How much are Nijo Castle tickets?
Kyoto City runs the castle, and its fee page splits the site into separately priced parts (checked 19 October 2026):
| Ticket | Adult | Junior/senior high | Elementary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Castle admission | ¥800 | ¥400 | ¥300 |
| Castle + Ninomaru-goten Palace | ¥1,300 | not listed | not listed |
| Honmaru-goten Palace (castle ticket also needed) | ¥1,000 | ¥300 | ¥200 |
| Painting Gallery (castle ticket also needed) | ¥100 | not listed | not listed |
Children below elementary school age are free. Groups of 30 or more pay ¥700 for castle admission and ¥1,100 for castle plus Ninomaru.
Buy the ¥1,300 combined ticket rather than the ¥800 castle ticket alone. The Ninomaru-goten is the reason Nijo is a World Heritage visit, and if you change your mind inside, the add-on costs ¥500 anyway, so you save nothing by waiting. The fee table only prices the combined ticket for adults; if you are travelling with teenagers, ask at the ticket office whether their ¥400 or ¥300 castle ticket already covers the palace.
What a full day of tickets costs:
- One adult, castle and Ninomaru: ¥1,300.
- One adult, everything (castle, Ninomaru, Honmaru): ¥1,300 + ¥1,000 = ¥2,300.
- Two adults and a 9-year-old, castle and Ninomaru: ¥2,600 for the adults plus the child's ¥300 castle ticket, so ¥2,900 if the child's ticket covers the palace.
If you hold Kyoto's Subway 1-Day Pass or Subway & Bus 1-Day Pass, show it at the ticket office on the day you use it: adult castle admission drops from ¥800 to ¥700. The discount is not available on web tickets. Our Kyoto bus and subway fares guide works out whether the ¥1,100 pass pays for itself on your route.
Opening hours and closed days
The castle's hours page gives three different windows (checked 19 October 2026):
| Area | Admission / reception | Closed |
|---|---|---|
| Castle grounds | 8:45–16:00; grounds close 17:00 | 29–31 December |
| Ninomaru-goten Palace | 8:45–16:10 | Tuesdays in January, July, August and December; 26–28 December; 1–3 January |
| Honmaru-goten Palace | 9:30–16:00 | Third Monday of each month and the day after; 26–28 December; 1–3 January |
The holiday exceptions matter. If a Ninomaru closing Tuesday is a public holiday, the palace opens and closes on the Wednesday instead. If the Honmaru closing Monday is a holiday, the palace stays open.
So a Tuesday in December or summer is the wrong day for Nijo: you can walk the walls and gardens, but the painted halls are shut. Between Christmas and New Year, check each date against the table; 26–28 December is grounds-only.
The FAQ says the Ninomaru-goten and its garden take 1 to 1.5 hours, and the whole site with the Honmaru areas 2.5 to 3 hours in total (the Japanese FAQ states it is a combined figure). The grounds close at 17:00, so for a full visit enter by about 14:00, and plan the rest around your Honmaru time slot.
Do you need to book? Web tickets and the Honmaru Palace
For the castle and the Ninomaru-goten, no. The tickets page says no reservation is needed; a web ticket bought in advance on the castle's ticketing partner, asoview, simply lets you skip the ticket office. Web tickets are paid by credit card only (Visa, Mastercard, JCB, AMEX, Diners, Discover).
The Honmaru-goten is different:
Paying, luggage and what you cannot do inside
At the ticket office, General Information Desk and Painting Gallery, the tickets page lists cash, Visa and Mastercard, transit IC cards, WAON, nanaco, Rakuten Edy and iD, and QR payments including PayPay, Alipay and WeChat Pay. JCB, AMEX, Diners and QUICPay work only at the automatic ticket machines.
The services page lists a ¥500 luggage storage counter in the main rest area, meant for suitcases and strollers, plus coin lockers outside the gate by the Higashi Ote-mon ticket counter (¥700 / ¥500 / ¥300 for large, medium, small) and inside at the rest area (¥500 / ¥300 / ¥200). That makes Nijo one of the easier sights to visit on a checkout day, before an afternoon train. If you are heading to the airport afterwards, our guide to Kansai Airport and Kyoto by Haruka or bus compares the options.
Inside both palaces, photos and video are prohibited; the FAQ cites the narrow corridors and the protection of cultural property. You can enter in a wheelchair, but you transfer to one of the palace's indoor wheelchairs, and electric wheelchairs for the grounds are lent free at the General Information Desk.
Official guides lead English tours daily at 10:00 and 12:00, about 60 minutes, for ¥2,500 per person plus admission. They do not enter the Honmaru-goten.
Getting there
The castle is at 541 Nijojo-cho, Nijo-dori Horikawa Nishi-iru, Nakagyo-ku. Its access page asks visitors to come by public transport and shows routes from Kyoto Station, Sanjo Keihan and Hankyu Karasuma as images, so read the route there before you set off. On the city network, Nijo is reached on the subway Tozai Line, which the Subway 1-Day Pass covers, so the ¥100 discount above usually comes with the ride.