How Much Are Hotels in Japan?
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 Oct 19, 2026 JST · 53 days tracked since Aug 28, 2026
Some cells were missing on 2026-08-29, 2026-10-14; 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 | ¥26,200 | ¥30,000 | ¥17,200 | ¥18,000 | ¥23,580 | ¥8,076 | ¥7,226 | 524 |
| Tokyoaround Shinjuku Station | ¥30,000 | ¥31,680 | ¥22,800 | ¥22,000 | ¥27,180 | ¥20,160 | ¥14,000 | 153 |
| Osakaaround Namba | ¥8,250 | ¥8,800 | ¥6,750 | ¥7,300 | ¥7,800 | ¥7,576 | ¥7,000 | 414 |
| Sapporoaround Sapporo Station | ¥12,600 | ¥15,266 | ¥9,000 | ¥10,040 | ¥8,600 | ¥14,900 | ¥11,800 | 370 |
| Fukuokaaround Hakata Station | ¥21,000 | ¥27,360 | ¥12,722 | ¥13,680 | ¥17,700 | ¥17,100 | ¥13,500 | 336 |
| Kanazawaaround Kanazawa Station | ¥14,600 | ¥20,000 | ¥11,500 | ¥16,020 | ¥16,000 | ¥9,600 | ¥9,100 | 129 |
| Hiroshimaaround Hiroshima Station | ¥25,000 | ¥23,696 | ¥11,880 | ¥11,900 | ¥15,000 | ¥10,200 | ¥9,160 | 149 |
| Naha (Okinawa)Agoda side covers Okinawa main island | ¥8,970 | ¥14,400 | ¥7,820 | ¥8,700 | ¥7,812 | ¥8,420 | ¥7,200 | 245 |
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 | ¥10,455 | ¥13,208 | ¥7,273 | ¥9,418 | ¥11,489 | ¥3,867 | ¥3,682 |
| Tokyoaround Shinjuku Station | ¥4,800 | ¥4,545 | ¥4,197 | ¥5,082 | ¥4,924 | ¥6,136 | ¥4,564 |
| Osakaaround Namba | ¥3,182 | ¥2,317 | ¥2,317 | ¥3,636 | ¥2,473 | ¥3,272 | ¥2,639 |
| Sapporoaround Sapporo Station | ¥5,155 | ¥5,023 | ¥4,868 | ¥5,326 | ¥4,875 | ¥7,636 | ¥7,181 |
| Fukuokaaround Hakata Station | ¥7,221 | ¥6,636 | ¥5,273 | ¥6,930 | ¥6,545 | ¥8,355 | ¥7,196 |
| Kanazawaaround Kanazawa Station | ¥8,115 | ¥8,182 | ¥5,273 | ¥7,074 | ¥5,455 | ¥5,179 | ¥4,545 |
| Hiroshimaaround Hiroshima Station | ¥7,273 | ¥6,202 | ¥5,455 | ¥6,206 | ¥5,909 | ¥6,218 | ¥5,182 |
| Naha (Okinawa)Agoda side covers Okinawa main island | ¥4,545 | ¥4,818 | ¥4,481 | ¥4,565 | ¥4,283 | ¥5,221 | ¥4,283 |
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 31% 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.
524 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.
- Sapporo0.94×
- Osaka0.85×
- Naha (Okinawa)0.80×
- Fukuoka0.64×
- Kanazawa0.62×
- Tokyo0.47×
- Hiroshima0.37×
- Kyoto0.28×
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.
- 1Osaka414 hotels with vacancy
- 2Naha (Okinawa)245 hotels with vacancy
- 3Sapporo370 hotels with vacancy
- 4Hiroshima149 hotels with vacancy
- 5Kanazawa129 hotels with vacancy
- 6Fukuoka336 hotels with vacancy
- 7Kyoto524 hotels with vacancy
- 8Tokyo153 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.
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 Oct 19, 2026.