The lodging tax (shukuhaku-zei) is a local tax paid per person, per night by anyone staying at a hotel or ryokan in Japan — legally a non-statutory earmarked tax, and the amount depends on where you stay. Most municipalities charge a flat ¥100–several hundred per person per night, stepping up in bands as the room rate rises. Kyoto City is the exception: since the revision took effect on March 1, 2026, it runs five bands from ¥200 up to ¥10,000 per person per night. The tax is usually not included in the price shown on booking sites, and is typically paid separately at the property in cash or by card at check-in or check-out. This article answers the question “how much will my booking actually cost me” with a municipality-by-municipality table and worked examples calculated from real listed prices (tax amounts were verified against each municipality’s official page as of August 21, 2026).

The short answer: around ¥200 per person per night in most cities, up to ¥10,000 only in Kyoto

Here is the overall picture first.

• The tax is levied per person, per night. Two people for two nights means four charges. It is not per room.
• The band is determined by the room-only charge (room rate plus service charge). Most municipalities — Kyoto City, Nagano Prefecture and Nasu Town among them — state officially that meals, consumption tax and the bathing tax are excluded. Even on a plan with breakfast, the band is read off the amount net of the meal.
• Cheaper stays are exempt in many places. It is ¥0 in Tokyo below ¥10,000 per person per night, in Osaka below ¥5,000, and in Hiroshima, Nagano and Miyagi below ¥6,000.
• Kyoto City has had five bands since March 1, 2026. On the room-only charge per person per night: under ¥6,000 → ¥200; ¥6,000 to under ¥20,000 → ¥400; ¥20,000 to under ¥50,000 → ¥1,000; ¥50,000 to under ¥100,000 → ¥4,000; ¥100,000 and above → ¥10,000.
• More are coming. Nasu Town (October 1, 2026; six bands from ¥100 to ¥3,000) and Morioka City (October 1, 2026; ¥200) are scheduled to start. Tokyo switches to a flat 3% of the room rate on April 1, 2027.

Kyoto City’s lodging tax (after the March 1, 2026 revision)

Kyoto City’s official page (“About the lodging tax”) states the revised rates and gives the effective date as March 1, 2026 (Reiwa 8). There are five bands, and the “lodging charge” used to determine the band is the room-only charge (room rate and service charge); meals and consumption tax are excluded.

For example, two people in one room at ¥40,000 (¥20,000 per person) pay ¥1,000 × 2 = ¥2,000 for the night, separately from the room rate. At ¥19,000 per person per night it would be ¥400, so crossing the ¥20,000 line costs an extra ¥600 per person. Kyoto’s listed prices and bookings did move after the revision, but working out how much of that was the tax itself is a separate question from the one this article answers.

Municipalities that levy a lodging tax (as of August 2026)

All amounts are per person, per night. Bands are determined on a room-only, tax-exclusive basis as a rule, and the details are on each municipality’s official page. Where both a prefecture and a city levy the tax, the combined amount is shown.

The municipalities about to start or change are worth noting too. Nasu Town starts on October 1, 2026 with six bands from ¥100 (under ¥10,000) to ¥3,000 (¥100,000 and above), with under-12s exempt (town official page). Morioka City starts on October 1, 2026 at ¥200 per person per night (city official page; the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications gave consent on March 27, 2026). These two are contrasting designs — banded versus flat — and our comparison of Nasu Town and Morioka City puts numbers on what percentage each actually adds to real room rates. Tokyo drops its flat-amount system on April 1, 2027 and switches to 3% of the lodging charge (exempt below ¥13,000). Okinawa Prefecture and municipalities within it — Nago, Ishigaki and Miyakojima among them — have obtained the Minister’s consent to introduce percentage-based systems (2% at the prefectural level, capped at ¥2,000); check each municipality’s official announcements for effective dates. If you are travelling for work, this rundown of tax levels and start dates across nine major prefectures and cities from a corporate-contract perspective (Innippon, in Japanese) is also useful.

What the tax costs on an average night — worked examples from Kyoto and Kumamoto

A table of rates alone makes it hard to see “what my own booking will cost,” so we took listed OTA prices (as of August 2026, per room for two guests, tax included), divided them per person, and applied the bands. Listed prices are aggregated by ward within each city and then weighted by the number of properties. Because the lodging tax band is properly determined on a room-only, tax-exclusive charge, the ratios below are, if anything, slightly conservative.

Read it like this. If you stay in Kyoto City at the typical price band — roughly ¥13,000–15,000 per person — the lodging tax is ¥400 per person per night, or ¥800 for two. That is just under 3% of the room rate, small next to the 10% consumption tax. But when the per-person figure passes ¥20,000, as in Higashiyama Ward during the foliage season, you move into the ¥1,000 band: two people for two nights comes to ¥4,000. Kumamoto City is a flat ¥200, so it is easy to work out at any price point — ¥400 for two people for one night. The top ¥10,000 band in Kyoto City applies from ¥100,000 per person per night, meaning rooms above ¥200,000 for two sharing, which essentially never comes up on an ordinary trip.

What you will pay by headcount and nights — a quick-reference table

The lodging tax is simply “the per-person, per-night amount × number of people × number of nights.” Once you have found your municipality’s amount in the table above, you can read your total straight off this one. Every figure here is paid at the property, separately from the room rate.

For example, two adults staying two nights in Kyoto City in a room at ¥6,000 to under ¥20,000 per person per night read the “2 people, 2 nights” cell on the ¥400 row: ¥1,600. Four people for two nights in Kumamoto City is the ¥200 row: ¥1,600. At an onsen property, the bathing tax (standard ¥150 × people × nights) is charged on top of that.

FAQ — the five points guests most often get stuck on

Are school excursions exempt? In most municipalities, pupils and students taking part in a school excursion or school event organised by a school (universities excluded), together with their supervising teachers, are exempt. Kyoto City, Nasu Town and Miyagi Prefecture / Sendai City all set out the exemption explicitly on their official pages. Whether club-activity training camps count varies by municipality, so the surest route is for the school to check with the property.

Do children pay? There is generally no blanket exemption by age. Kyoto City’s official FAQ states that the tax applies “regardless of the guest’s age, where a lodging charge arises.” Conversely, an infant sharing a bed with no lodging charge is not taxable, because no lodging charge arises (Kumamoto City states this explicitly). Some municipalities, such as Nasu Town, do exempt under-12s.

Does the tax change between room-only and half-board plans? As a rule the band is determined on the room-only charge (room rate plus service charge), excluding meals, consumption tax and the bathing tax. Even on a ¥21,000-per-person plan with breakfast, if the room-only charge net of breakfast is under ¥20,000 it falls in Kyoto City’s ¥400 band. Property receipts itemise the lodging charge, consumption tax and lodging tax separately.

How does it differ from the bathing tax? The bathing tax (nyuto-zei) is a separate municipal tax on people using hot springs, with a standard rate of ¥150 per person per day. At a property with an onsen, both the lodging tax and the bathing tax are charged outside the room rate. Stay at an onsen ryokan in Kyoto City at ¥15,000 per person per night and you will owe ¥400 lodging tax plus ¥150 bathing tax, or ¥550 extra. How the bathing tax feeds through to market room rates is covered in our piece on bathing-tax surcharges and room rates, so we leave it aside here.

Is it included in the price shown on booking sites, or paid on arrival? The lodging tax works by the property (as the designated collecting agent) receiving it from the guest and remitting it to the municipality, and it is frequently not included in the price shown on an OTA or in a prepaid amount. In that case you pay it at the property at check-in or check-out. Check the price breakdown and the notes on the booking screen for wording such as “lodging tax payable locally”; if you cannot find it, the quickest route is to ask the property. For two people over three nights, adding “tax × 2 people × 3 nights” to your budget in advance saves any surprise at checkout.

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