels with vacancy
- 8Tokyo164 hotels with vacancy
Trend: 30 days out, day by day
Median for a check-in 30 days ahead, one point per morning. This is the series Google and the booking sites don't show you.
Trend lines appear once 7 mornings are on record — tracking began Aug 28, 2026.
How it is collected
- One script runs every morning at 08:10 JST and queries both sources for each city and each check-in window. It stores summary statistics only: count, minimum, 10th/25th/50th percentile, maximum, and (Rakuten) the number of hotels with vacancy.
- Rakuten Travel: hotels with a vacant room within 3 km of a fixed point (the station named), sorted cheapest first, first 90 results. Per-hotel prices are not stored — the vendor's terms ask for minimal retention, and the point of the series is the distribution, not any one hotel.
- Agoda: the 30 listings its search returns for the city id, daily rate for 2 adults. The API caps the result at 30 regardless of what we ask for.
- A missed morning is a permanent gap; we never backfill or interpolate. Where the latest day is missing a cell, the tables fall back to the most recent observation and label the date.
Limits, stated plainly
- This is the cheaper end of each market (cheapest 90 / 30 listings), sampled around one station. It says nothing about luxury rates or about neighbourhoods far from that point.
- Rakuten and Agoda figures are not comparable with each other: different hotel sets, different price definitions (room incl. tax vs. Agoda's daily rate), different customer mixes.
- Two adults, one night. Solo, family and multi-night pricing behave differently.
- The series began on Aug 28, 2026. Year-on-year comparison becomes possible one year later; until then only the lead-time curve and the day-by-day drift are meaningful.
Citing these numbers
Quote freely in reporting, research or your own posts, with a link to this page. If you need the daily series as a file, or a city or window we don't track, ask — we can usually add a row.
Locals Japan, "Japan Hotel Price Tracker", locals-japan.com/hotel-prices, accessed Sep 2, 2026.