── new year's eve · tokyo
What happens on the night of 31 December
New Year's Eve in Tokyo is quiet at home and busy at the shrines. Many families eat toshikoshi soba, buckwheat noodles for a long life, and watch the year out on television; the crowds that go out head for a shrine or temple to be there at midnight. That's called ninen-mairi, a visit that spans two years.
At Buddhist temples, the night is about the bell. Joya no kane, the year-end bell, is a Buddhist temple custom rather than a Shinto one; at Senso-ji it's 108 counted strokes, which are said to clear away the 108 worldly desires of Buddhist teaching (Senso-ji gives this and other explanations for the number). At Senso-ji the bell is rung from midnight by the temple's own bell association. At Zojo-ji you can ring it yourself with a ticket, but in 2026 its bell runs from 9:45pm to about 11pm, not at midnight. Shinto shrines don't ring joya no kane; they hold a year-end rite on the 31st (Kanda Myojin's is the joya-sai) and the first rite of the year on the morning of the 1st.
If you want to see the first sunrise of the year, hatsuhinode, the sun rises at 6:50am in Tokyo on 1 January 2027 (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan). For the wider winter, including illuminations, Christmas and the countdowns, see Tokyo in winter.
── getting there · new year's eve
Which trains run all night on 31 December
JR East (announced): JR East announced on 22 October 2026 that it will run extra trains after the last regular service on the night of 31 December 2026 into 1 January 2027 on six Tokyo-area lines. The Yamanote line runs both ways from about 1am to 4:50am, roughly every 10 to 30 minutes. The Keihin-Tohoku and Negishi line runs between Sakuragicho and Omiya from about 1am to 4am (every 10 to 80 minutes), and the Chuo-Sobu local line between Mitaka and Chiba from about 12:10am to 4:40am (every 10 to 125 minutes). The Chuo rapid line (Mitaka to Takao), Yokosuka line (Yokohama to Zushi) and Sobu and Narita lines (Chiba to Narita, not stopping at Higashi-Chiba) get only a handful of trains each way. Check exact times in JR East's own timetable or app before you rely on them.
Tokyo Metro and Toei subway (not announced yet): neither had published its 2026-27 New Year timetable as of 3 November 2026. Last New Year neither ran all night: Tokyo Metro said it would not run all-night trains, push back its last trains or bring forward its first trains, and ran a Saturday-and-holiday timetable from 30 December to 3 January; Toei likewise ran no all-night service. Assume the same until they announce otherwise.
What that means for your shrine: Meiji Jingu (Harajuku, JR Yamanote), Zojo-ji (Hamamatsucho, JR Yamanote) and Kanda Myojin (Ochanomizu and Akihabara, JR) are on lines that run through the night. Senso-ji (Asakusa) and Hie Jinja (Akasaka) have no nearby JR station: last year Asakusa's Tokyo Metro, Toei and Tobu lines didn't run overnight, and Akasaka is Metro-only. After the last train you're looking at a taxi, a long walk, or waiting for the first trains. Expect long taxi queues after midnight. Getting around Tokyo the rest of the time is easy with a Suica or Pasmo IC card.
── etiquette
How to pray at a shrine and a temple
At a shrine (a jinja or jingu, the ones with a torii gate): bow slightly before you pass under the torii and walk to the side of the path, not the middle. At the water basin, rinse your left hand, then your right, then pour a little water into your cupped left hand to rinse your mouth, and never drink from the ladle (some, like Kanda Myojin's, now pour from a running tap instead). At the hall, put a coin in the offering box, then do Meiji Jingu's sequence: two bows, two claps, pray with your hands together, one deep bow.
At a temple (a tera or ji, with incense and often a pagoda): there's no clapping. Put in your coin, put your hands together, bow and pray quietly. At Senso-ji you'll see people wafting smoke from the big incense burner over themselves before they go in.
At New Year specifically: the queue is the experience, so move with it and follow the staff, who manage the crowd in waves at the big shrines. Throwing your coin from a few rows back is normal when you can't reach the box. A 5-yen coin is a popular offering because 'go-en' sounds like the word for a good connection, but any amount is fine. Have coins ready before you reach the front. Don't stop to take photos in the middle of a moving queue.
── omamori, omikuji, hamaya
What to buy, and what to bring back
Omamori are charms in small cloth pouches, each for something specific: health, safe travel, study, love, business or traffic safety. Keep it on you (in a bag or wallet) and don't open it. Kanda Myojin's victory charm and Yushima Tenjin's study charm are the two most famous in central Tokyo.
Omikuji are paper fortunes, drawn from a box or shaken out as a numbered stick. The usual grades run from great luck (daikichi) down to bad luck (kyo), and if you get a bad one, you tie it to the frame provided so the bad luck stays at the shrine. Senso-ji is known for its high share of bad fortunes; Meiji Jingu's have no luck grades at all, just a poem; and Kanda Myojin says you can take any fortune home.
Hamaya are decorative arrows, the name means 'evil-breaking arrow', sold at many shrines over the New Year period to protect a home for the year. They're light and come in a sleeve, so they travel in a suitcase.
Bring back last year's charms. Charms are meant to last a year, and shrines and temples collect old ones to burn. Kanda Myojin says it's best to return them to the shrine you got them from (it takes paper and wooden items, not dolls or daruma); Meiji Jingu only accepts its own; Zojo-ji burns returned charms at 8pm on New Year's Eve and suggests dropping them off before the 31st.
── crowds and timing
When to go, and what the queues are like
None of these shrines publishes queue times, so treat this as general guidance rather than official figures. The crowds peak in two places: the hour or two either side of midnight on 31 December, and late morning to late afternoon on 1, 2 and 3 January. Meiji Jingu is by far the busiest. The calmest windows are early morning, and after dark on the 2nd and 3rd at shrines that stay open.
You don't have to go on the 1st. Visiting in the first week of January is still hatsumode: Senso-ji's special New Year prayers and charms, for example, run to 7 January. From about 4 January the crowds thin at the tourist shrines, though Kanda Myojin gets busy with office groups on the first working days.
Practical kit for the night of the 31st: warm layers (the average January low is 1.2°C, 34°F; see Tokyo in winter for the weather), cash in coins for the offering and charms, a charged phone, and a plan for getting home.
── 1-3 january
What's open and closed from 1 to 3 January
Open: the big hatsumode shrines and temples, at their busiest of the year and often with special New Year hours, so check each one's published schedule. Most convenience stores stay open, though individual branches can shorten their hours, and hotel restaurants are a safe bet for meals. Trains run on holiday timetables (last year Tokyo Metro ran its Saturday-and-holiday timetable from 30 December to 3 January).
Mixed: the first days of January are Japan's main family holiday, and many small independent restaurants, bars and shops close for a few days around New Year; chains and places in the big stations and malls are more likely to be open. Some big sights reopen early: the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno closes from 26 to 31 December 2026, then opens on 1 January 2027 from noon to 8pm. Others close on New Year's Day: Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi closed on 1 January last year. Check each place's own site for its New Year dates, which most post in December.
Closed: banks are closed from 31 December to 3 January. Most offices and many government services shut for the same days.
Also on 2 January: the Emperor's New Year greeting at the Imperial Palace, when the imperial family appears on the palace balcony several times through the day and anyone can go in. Last year it ran from 9:30am to 2:10pm on 2 January; the Imperial Household Agency hasn't published the 2027 details yet.
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