1. Build your itinerary
Pick a route, then choose one-way or round trip. Only journeys covered by JR count — subways, private railways and most buses do not. Every fare used here is printed in full in the fare table below.
Your itinerary
Nothing added yet. Most visitors start with Narita → Tokyo, then Tokyo → Kyoto.
2. Choose the pass
Green Car is first class. This calculator prices one adult. Children aged 6–11 pay half on tickets, half on the Nozomi supplement, and the child pass is half price until September 30, 2026 — so until then the yes/no answer is identical for them. From October 1 the child 7-day Ordinary pass is ¥27,000 against a true half of ¥26,500, making it about 1.9% less attractive than this page shows. Under-6s travel free if they do not take their own reserved seat.
The numbers
How we price the ticket side. One adult, one way, regular-season reserved seat in an Ordinary Car, paper ticket. The two scenarios use two different ticket prices, because they are two different journeys: a Hikari or Sakura ticket is cheaper than a Nozomi or Mizuho ticket for the identical route. The gap runs from ¥210 on Tokyo–Nagoya to ¥1,060 on Tokyo–Hakata, and both prices are printed, for every route that has two, in the fare table below. On the Kyushu Shinkansen, Mizuho, Sakura and Tsubame are priced the same, so Hakata–Kagoshima is identical in both columns. Charging the Nozomi price against a bare pass would credit the pass with a speed it does not include, which on a close call is enough to turn a “no” into a “yes”.
Seasons move fares too, and by more than the margin this calculator often runs on. On the Shinkansen, a reserved limited-express fee is ¥400 higher on JR’s busiest dates, ¥200 higher on the peak dates around them, and ¥200 lower on off-peak dates; a non-reserved fee never moves. It is not a universal rule: JR East holds a number of its named limited expresses at one price all year, and the Narita Express is one of them. Two more rows in the table need care for the same reason — the short Odawara and Nikko runs are priced by special short-distance limited-express fees, and we have not verified whether the seasonal bands reach them. The Tokyo Monorail has no limited-express fee at all, so nothing there moves. The pass price and the Nozomi supplement never move either — so the surcharge dates make the pass more likely to pay for itself, and the off-peak dates make it less. The table above is priced at the regular season, in the middle.
On the flagship example below that is enough to change the answer. The classic loop plus the Narita Express both ways is ¥50,340 against a ¥50,000 pass — the pass wins by ¥340. Three of the five legs move with the season: the Shinkansen ones. The Narita Express does not — JR East took it off the seasonal bands in its revision of 16 March 2024, and its limited-express fee has been the same all year on every section since, including the airport run priced here. JR East’s own list of the trains it holds at one price all year names the Narita Express. (Several fare summaries still carry a boilerplate line about ¥200 and ¥400 seasonal adjustments on Narita Express pages; it is a template note and does not apply to this train.) So on busiest dates the cash side rises ¥1,200 to ¥51,540 and the pass wins by ¥1,540; on off-peak dates it falls ¥600 to ¥49,740 and the pass loses by ¥260. All three Shinkansen legs here are Tokaido or Sanyo, so one calendar decides it: 15–16 August is in the busiest band and 24–27 August is off-peak, on the Tokaido and Sanyo calendar. Do not carry those dates onto the Tohoku or Hokuriku lines — on JR East’s calendar the whole of 20–31 August is regular season.
There are two seasonal calendars, not one. The Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen run on JR Central’s calendar; the Tohoku, Joetsu, Hokkaido and Hokuriku Shinkansen run on JR East’s — the Hokuriku line included, even over the stretch west of Joetsu-Myoko that JR West operates. They do not agree. Obon is the clearest case: on the Tokaido the busiest band is only 7–8 and 15–16 August, while on the Tohoku it is the whole of 10–19 August. So on 13 August a Tokyo–Kyoto reserved seat is ¥200 over regular and a Tokyo–Sendai one is ¥400 over. English-language summaries generally quote the Tokaido dates as though they applied to every Shinkansen. The full bands for the Tokaido and Sanyo lines are on our page about the all-reserved dates.
The catch: Nozomi and Mizuho are not free with the pass
The Japan Rail Pass does not cover Nozomi and Mizuho, the fastest trains on the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen. To ride one you buy an [ONLY WITH JAPAN RAIL PASS] NOZOMI MIZUHO Ticket on top of the pass, at a JR ticket office or reserved-seat machine in Japan. The price is fixed per section and is identical for a non-reserved seat, a reserved seat and a Green Car seat; children pay half. This is the amount the second scenario above adds to the pass.
Your alternative costs no money, but it does cost time. Hikari, Sakura, Kodama and Tsubame are fully covered. Tokyo–Osaka on Hikari adds roughly 20–45 minutes; Hakata–Kagoshima on Sakura rather than Mizuho adds about 10. The two longest runs are the ones to watch, because a through Hikari is rare: Tokyo–Hiroshima normally means changing at Shin-Osaka or Okayama onto a Sakura and takes around 4h20–4h30 against roughly 3h50 on Nozomi — call it 40–60 minutes including the change. Tokyo–Hakata is longer again; we have not timed it across the day and will not guess a figure. Check a timetable for those two before you decide the supplement is not worth paying.
Nine of the twenty routes on this page carry a supplement, and the amount for each — alongside the ordinary fare it sits on top of — is in the full fare table below. It runs from ¥3,400 for the short Hiroshima–Hakata hop to ¥8,140 Tokyo–Hakata, so a Tokyo–Kyoto round trip on Nozomi costs ¥9,920 on top of the pass — about a fifth of a 7-day Ordinary pass. The other eleven routes are not served by Nozomi or Mizuho at all: the Tohoku, Joetsu and Hokuriku Shinkansen, the Narita Express, the Tokyo Monorail and the Odawara and Nikko runs are covered outright, so the two scenarios give the same answer for them.
Each figure equals the non-reserved limited-express fee for the section — the regular-season Hikari or Sakura reserved fee minus ¥530. (Reserved seats cost ¥200 or ¥400 more on peak and busiest dates while non-reserved fees never move, so check it against a regular-season fare or the arithmetic will not come out.) That identity holds for all nine sections in the fare table below and is what we check them against.
And a warning the identity hides. The supplement equals a non-reserved fee, but on 53 days of this financial year a Nozomi has no non-reserved seats at all — JR Central and JR West sell every car as reserved over Golden Week, Obon, Silver Week, the year-end and, since an announcement of 21 May 2026, every three-day weekend in the second half of the year. This takes nothing away from a pass holder, because the supplement always bought a reserved seat anyway. It matters to the other side of the comparison: on those dates the cheapest cash alternative disappears, so paying cash costs more and the pass does better than this page’s regular-season figures suggest. We publish the complete list of the 53 dates, and what switching costs on each section.
Every fare this page uses: 20 JR routes, 2026 prices
These are the one-way prices behind both answers above: one adult, regular season, reserved seat in an Ordinary Car, bought as a paper ticket. On the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen the same journey has two prices, and which one applies to you depends on the pass — what it costs on a Hikari, Sakura or Kodama, which a Japan Rail Pass covers outright, and what the identical journey costs on a Nozomi or Mizuho, which it does not. Tokyo to Kyoto is ¥13,850 on a Hikari against ¥14,170 on a Nozomi; Tokyo to Hakata is ¥22,750 against ¥23,810. If you already hold a pass, the last column is the whole of what riding the fast train costs you.
| Route, one way | On a train the pass covers |
On Nozomi or Mizuho |
Supplement with a pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airport transfers | |||
| Narita Airport to Tokyo Station (N'EX) | ¥3,140 | — | — |
| Narita Airport to Shinjuku / Shibuya (N'EX) | ¥3,330 | — | — |
| Haneda Airport to Hamamatsucho (Monorail) | ¥520 | — | — |
| From Tokyo | |||
| Tokyo to Nagoya | ¥11,090 | ¥11,300 | ¥4,180 |
| Tokyo to Kyoto | ¥13,850 | ¥14,170 | ¥4,960 |
| Tokyo to Osaka (Shin-Osaka) | ¥14,400 | ¥14,720 | ¥4,960 |
| Tokyo to Hiroshima | ¥18,910 | ¥19,760 | ¥6,500 |
| Tokyo to Fukuoka (Hakata) | ¥22,750 | ¥23,810 | ¥8,140 |
| Tokyo to Kanazawa | ¥14,600 | — | — |
| Tokyo to Sendai | ¥11,630 | — | — |
| Tokyo to Niigata | ¥10,980 | — | — |
| Tokyo to Nagano | ¥8,450 | — | — |
| Tokyo to Hakone (Odawara) | ¥3,810 | — | — |
| Tokyo to Nikko (via Utsunomiya) | ¥5,790 | — | — |
| Western Japan | |||
| Kyoto to Hiroshima | ¥11,300 | ¥11,940 | ¥4,170 |
| Osaka to Hiroshima | ¥10,420 | ¥10,950 | ¥4,170 |
| Hiroshima to Fukuoka (Hakata) | ¥9,100 | ¥9,630 | ¥3,400 |
| Fukuoka (Hakata) to Kagoshima | ¥11,950 | ¥11,950 | ¥5,150 |
| Kyoto to Kanazawa | ¥7,720 | — | — |
| Osaka to Kanazawa | ¥9,410 | — | — |
A dash means no Nozomi or Mizuho runs on that route, so there is nothing to add: the fastest train there is itself covered by the pass. On the Kyushu Shinkansen the three train types are priced identically, which is why Fukuoka to Kagoshima shows the same figure in both fare columns and still carries a supplement — there you pay purely for speed, not for a dearer ticket.
One caveat we would rather state than bury. The Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen are not the only lines with two prices. On the Tohoku Shinkansen a Hayabusa costs more than a Yamabiko over the same section — ¥11,630 against ¥11,310 to Sendai, a gap of ¥320, the same size as the Nozomi gap to Kyoto. The difference is who it falls on: the pass covers Hayabusa, so a pass holder rides the fast train for nothing extra, and we price the covered column at the fastest covered train, which is the journey a pass holder actually makes. If you would take a Yamabiko instead, your cash side is ¥320 lower per trip and the pass is that much less attractive than the table shows. The Hokuriku Shinkansen has no such split: Kagayaki, Hakutaka, Tsurugi and Asama all cost the same.
And the same question, larger, on the short runs. Tokyo to Odawara is priced here as a Kodama with a reserved seat, ¥3,810 — but ¥2,290 of that is the limited-express fee. Ordinary Tokaido Line trains run the same stretch for the ¥1,520 fare alone, and a pass covers them too — they are slower, but we have not timed them and will not guess by how much. Tokyo to Nikko has the same shape: Shinkansen to Utsunomiya, then a local line that also runs the whole way. So on those two the amount you can avoid by accepting a slower train is far bigger than the ¥320 to Sendai — and on a Hakone day trip it is most of what the pass is doing for you. We price every row at the fastest train the pass covers, which is the one rule that makes Hikari, Hayabusa and Kodama consistent with each other; on the short hops it is also the assumption most worth arguing with, so we would rather you knew where it bites.
Each Shinkansen and limited-express figure is the ordinary fare plus the reserved-seat limited-express fee for that section; the Tokyo Monorail is a flat fare with no limited-express fee. On the Shinkansen, peak dates add ¥200 per reserved journey and the busiest dates ¥400, while off-peak dates take ¥200 off; the pass price and the supplement never move with the season. JR East routes include the 14 March 2026 revision. The calculator at the top of this page reads its numbers directly out of this table — there is no second copy of the route data for it to drift away from, so what is printed here is what it computes with. The unreserved fares on our page about the dates Nozomi runs without unreserved seats are generated from this table rather than typed out again, for the same reason; an unreserved seat costs ¥530 less than the covered-column figure on the Tokaido and Sanyo sections.
The bigger change of 14 March 2026 was not a fare rise at all
On the same day, the JR Group abolished the return-ticket discount. Until 13 March, a journey of 601 km or more each way took 10% off the fare component in both directions; on a Tokyo–Hakata return that was roughly ¥2,800 off a ¥28,160 fare component, and Tokyo–Hiroshima qualified too. Since 14 March a return is simply two one-way tickets — which is exactly how this calculator prices it, so every figure on this page is already post-abolition.
The consequence is worth spelling out, because it runs the opposite way to everything else on this page: a guide written before March that quotes a discounted long-distance return understates the cash side today, and therefore understates the pass. On Tokyo–Hakata and Tokyo–Hiroshima — the two routes where the Nozomi supplement does the most damage to the pass — this pushes the answer back the other way.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to ride Nozomi with a JR Pass?
On the routes in this calculator, between ¥3,400 and ¥8,140 each way per section, depending on distance — ¥4,960 Tokyo–Kyoto or Tokyo–Shin-Osaka, ¥6,500 Tokyo–Hiroshima, ¥8,140 Tokyo–Hakata, ¥5,150 Hakata–Kagoshima and ¥3,400 for the short Hiroshima–Hakata hop. The same price applies whether you take a non-reserved seat, a reserved seat or a Green Car seat, and children aged 6–11 pay half. You buy the ticket in Japan, at a JR ticket office or a reserved-seat machine; it cannot be bought from abroad. This is large enough to reverse the verdict. Take the classic Tokyo → Kyoto → Hiroshima → Tokyo loop with the Narita Express both ways: on Hikari and Sakura the tickets come to ¥50,340 at regular-season fares and a ¥50,000 pass wins by ¥340 — a margin smaller than the seasonal swing, so the date decides it — but on Nozomi the tickets are ¥52,150 while the pass side becomes ¥65,630 once you add ¥15,630 of supplements — and the pass loses by ¥13,480.
How much is a Shinkansen ticket from Tokyo to Kyoto in 2026?
¥13,850 one way on a Hikari, ¥14,170 on a Nozomi — one adult, regular season, reserved seat in an Ordinary Car, the ordinary fare and the limited-express fee together. The other main runs out of Tokyo, Hikari price first: Nagoya ¥11,090 / ¥11,300, Shin-Osaka ¥14,400 / ¥14,720, Hiroshima ¥18,910 / ¥19,760, Hakata ¥22,750 / ¥23,810. All twenty routes, with the pass supplement for each, are in the fare table above. The Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen were not part of the JR East fare revision of 14 March 2026, so those figures did not move in March; peak dates add ¥200 to a reserved seat and the busiest dates ¥400.
Should I buy the JR Pass before October 1, 2026?
If you are buying from an overseas travel agent and your trip is otherwise a close call, yes — buying before October 1, 2026 locks in ¥50,000 instead of ¥53,000 for a 7-day Ordinary pass, a ¥3,000 saving per adult. The pass must be exchanged within three months of the exchange order being issued, so this only helps if your trip starts within that window. The official online reservation site has said it will hold current prices for a limited time, so check it before paying an agent's higher price.
What is the break-even point for a 7-day pass?
Roughly ¥50,000 of JR travel in seven days (¥53,000 after October 2026) if you stay on the trains the pass covers. The classic Tokyo → Kyoto → Hiroshima → Tokyo loop comes to ¥44,060 in regular-season reserved Hikari and Sakura fares (¥13,850 + ¥11,300 + ¥18,910) — so on its own that route does not pay for the pass. Add the Narita Express both ways (¥6,280) and you reach ¥50,340, which does, but only by ¥340 — and that margin is smaller than the seasonal swing described above, so on off-peak dates the three Shinkansen legs come down ¥600, the itinerary comes to ¥49,740 and the pass stops paying for itself. This is the single most common mistake in JR Pass advice: the famous loop sits almost exactly on the line, not comfortably over it, and quoting it in Nozomi fares (¥45,870 for the three Shinkansen legs, ¥52,150 with the airport runs) is what makes it look like a clear win. If you actually ride Nozomi, the pass side rises to ¥65,630 for this itinerary, because the supplements sit on top of the pass price.
Does the JR Pass cover the Narita Express and the Tokyo Monorail?
Yes. The Narita Express (¥3,140 to Tokyo Station one way since the March 2026 revision) and the Tokyo Monorail from Haneda Airport (¥520) are both JR services and are fully covered, including a reserved seat on the N'EX at no extra charge. If you only need airport transfers, JR East sells a discounted N'EX Tokyo Round Trip Ticket to foreign passport holders for ¥5,200 (raised from ¥5,000 on 14 March 2026), valid 14 days — far cheaper than activating a pass early.
Did Japanese train fares go up in 2026?
Yes, twice — and a third change that is not a fare rise but costs you in the same way. JR East raised ordinary fares by an average of 7.8% on 14 March 2026 (its first full revision since 1987), which covers the Narita Express, the Tohoku, Joetsu and Hokuriku Shinkansen out of Tokyo, and Nikko. JR Kyushu had already raised fares about 15% on 1 April 2025, which is why Hakata → Kagoshima now costs ¥11,950. The Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen (Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka–Hiroshima–Hakata) were not part of either revision. The third change is the one most guides have missed: on 14 March 2026 the JR Group abolished the return-ticket discount, which had taken 10% off the fare component in each direction on journeys of 601 km or more. A Tokyo–Hakata return is now about ¥2,800 dearer in cash than the same trip in February, which makes the pass more attractive, not less. Separately, the Japan Rail Pass itself rises about 5–6% on 1 October 2026 at overseas agents.
What is NOT covered by the JR Pass?
Tokyo Metro and Toei subways, private railways such as Odakyu to Hakone, Kintetsu to Nara and Ise, Tobu to Nikko, most city buses, and the Nozomi and Mizuho Shinkansen without a supplement. Sleeper-train berths and Green Car seats also cost extra unless you hold a Green pass.
Is a regional pass better than the nationwide pass?
Very often, yes. If you stay inside one area — Kansai only, or Tokyo plus day trips — a regional pass such as the JR Tokyo Wide Pass or the Kansai Area Pass costs a fraction of the nationwide pass. The nationwide pass earns its price when you cover long Shinkansen distances, typically Tokyo to Kyoto/Osaka and beyond to Hiroshima or Kyushu.
Do the seven days start when I buy it?
No. You buy an exchange order (or reserve online), then choose your activation date when you exchange it in Japan. The clock runs on consecutive calendar days from that date, not 24-hour periods — a pass activated at 8pm loses that whole day.
Where these numbers come from
- Nozomi/Mizuho supplements: the price table on the official JAPAN RAIL PASS site (japanrailpass.net → Use of NOZOMI/MIZUHO trains), read 2 August 2026. A caution for anyone checking our work: the Available sections, types, prices PDF linked from that same official page still shows ¥4,500 for Hakata–Kagoshima-Chuo. ¥4,500 is what the section’s non-reserved limited-express fee came to before the JR Kyushu revision of 1 April 2025, and ¥5,150 is what it comes to now — which is what the HTML table says, so ¥5,150 is the figure we use. japan-guide.com still quotes ¥4,500.
- Hikari/Sakura fares versus Nozomi/Mizuho: JR Shinkansen Net Nozomi and Hikari fare tables, both read 2 August 2026, differenced section by section. Confirmation that Mizuho, Sakura and Tsubame are priced identically on Hakata–Kagoshima-Chuo: JR Shinkansen Net Kyushu Shinkansen table.
- Pass prices and the October 1, 2026 increase: Japan National Tourism Organization (japan.travel) and japan-guide.com, both citing the JR Group announcement of April 9, 2026. All six pass types cross-checked.
- JR East routes after the 14 March 2026 revision: JR East fare-revision notice, JR line fare tables (jr-group.jp) for the Narita Express, and published Tohoku / Joetsu / Hokuriku Shinkansen tables marked “2026年3月改定”. The Sendai figures come from the same tables: Hayabusa ¥11,630 and Yamabiko ¥11,310 (fare ¥6,270 plus a limited-express fee of ¥5,360 or ¥5,040), read 3 August 2026. One route where our sources disagree: Tokyo–Kanazawa is a through fare split between JR East, which raised fares in March, and JR West, which did not. JR Shinkansen Net publishes ¥14,670 (fare ¥7,770 + fee ¥6,900). Ekitan quotes a fare of ¥7,700 plus a limited-express fee of ¥7,100 for a peak date, which is ¥14,600 once the ¥200 peak surcharge is taken back off, and Tabiris publishes ¥14,600 in its edition marked as updated for the March 2026 revision. We use ¥14,600 — two sources against one — and flag it rather than pretend the ¥70 is settled. It is well below the margin of any verdict on this page. The Odawara figure is split the same way: fare ¥1,520 plus a ¥2,290 Kodama reserved fee, Ekitan, read 3 August 2026.
- The two Kansai–Hokuriku routes are through journeys with a compulsory change at Tsuruga, which is where a table read carelessly goes wrong, so they were re-checked on 3 August 2026: Osaka–Kanazawa ¥9,410 (Tetsudo.com’s report of the JR West fare announcement for the extended line, and JR Shinkansen Net) and Kyoto–Kanazawa ¥7,720, made up of a ¥3,740 through fare — not the sum of the two legs — plus ¥3,980 in limited-express fees.
- Abolition of the return-ticket discount on 14 March 2026: Tabiris, ITmedia and the JASSO student-discount notice, all describing the same JR Group announcement: return and consecutive tickets withdrawn from sale after 13 March 2026, ending the 10% each-way discount on journeys of 601 km or more. Read 3 August 2026. This calculator has always priced a return as two one-way tickets, so no figure here changed — but guides written before March did use the discount.
- Tokaido / Sanyo / Kyushu Shinkansen fares: Ekitan and JR Shinkansen Net fare tables, cross-checked against each other; all eight Tokaido and Sanyo sections re-confirmed against the JR Shinkansen Net Nozomi table on 2 August 2026. Quotes retrieved on a peak-season date were adjusted back to the regular-season price by removing the ¥200 peak surcharge. A second place our sources disagree, found on 4 August 2026: JR Shinkansen Net’s individual section pages for Shin-Osaka–Hiroshima and Hiroshima–Hakata give the Nozomi reserved fare as ¥10,630 and ¥9,310, against ¥10,950 and ¥9,630 here. Its own Nozomi fare table, Ekitan — which publishes the split, ¥5,170 fare plus a ¥4,460 limited-express fee for Hiroshima–Hakata — and Shinkansen Ryokin Kenkyujo all give the higher figures, and only those reconcile with the fee tables. We keep ¥10,950 and ¥9,630, three sources against one. The Hikari and non-reserved figures on those same pages agree with ours and are not in dispute.
- Tokyo Monorail: ¥520 by ticket (¥519 with an IC card) since the March 2024 revision; not affected by the JR East change.
How this calculator is maintained
It is an independent side project, not a travel agency and not a reseller — we sell nothing and earn no commission on passes, so there is no reason for us to talk you into one. Both verdicts are arithmetic you can check by hand from the tables above; nothing is hidden. Every route fare is re-checked against the operators’ published tables on the first of each month, and where sources disagree we say which one we used and why. When something is not modelled — Green Car fares, groups, children, and any route we have not verified — the calculator says so plainly instead of guessing. It runs entirely in your browser: no account, no cookies, no analytics, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Fares verified 1 August 2026 and re-verified 13 September 2026. Nozomi/Mizuho supplements and the Hikari/Sakura fare for every affected section verified 2 August 2026. On 3 August 2026 the fare table was moved into the page itself so that every figure is readable without running the calculator, and the Sendai, Kanazawa and return-ticket notes above were added; no fare changed — the numbers are the ones verified on 1 and 2 August. On 4 August 2026 the two Sanyo Nozomi fares were re-confirmed against three sources after a fourth was found publishing a lower pair, and the non-reserved fare for eight Tokaido and Sanyo sections was verified for our all-reserved page; again no fare on this page changed. On 13 September 2026 all twenty sections, the nine supplements, the pass prices and the all-reserved dates were re-checked against the same sources (this check was scheduled for 1 September and ran twelve days late); no figure changed, and the Tokyo–Kanazawa disagreement described above still stands. The sources are re-checked monthly — next scheduled check 1 October 2026, the day the pass price rises at overseas agents. Where two sources disagreed we say which we used and why, including where the disagreement is between two official documents. Fares still move with season and train type, so confirm on the official JR site, SmartEX or Ekinet before purchasing.