Tokyo Imperial Palace: Tickets, Hours and What You Can See

The most valuable real estate in Tokyo is a forest. In the late 1980s, economists liked to point out that the land under the Imperial Palace was worth more than the entire state of California, and almost none of it is built on. Stand at Nijubashi bridge and what you see is a moat, a stone wall, pines, and beyond them nothing but trees.

The Tokyo Imperial Palace is the residence of the Emperor of Japan, built on the site of Edo Castle in the middle of Chiyoda ward. The grounds are not generally open, but three parts are: the East Gardens and the outer plaza, both free and open most days, and the inner grounds on a free guided tour you book in advance.

Tokyo Imperial Palace

Can you visit the Tokyo Imperial Palace?

Partly. The palace buildings where the imperial family lives are closed year-round, and no visitor goes inside except on two specific days.

What you can do:

• The East Gardens, the former castle keep area, free and open most days

• Kokyo Gaien, the gravel plaza outside the main gate with the Nijubashi view, always open

• The inner grounds guided tour, free, twice daily, covering about 2.2 km on foot

• Kitanomaru Park, the northern section, open and free

The two exceptions are January 2 and the Emperor's birthday on February 23, when the imperial family appears on a balcony behind glass and the public is admitted to the inner courtyard.

The history of Edo Castle

Tokyo Imperial Palace

This was the Tokugawa shogunate's headquarters for 265 years. Tokugawa Ieyasu took over a modest fortification here in 1590 and expanded it into the largest castle complex in the world, with a five-story keep, three concentric moat rings and a spiral layout of defensive enclosures.

The keep burned in the Great Meireki Fire of 1657 and was never rebuilt. The shogunate decided the money was better spent on the city, which had lost perhaps 100,000 people in the same fire.

After the Meiji Restoration, the emperor moved from Kyoto in 1868 and took over the castle, renaming it Tokyo Castle and then the Imperial Castle. The Meiji-era palace buildings burned in the 1945 air raids, and the current palace was completed in 1968.

The East Gardens

Tokyo Skyline in the Imperial Palace East Gardens, Japan

The East Gardens occupy the honmaru and ninomaru, the innermost enclosures of the old castle. This is where you get closest to Edo Castle itself.

The stone base of the great keep still stands, an enormous platform you can climb for a view over the lawn where the main buildings once were. The Ninomaru garden below it was redesigned in the 1960s from an Edo-period plan, and the Museum of the Imperial Collections at the entrance shows rotating selections of imperial art for free.

• Admission: free, with a plastic token handed out at the gate and returned on the way out

• Hours: 9:00 to 17:00 from April 15 to August, 9:00 to 16:30 in March, early April, September and October, and 9:00 to 16:00 from November to February

• Closed: Mondays and Fridays, except national holidays

• Gates: Ote-mon, Hirakawa-mon and Kita-hanebashi-mon

Allow 60 to 90 minutes. Ote-mon, the main gate, is a five-minute walk from Otemachi Station and is the best entrance because it puts the guardhouses and the keep base in the right order.

The guided tour of the inner grounds

Tokyo Imperial Palace

The Imperial Household Agency runs a free tour through the inner grounds twice a day, at 10:00 and 13:30, lasting about 75 minutes and covering 2.2 km on foot.

You see the exterior of the palace buildings, the Chowaden reception hall where the New Year greeting happens, Fujimi-yagura, the surviving three-story turret, and Nijubashi from the inside, which is the angle almost nobody has.

Booking opens at 5:00 Japan time on the first of the previous month and closes four days before your visit. A limited number of same-day tickets are handed out at Kikyo-mon gate from 9:00 for the morning tour and 12:30 for the afternoon.

• Cost: free

• Closed: Sundays, Mondays, national holidays, December 28 to January 4, and afternoons from July 1 to September 30

• Bring: your passport or another original photo ID. Photocopies are refused

• Capacity: up to 200 booked plus 300 walk-ins per tour

Audio guides are available in English. There is very little shade on the route, which matters in August.

Nijubashi and the outer plaza

Tokyo Imperial Palace

Kokyo Gaien, the plaza of gravel and clipped pines in front of the main gate, is the classic view: the stone Seimon Ishibashi bridge in front, the iron Seimon Tetsubashi behind it, and Fushimi-yagura turret above. Confusingly, the name Nijubashi, meaning double bridge, properly refers to the rear bridge, though everyone uses it for the pair.

It is open at all hours and costs nothing. Come early for photographs, since the low morning sun is behind you from the plaza side.

How to get to the Tokyo Imperial Palace

The palace sits between four stations, and which one you want depends on where you are going.

Otemachi Station on five subway lines puts you closest to Ote-mon and the East Gardens, a five-minute walk from exits C13b or C10. Tokyo Station's Marunouchi central exit is a ten-minute walk to the plaza and Nijubashi. Nijubashimae Station is closest to the plaza itself, and Takebashi serves Kitanomaru Park and the north side.

Best time to visit

Spring and fall. Cherry blossoms around the northern moats in late March and early April are among the best anywhere in Tokyo in blossom season, particularly along Chidorigafuchi, where you can rent a rowboat under the trees. Fall color in the East Gardens peaks in late November.

Mornings are quieter everywhere. Summer is hot and exposed, since most of the grounds are open lawn and gravel. Winter is clear, cold and almost empty, and the pines are the point anyway.

Events at the palace

Emperor's greeting for the New Year at the Imperial Palace in January

January 2 is the New Year greeting. The imperial family appears several times through the morning behind bulletproof glass on the Chowaden balcony, and tens of thousands of people file through the inner courtyard. Gates open at 9:30 and the appearances run to about 14:30.

February 23 is the Emperor's birthday, with the same format and smaller crowds.

Both require a passport for entry and airport-style bag checks. Arrive early, expect long queues, and note that the gates are closed once capacity is reached.

Running is the other tradition. A 5 km loop follows the outer moat, it is one-way by convention counterclockwise, and it is busiest on weekday evenings when office workers come out of Otemachi.

What to see nearby

Kitanomaru Park, the castle's northern enclosure, holds the Nippon Budokan and the National Museum of Modern Art, and is free to walk. The Imperial Palace's pine-and-moat landscaping is the style discussed in the most beautiful Japanese gardens, and the East Gardens are a good short introduction to it.

Marunouchi, immediately east, is Tokyo's banking district and holds the restored red brick Tokyo Station building from 1914. The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno, 15 minutes away by subway, holds the national collection if the palace leaves you wanting more history.

For the religious side of the imperial institution, the Ise shrines in Mie are the family's ancestral shrine and a different kind of visit altogether. Cherry blossom season links the palace to the rest of the city's best spots, and a blossom tour through Asakusa and Ueno covers the ones outside the moat.

Quiet Sight of Tokyo Imperial Palace

How long do you need at the Imperial Palace?

Two to three hours covers it properly. The East Gardens take 60 to 90 minutes at a walking pace, the plaza and Nijubashi add 20 minutes, and the guided tour is 75 minutes on top if you booked one.

A full circuit of the outer moat is 5 km and takes about an hour on foot, which is worth doing in cherry blossom season and not much else. If you have 45 minutes, go to the plaza for the bridge view and then walk into Marunouchi.

What to know before you go

There is no entry fee anywhere on the public parts of the grounds, and no ticket to buy for the East Gardens. Bring water in summer, since there is almost no shade and only a handful of vending machines inside.

Dress is casual. There is no formal dress code for the gardens or the tour, though the palace asks visitors to avoid anything obviously inappropriate, and you will be walking on gravel for an hour.

Large bags go through a check at the gates during the January and February events, and drones, tripods and flags are not permitted anywhere on the grounds.

Is the Tokyo Imperial Palace worth visiting?

Yes, with expectations set correctly. You are not going to see a palace interior, and anyone hoping for Versailles will be disappointed by a wall and some trees.

What you get instead is the physical core of Edo Castle, free, in the middle of one of the densest cities on earth, with the imperial institution still living in it. The East Gardens and the plaza take a comfortable morning, and the palace grounds pair naturally with Tokyo Station and Marunouchi in the same walk.

Book the guided tour if your dates allow it. Standing inside the gate, looking back down at the moat with the office towers behind it, is the one view that explains what this place is.