Luggage in Japan: how to forward bags between hotels, where to store them and whether to buy a suitcase here

Why most visitors send their bags ahead

Japan rewards travelling light more than almost any other country. Trains are frequent and punctual, which means you will use them for everything; they are also full, and a large suitcase in a commuter carriage at 8 a.m. is a problem for you and everyone around you. Many smaller stations still have stairs without a lift, hotel rooms are compact, and the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen require a seat reservation for any bag whose three dimensions add up to more than 160 cm.

The country's answer is the parcel network. The Japan National Tourism Organization describes "a luggage delivery system that rivals its peerless public transportation", and its FAQ sums up the choices for a visitor: "There are public coin lockers at many train stations, and privately operated luggage storage and delivery services." In practice this means you can hand a suitcase to your hotel's front desk in Tokyo in the morning and find it waiting in your Kyoto room the next afternoon, or send it straight to the airport two days before you fly.

How luggage forwarding works in Japan

Japan's domestic parcel services are called takuhaibin (宅配便). The biggest carrier, Yamato Transport, brands its service TA-Q-BIN, and you will hear hotel staff call it "takkyubin". JNTO lists Yamato Transport and JAL ABC as the operators behind its Hands-Free Travel scheme, and the process is the same everywhere:

1. Ask at the front desk the evening before or early in the morning: "Takkyubin, onegaishimasu." Almost every hotel keeps the forms. If the hotel does not, the nearest convenience store or Yamato counter does.
2. Fill in the label with the next hotel's name, address and phone number, your own name and mobile number, and the date you want it delivered. Write "arriving guest" and your check-in date so the hotel knows to hold it.
3. Pay at the desk or counter, in cash or by card. Keep the slip: the tracking number on it lets you follow the bag on Yamato's English site.
4. Collect it at the next hotel. Give your name at check-in; the bag is usually already in your room or behind the desk.

Timing is the only thing that needs planning. A bag handed in by the morning cut-off normally arrives the next day within Honshu; Hokkaido, Okinawa and outlying islands take longer, so ask the desk for the delivery date before you pay. JNTO notes that delivery can be "same-day or on a designated date", that shipments are tracked, and that the operators pay compensation for loss or damage within their published limits.

JNTO's general description of the services says they handle "items not exceeding 160 linear cm, within 25 to 30 kg in weight" whose "contents are under 300,000 yen in value"; Yamato's own airport service goes up to 200 cm and 30 kg. A standard large check-in suitcase (around 75 × 50 × 30 cm) is a "160 size"; a cabin bag is a "120".

What luggage forwarding costs: Yamato's published rates

Prices depend on the parcel's size band (the sum of its three sides in centimetres, with a weight cap for each band) and on the regions it travels between. The figures below are Yamato's standard TA-Q-BIN rates in yen, tax included, as published in its English rates table; airport delivery adds an "Airport Express Delivery Fee" on top.

Three details from the same table are worth knowing. Yamato gives "a 100 JPY discount per parcel" when you drop the parcel off in person at a TA-Q-BIN office, agency or convenience store rather than having it collected. It warns that "parcels larger than Size 180 cannot be sent from some convenience stores." And a hotel acts as an agent, so it may add its own handling charge; ask before you pay. For a couple travelling Tokyo → Kyoto → Osaka with two large suitcases, the whole trip's forwarding comes to around 7,500 yen at the published rates, less than one extra night in a city hotel and a great deal less than a day of dragging.

Sending luggage to and from the airport

Airport TA-Q-BIN takes a bag from your hotel (or a counter) to the airport so that it is waiting for you on departure day. Yamato asks you to send it "two days prior to your flight", three in some areas, and accepts bags up to 200 cm in total dimensions and 30 kg. It serves all the major international airports, and the same service runs the other way, from the airport counter to your first hotel, which is the easiest way to leave the arrivals hall with nothing but a day pack. Counters are listed on Yamato's airport page under Sources.

Same-day delivery exists for the last leg. Yamato's same-day page says "No reservations are required", but also that it "is available to limited destinations from limited sales offices" and that "cut-off time and delivery time varies depending on sales offices." Its two worked examples: a 160-size bag from the Haneda Airport counter to Tokyo's 23 wards costs 5,780 yen, and from the Kyoto Station counter to Kyoto city 3,470 yen. "Fees vary depending on the baggage size and service counter." It is the expensive option; the next-day service at the table above costs less than half.

Note that the airport service is one-directional in time: it gets your bag to the airport before you, not onto your flight. You still check it in as normal.

Where to store luggage for a few hours

Coin lockers are the default. JNTO puts the price "between 300 and 600 yen" depending on size, most are charged by the day, and at the larger stations many accept a Suica or other IC card instead of coins and simply log your card as the key. Two cautions: the big lockers that take a full-size suitcase are the first to fill at busy stations such as Tokyo, Kyoto and Shinjuku, and locker rooms in the paid area of a station are reachable only with a ticket.

Staffed storage counters take what lockers cannot. Yamato's Baggage Storage counters at stations and airports need no reservation, allow same-day pickup, and hold bags for a number of days that "varies by counter". They will not take refrigerated goods, and you need the receipt to collect, so photograph it. The counter locator is under Sources. Privately run storage shops, including those in department stores and tourist information centres, work the same way.

Your hotel will hold bags before check-in and after check-out on the same day; ask at the desk. For a stay of several days in one city, this is free and simpler than any locker.

Luggage on trains, buses and taxis

On the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen a bag whose three dimensions total more than 160 cm must be booked into a seat with oversized-baggage space, at no extra cost, when you reserve; turn up with one unbooked and JR Central charges "a baggage fee (1,000 yen including tax)". Our Shinkansen oversized baggage checker tells you which band your bag falls in and how to reserve. Smaller bags go on the overhead rack or at your feet, and behind the last row only where that space is not marked as an oversized baggage area. The Shinkansen tickets guide explains how to book those seats and what fits where.

Local and commuter trains have no luggage space at all. Avoid the morning peak, roughly 7:30 to 9:00, with anything larger than a cabin bag. Airport limousine buses load suitcases in the hold, and a taxi takes two large cases in the boot: ask the driver to open it rather than loading yourself. See the taxi guide for fares. Highway buses set their own limits on bags in the hold and on board; our bus guide compares them.

Buying luggage in Japan

Plenty of visitors arrive with one suitcase and leave with two, and buying the second one here is sensible rather than extravagant: Japan sells hard-shell cases at every price point, and a case bought for the trip home is a tax-free purchase if it costs 5,000 yen or more before tax at a single shop in one day (our tax-free calculator covers the rules, which change on 1 November 2026). What to fill it with, and what you can take home, is in our guide to what to buy in Japan, and gift ideas are in our guide to Japanese souvenirs.

Where to buy. The electronics megastores (Bic Camera, Yodobashi Camera) carry large luggage departments with tax-free counters; department stores stock the Japanese and European brands at full price; the discount chain Don Quijote sells budget cases at all hours; and the big outlet malls near Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya have brand outlets. Specialist luggage shops cluster in Ginza and around the major stations.

Is luggage cheap in Japan? Japanese-made brands are sold here without the import mark-up they carry abroad, and the budget end is genuinely inexpensive, but there is no single answer and this site does not quote prices that would be out of date within a season. Compare the shelf price, less the consumption tax you will not pay, with the price at home, and remember that the new case must then fly home within your airline's allowance.

Two practical points. Buy on one of your last days so that the empty case is not following you around the country, or forward it straight to your departure airport with the Airport TA-Q-BIN service above. And if the case will hold tax-free goods, keep it unsealed until you have finished shopping: the current rules want tax-free purchases to leave the country with you, and from 1 November 2026 they are checked at customs before the refund is paid.

To cite or link to this page: Luggage in Japan: how to forward bags between hotels, where to store them and whether to buy a suitcase here — Japan Pocket Guide, https://japanpocketguide.com/plan/luggage/ Copy