Luggage and Transport Rules in Japan: What You Can Bring, Where, and What It Costs

Japan’s transport network is the best in the world at moving people and among the worst at accommodating their luggage. Trains have no dedicated baggage car, hotel rooms are small, station staircases are long, and the country’s answer to all of this is a courier network so good that most residents simply do not travel with a suitcase at all.

This is the overview for line C: the rules, the arithmetic, and where each decision is covered in detail.

The size rule that catches people out

Since 2020, the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen — the Tokyo–Osaka–Hiroshima–Fukuoka spine — treat oversized baggage as a reservable item rather than something you carry on.

Boarding with a 160–250 cm bag and no reservation incurs a ¥1,000 charge and the crew will direct you to stow it where they decide. A large check-in suitcase typically lands between 150 and 180 cm total, which is exactly why so many visitors are caught by this. Measure before you travel.

Full detail, including which carriages have the space and how to book it: Shinkansen luggage rules.

The alternative: send the bag

Takkyubin — the domestic door-to-door courier service — will collect a suitcase from your hotel and deliver it to the next one, usually the following day, for a fraction of what the equivalent service would cost anywhere else. Hotel front desks handle it as routine and convenience stores accept drop-offs.

The change this makes to a trip is larger than it sounds: you travel between cities with a day bag, you are not fighting a suitcase up station stairs, and the oversized-baggage rule becomes irrelevant. Prices, timings and the overnight-bag trap are in luggage forwarding in Japan.

Coin lockers

Every significant station has banks of coin lockers, and this solves the arrival-day problem where your room is not ready until three in the afternoon.

• Most modern lockers accept IC cards, which become the key — see how IC cards work.
• Large lockers at major stations fill by mid-morning. Have a second station in mind.
• The charge runs per calendar day, not per 24 hours: leaving a bag overnight is two days.
• Where lockers are full, station luggage-storage counters and an increasing number of shops offer paid storage.

Does the rail pass pay for itself?

Since the 2023 price rise, usually not. The nationwide seven-day pass is ¥50,000 and the standard Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka itinerary comes nowhere near that in point-to-point fares. It needs three genuine long legs to break even.

Run your own legs through the calculator rather than assuming: is the JR Pass worth it.

Getting in from the airport

Narita in particular is far enough from central Tokyo that the transfer is a real decision, with a spread of more than ¥2,000 between the cheapest and the fastest option — and with luggage, the number of staircases matters as much as the minutes.

Every route compared on price, time and difficulty with a suitcase: Narita to Tokyo. Haneda is closer and cheaper, covered in Haneda to Tokyo. Landing in Kansai instead: Kansai Airport to Kyoto, and for getting around Osaka itself, the Osaka Amazing Pass.

Rules that apply everywhere

• Priority seats. Marked in every carriage. Give them up without being asked.
• No phone calls on trains. Silent mode, and take calls in the vestibule between carriages.
• No eating on local and commuter trains. On the Shinkansen and limited expresses, an ekiben is entirely normal.
• Queue on the platform markings. The position of each door is marked and people line up in two files.
• Let passengers off first. Stand to the side of the door, not in front of it.
• Backpack off in a crowded train, carried at your side or placed on the rack.
• Escalators: stand on one side and walk on the other — the side differs between Tokyo and Osaka. Watch what everyone else does.

The wider set of unwritten rules is covered in line E.

Packing implications

• Bring a smaller case than you think. Under 160 cm total avoids the reservation rule entirely and fits in more lockers.
• Two small bags beat one large one. Easier on stairs, easier to store, easier to forward.
• Pack an overnight bag inside the suitcase. The moment you forward the case, you need it.
• Leave room. Between tax-free shopping and everything else, most people return heavier than they left.
• Soft-sided bags travel better on trains and in lockers than rigid shells of the same nominal capacity.

Two route guides cover the busiest journeys: the Tokyo Subway Ticket for getting around the city, and Tokyo to Kyoto Shinkansen for the ride west.

Data checked: 2026-09-29