People who visit Japan tend to fall into one of two groups. Some of them fly in and land in Tokyo and spend their entire time exploring the city. There are endless things to do throughout the capital of the country, after all, and you can easily fill an entire vacation just within a few square miles.

Other people tend to explore as much of the country as they can. From Sapporo and the Daisetsuzan National Park to the north, smaller cities like Sendai, Niigata, and Nagoya, or the history of Kyoto and Osaka, all the way to Kumamoto and the islands in the south. There’s a ton to see and do all throughout the country.

When you’re traveling the length of the country, which is the equivalent of stretching from Maine to South Carolina, one of the most effective ways to go from place to place is by rail. The Shinkansen, also known as the bullet trains, form major routes from Hakodate to the north down to Kagoshima in the south. It’s blazing fast and can get you from Tokyo to the far north or far south in under half a day.

It’s undeniable that if you’re spending time in Japan, you’re going to spend some time on a train. That holds true even if you’re just exploring Tokyo, as the Tokyo rail system is extensive and extremely useful. The question is, what kind of rail pass do you need, and how can you save the most money?

Explaining the Options: Japanese Rail Pass and Regional Passes

First, let’s take a bird’s-eye overview of the two kinds of passes you can get, and what they encompass and what they don’t.

First up is the Japanese Rail Pass. This is the national-level Japan Rail pass, which allows you access to trains all up and down the country. Japan as a whole is broken up into six regions, each managed by a branch of the overall Japan Rail.

• JR Hokkaido
• JR East
• JR Central
• JR West
• JR Shikoku
• JR Kyushu

The overall JR Pass grants you access to all of these regions, including all of the major trains like the Shinkansen trains.

Broadly speaking, the national-level Japan Rail Pass is the go-to for anyone looking to visit multiple cultural centers, tourist destinations, and hubs across all regions of the country. Even a simple trip from Tokyo to Kyoto passes through three regions, so you would need multiple regional passes, which can sometimes be a hard sell.

Note: The national-level JR pass is actually not available to Japanese citizens. It’s specifically a pass aimed at foreign tourists, as well as Japanese nationals who have lived outside of the country for a decade or longer. This is actually potentially problematic because if you’re in Japan with a student visa, work visa, or another resident status, you aren’t eligible to get the JR Pass. Be sure to review the eligibility requirements (link in Japanese) to make sure you can get one.

While we’ve mentioned that Japan is broken into six major regions, there are far more than just six passes.

• Some of them are subsections of an overall region. For example, the JR East (Tohoku Area) pass and the JR East (Nagano, Niigata Area) passes are both subsections of the overall JR East region. There’s even some overlap between them, encompassing the area around Tokyo.
• Some of them are cross-over passes that encompass some of multiple regions. For example, the JR East – South Hokkaido pass covers much of JR East, as well as some of southern Hokkaido, though not all of Hokkaido, just up to Sapporo.
• Some of them are much more local. The JR Tokyo Wide Pass, for example, is mostly just the greater Tokyo urban area and some of the cities sprawling a little further away.
• Some of them are very limited and aimed at specific popular tourist routes. One example is the Mt. Fuji – Shizuoka Area Tourist Pass, which covers a handful of specific trains across several different lines, as well as additional transportation across bus lines and even a couple of short-range cruise ships.

With well over 30 regional and specific passes to choose from, it can often be difficult to decide what kind of pass you want.

So, let’s talk about each of them in a little greater detail.

Details on the Japan Rail Pass

The JR Pass, as it’s commonly known, is the broadest and most flexible pass. It’s aimed at people who are hoping to explore as much of the country as they can. There are also two different kinds of JR Pass: the Ordinary pass and the Green pass.

The Ordinary Pass is just that: an ordinary pass. It gives you access to a lot of different trains but carries no real special amenities or perks for using it.

The Green Pass is fancier. It’s more expensive and also more limited. It gives you access to Green Cars, which are more luxurious and fancier cars, to make your travel more comfortable. However, it has the downside of being less flexible because not all trains have green cars, or they can fill up.

There are three forms of each of these passes as well: 7-day, 14-day, and 21-day. Here’s the pricing (as of this writing) for each of the six versions.

• Ordinary 7 days – ¥50,000
• Ordinary 14 days – ¥80,000
• Ordinary 21 days – ¥100,000
• Green 7 days – ¥70,000
• Green 14 days – ¥111,000
• Green 21 days – ¥140,000

For context, 50,000 yen is about $350 USD. These are also calendar days, not 24-hour periods, so don’t activate a card an hour before midnight unless you want to lose a day.

The JR pass gets you access to a lot of trains, but not every train, by a long shot. It can be shocking for Americans used to something like the Washington DC Metro map looking like this, only to find something like the Tokyo subway map. Crazy, right? The whole country is laced with rail lines and smaller metro lines to make transit a breeze, if you can figure out the maps and find your way around.

The JR pass allows you to ride on the national-scale JR trains and the Shinkansen bullet trains, the Narita Express lines, limited express and express lines, and a bunch of local trains as long as they’re managed by Japan Rail. It also lets you ride the Tokyo Monorail, the JR Ferry, and a handful of specific connecting lines between JR lines that aren’t, themselves, JR lines.

You also get access to JR-operated off-highway bus lines, which can be handy in some situations in certain tourist areas.

On the other hand, the JR Pass is not usable on:

• The Nozomi and Mizuho bullet trains.
• Certain luxury trains.
• Fuji excursion service lines.
• Relay service lines.

To make things a little more confusing, many of these lines allow you access with the JR Pass, but you have to pay a surcharge or additional fee, so it works out to be something like a discount rather than a free ride.

There are a few benefits to the JR Pass that aren’t purely about the access you get to trains across the country.

• It saves time and mental energy. Buy one pass, have a pretty good idea that it will get you where you want to go, and don’t worry about the details. Calculating fares across a bunch of planned trips and trying to optimize your budget can be very stressful.
• It’s a little more flexible with scheduling if you don’t need to book specific trains and specific seats; you know it will work on whichever train at whichever time slot is taking you where you need to go.
• If there’s anything you want to do in a station inside the gates, the JR Pass lets you go in and out as much as you need to. It’s useful for some shops and for luggage lockers and the like.

The biggest drawback, of course, is simply the price. Since they’ve increased the prices recently, the value is a much greater concern, and for many travelers, it doesn’t balance out.

What is an IC Card, and is it the same as a JR Pass?

One thing you might have heard of when researching travel around Japan is an IC Card. The IC Card comes in many forms from different brands, but they all function basically the same: as a tap-to-pay card specifically designed for public transit and local trains. It is not the same as a JR Pass.

Most people traveling throughout Japan will need both a rail pass and an IC card to make sure they can get anywhere they want to go.

About Regional Passes

Regional train passes are much more limited than the overall JR Pass. There are too many of them for us to discuss here, and they all have different limitations, restrictions, regions, and prices.

Almost always, if you’re going to be traveling within a certain region but don’t plan to travel much beyond that region, the regional pass is going to be better than the JR Pass. The JR Pass is excellent for national-scale travel, but for local travel, the local pass is of greater value.

In fact, there are often cases where you might need multiple regional passes alongside some more local fares, and it still works out to be cheaper than the overall JR Pass. The downside is that you need to either buy those passes as you need them (and thus potentially waste value and lose time) or spend a lot of time planning a fairly rigid itinerary and buying passes for specific trains and lines ahead of time.

There are also some more noteworthy regional passes aimed at tourists. The Hokuriku Arch Pass, for example, covers a route called the “New Golden Route,” which takes you from Tokyo across the country to the coast and through cities along the northwestern region of the central area of Japan. Similarly, there’s a regional pass specifically for the old Golden Route, which takes you from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji, over to Kyoto, down to Osaka, and back to Tokyo.

Regional passes are all about knowing what you want to do and where you want to be rather than trying to encompass the entire country in one trip.

Which is Right for You, JR Pass or Regional Passes?

Almost always, the regional pass is going to be the best bet for your adventures in Japan.

Regional passes often only cost a few thousand yen, and local train trips cost under 500 yen each. There are also entire regions of the country you can’t see via the JR Pass lines.

If you want to see as much of the country as possible – often from the window of a bullet train – then the JR Pass is more likely to be worth it for you.

On the other hand, if you’re sticking to a specific area, a regional pass for that area is more ideal.

There are also cases where neither one will do what you want, and all you actually need is a well-loaded IC Card or a local pass like the Tokyo pass.

If you really don’t like the idea of min-maxing your travel, or you’re willing to put it all on a travel credit card to benefit from the expense through points, getting the JR Pass can be less stressful. Note that we said can here, though; when you run into trains or lines your pass doesn’t cover, it can be pretty annoying.

If you want to explore different itineraries and look at the costs, there are sites like Japan-Guide and JRPass that offer calculators to see what your best options will be. They can help with making your choice.

While it can all seem daunting from afar, once you’re actually enjoying the Japanese countryside, it will all be worth it.

If you have any questions about either the JR Pass or the regional passes, please feel free to let us know!