Accommodation and Bath Taxes

If hotel bookings are made through Booking.com, and we are given a 'total price,' are we still required to pay the 'Accommodation Tax' in Tokyo, Kanazawa, Kyoto, and Osaka? Is this tax determined by the room rate for one night?
And what about the 'Bath Tax'? For example, the Kagetsu Hotel in Matsumoto has baths for both men and women; how much is the Bath Tax? Thank you!

I am sure it is mentioned in the small print of your Booking.com reservation. I believe that taxes are usually included in Booking.com bookings.

Below is the translation of the explanation from the Japanese government.

https://www-mof-go-jp.translate.goog/tax_information/qanda008.html?_x_...

In many cases, you pay these when you check out the hotel. It is per person per night, not per the price of the room. As for the accommodation tax, it is somewhat more expensive when you stay at an expensive room. In any case it might be 100-300 yen per person. This is quite legal process so you don't need to worry about it. Just pay 100-300 yen per person per night.

Yes, I found in my Booking.com confirmation that all taxes are included. However, it's not a huge tax, maybe $2/night, so for 22 nights, 3 people, that would be $132. Not pleasant, but not a trip-killer by any means. Will just have to go and find out! Thanks so much for your responses!

I think it depends on how the price was setup in Booking.com.

I remeber in Kyoto needing to pay the tax (a few hundred yen per day) in cash upon checkin at an apartment I stayed last year.

Regarding the bath tax I think it�fs in cities that are onsen cities.

Anyway as the PP said, it�fs a few hundred yen per day maximum so not a deal breaker and all rooms/hotels in that area will charge it.

I think hotel taxes are a major tool to fight overtourism, and I would expect them to increase considerably over the next few decades. The only problem: they also punish the locals, which is bad for countries with low salaries, like Japan.

These add on fees are normally included in the total price when using hotel booking sites. Some may not include it, but is is always mentioned in the term and conditions of the hotel.

https://travel-faq-rakuten-net.translate.goog/detail/000011770?_x_tr_s...

This is the translation of the explanation in Rakuten travel, which is one of the largest booking site in Japan. It mentions "This price is generally not included in the reservation price for a single domestic lodging item, so please pay separately on-site." I checked Booking.com and in general their price does not include the accommodation tax. The explanation in Booking.com in Japanese is more straight forward than in English. The English version states "Additional charges may apply" while the Japanese says �� �s�� meaning you must pay municipal tax separately.

Note that the accommodation tax is applied to only some cities/prefectures. For example, I traveled to Nara, Osaka and Hokkaido this year and paid it only in Osaka (of course on site).

It depends.
Some hotels include it in their bookings on the aggregation sites, others do not. And it can be different between an accommodation tax (say in Kyoto) or a bathing tax (say Takayama). Usually charged on check-in if not included in the booking (rather than on check-out).
And adding a few hundred yen per day is not huge. Most of the places hit me with a 200 yen pp/night fee so around 1%.

Well, I find it quite a rip off. It might not be a huge amount when you just pay 200y or 300y for one person one night, but in a family of 4 travelling for 26 days, it is a big amount indeed.
These taxes should be shown at the moment of booking and in most cases they are not. They are a nasty surprise you get at your arrival in Japan, which is a country that discourages tourists more and more.
Living in a highly tourist area in Spain, I do know the problems tourists bring, but we do not treat them as walking wallet trying to rip them off.

In my experience, the major tax of 10% (I guess this is consumption tax or the equivalent) is included in the quoted rate, but the small local taxes of around 150 or 200 yen per night often are not. They are not charged in all areas (typically just onsen towns and some of the most popular tourist towns). I am not going to whine about a couple hundred yen added to a 15,000-yen hotel charge (the tax seems to be higher for more expensive rooms). But people who wish to avoid these charges can generally do so by staying in cities other than the most popular tourist destinations. Every tourist who goes to Kyoto is part of the overtourism problem, and I can�ft see complaining about the countermeasures. Just go someplace else. Many other places in Japan are �gundertouristed�h to an extreme, and tourists are welcome in a lot of those places.

I will say that the high prices of hotels in the popular cities does have an impact on my own choices of where to go, and where to spend the night. I still go to popular places (I�fm never going to be able to quit Kyoto�c.), but I avoid them on weekends and holidays whenever possible. So in my case, overtourism controls (both natural and imposed) do basically have the desired effect. Weekends (when tourism by resident Japanese is higher) are the worst times as far as overtourism goes.

As for the impact of countermeasures on locals, I�fve noticed that the site I use to book my hotels in Japan (Rakuten�fs Japanese site) is offering some rather large discounts for resident taxpayers, for many hotels in Kyoto and maybe some other areas. I don�ft pay much attention to them because I am not eligible and it doesn�ft do me any good to even see the enviable prices. But I�fve noticed them recently. That will be of at least some help to travelers who reside in Japan. Those people are not benefitting from the current value of many foreign currencies against the yen. (On my last trip I kept feeling like I was in a fantasy world, every time I calculated the price of a hotel or meal in dollars. Most of my past trips were when the yen was between 90 and 115 yen per dollar, and at 150 yen to the dollar some of the prices seem almost crazy. It also helps that inflation in Japan has been much lower than in the U.S., and that there is no tipping in restaurants. For me, getting to Japan is expensive, but right now it is much cheaper to travel around there than it is in my own country.)

Oh yes, Spain (and MANY other places so exactly the same)

Tourist tax in Barcelona: https://www.shbarcelona.com/blog/en/tourist-tax-in-barcelona/amp/
About 4-7 Euros per day & person

Tourist tax in Balearic Islands
https://www.hosticasa.com/blog/tasa-turistica-baleares/
Between 0,5-4 Euro

Not yet in the Canary Islands but manifestations planned for this weekend asking for its introduction
https://www.eldiario.es/canariasahora/sociedad/canarias-resiste-tasa-t...

More info
https://www.elcorreogallego.es/movil/santiago/tan-solo-dos-grandes-ciu...

Incidentally on Canary Islands
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1888856/canary-islands-anti-tourism-...

Thankfully Kyoto and other popular places in Japan haven't gone to that limit yet.

I�fm afraid that the recent steep increase in prices of the nationwide JR Pass is only going to discourage people from traveling to places other than the most popular tourist destinations. In other words, it will likely exacerbate the overtourism problem in Kyoto. And I don�ft think that relatively small measures such as fairly minor accommodation taxes, or discontinuing the one-day bus pass, will change that. People are not going to avoid Kyoto because they have to pay 300 yen extra a night to stay at a hotel, or a few hundred yen more to buy a subway-plus-bus day pass. They are much more likely to avoid going on a side trip that costs them many thousands of yen in train fare because they are opting for point-to-point tickets instead of a rail pass.

It would be better for everyone if more tourists would spend more time (and tourist dollars) visiting some of the less famous (but still nice) places in Japan. So look, folks: we should all do our part by not poking fun at people who persistently promote Karuizawa! And forum posters who keep trying (probably in vain) to encourage people to go to places around Nara besides the deer park are doing all of us a favor. I say keep it up!

Just made 4x bookings through booking dot com. All specified if those taxes where charged at the accommodation separately or not in the descriptions.

Only one of the 4x charged separately. Kyoto accommodation, 200 per person per night.

I�fm afraid that the recent steep increase in prices of the nationwide JR Pass is only going to discourage people from traveling to places other than the most popular tourist destinations
As a counter point to that, I would disagree. When you look at the cost of getting to many of the smaller places you avoid the more expensive shinkansen and the transport is cheaper. In fact, for less than the old price of the JRP (30k for the 7-day one), you can travel extensively in central Honshu without breaking the back. Even for locations as far south as Hiroshima (including Shikoku and western Japan), the 14-day (48k yen old pricing) pass wasn't great value for money.
As for someone complaining a 1% accommodation tax is a rip-off - no.

I understand the point about the total costs of tickets in comparison to what used to be the cost of a rail pass, but I think that once people have paid for round-trip shinkansen tickets from Tokyo to Kyoto, and then perhaps for one additional side trip (Takayama or Hiroshima/Miyajima, for example), they are not going to want to spend thousands of yen more out of pocket to add other destinations, and they will be especially reluctant to take round-trip day trips that will help keep them off the streets of Kyoto (for example). That is just my speculation, but I do think that the old pricing on the JR pass (especially the one-week and three-week passes) encouraged people to spread their wings a lot more. (I never did think that the 14-day pass was a very good value. Every time I considered buying one, the three-week pass just seemed like a much better cost proposition, assuming I had 21 days on the ground there to use it.)

Anyway, it will remain to be seen how the overtourism thing pans out, but I just wish that there was some way to get the hordes of incoming tourists to spread out a bit more, and to go to places like Hagi, or Shikoku, or the Sanriku Coast (or some even less well-known places that are quite worth visiting). If more of them would even go to sites in Kyoto and Nara other than the �gultra-magnets�h it would at least help a little.

@Kim - did you see March 2024 exceeded 3 million inbound visitors for the month - an all time record!
And places like Kyoto still complain about crowded buses and "foreigners" despite 85% of tourists being Japanese. Kyoto (cash strapped for tourist yen) is not going to change any time soon. Looking different makes people an easy scape-goat for over-tourism.
I agree that someone on the old 21-day JRP would be likely to venture further afield, but they would be more likely, given a three week trip, to do that anyway. My current tour is 31 days and I have a 23-day "remote" trip later this year heading well away from the usual places.
Maybe the fault is in the un-adventurous (read dull/usual) trips that just cover Tokyo, Osaka and Hiroshima - the dullness of the "golden route" is the reason I started my business. I love Kyoto, but even a recent guest commented and acknowledged people need to get out of Tokyo - they loved the smaller locations we visited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5574EmZLFI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Up6iZ3rRw
if you can understand the language, watch this video from 07:12.
you are intruding into their personal living spaces, like their houses.

@JCT
the dullness of the "golden route"
That is a bit harsh :) I don't think I will ever get tired of Tokyo.

@Kim
I just wish that there was some way to get the hordes of incoming tourists to spread out a bit more, and to go to places like Hagi, or Shikoku, or the Sanriku Coast
The issue with remote places, on top of being far away, is that there are usually few hotels, relatively poor public transportation, which makes planning a trip more difficult. Part of me thinks this is not bad. I do not want people to visit "remote" places just because they are famous (kind of what happened to Shirakawa-go), regardless of their personal interests or the intrinsic value of those places.

I don't think the JRP at the old price really encouraged first timers to go beyond the golden route + Kanazawa/Hiroshima (which also have their fair share of visitors). A couple of friends visited Japan in summer last year, 2.5~3 weeks, and with a 14 days JR pass they just did the golden route, a side trip to Himeji, and return via Kanazawa. Did not even get to Hiroshima, Shikoku or Tohoku. They are returning later this year for 3 weeks as well, and planning to use a Kansai San-in pass this time and more side trips from Osaka/Kyoto.

The point being that Kyoto and Osaka are so very conveniently located, with many (cheap) accommodations available, that people will likely keep coming anyway (the city tax would have to be much much higher to deter people from coming).