Tokyo Shinkansen Guide: Bullet Trains from Tokyo Explained

目次 — Contents

• Which station does the shinkansen leave from?
• The shinkansen lines that start in Tokyo
• Nozomi, Hikari, Kodama: train types and speed tiers
• Reserved, non-reserved and Green Car seats
• How to buy shinkansen tickets
• Example fares and journey times from Tokyo
• Luggage rules and the oversized-baggage reservation
• Ekiben: the best part of the journey
• Using the shinkansen for day trips
• What riding the shinkansen is actually like
• Shinkansen or fly? How the bullet train compares
• Mistakes to avoid
• Ways to spend less on the bullet train
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Photo Credits

The shinkansen from Tokyo is the fastest, most civilised way to leave the city. Trains leave roughly every few minutes from Tokyo Station, hit 285–320 km/h, and put Kyoto two hours fourteen minutes away. This guide covers which station to use, the lines, the train types, how to buy tickets, real 2026 fares, luggage rules, and the mistakes that cost first-timers money.

I have taken these trains dozens of times — for day trips, for moving across the country with two suitcases, and once badly hungover at 6am with the wrong kind of ticket. The system is brilliant once you understand it, and genuinely confusing until you do. Let me save you the trial and error. If you want the bigger picture of getting around the city first, start with our complete Tokyo transportation guide.

01 —Which station does the shinkansen leave from?

This is the first thing that trips people up, because Tokyo has several huge stations and the bullet trains don’t all use the same one. Which station you want depends on which direction you’re heading.

Tokyo Station — the main hub

Tokyo Station is the origin point for almost every shinkansen. The Tokaido Shinkansen (toward Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka) starts here on the Yaesu side, platforms 14–19. The JR EAST lines — Tohoku, Hokkaido, Akita, Yamagata, Joetsu and Hokuriku — use platforms 20–23 on a separate set of tracks. The two networks (JR Central and JR EAST) have separate ticket gates inside the station, so if you transfer between, say, a Tokaido train and a Tohoku train, you pass through an interchange gate. Give yourself time; Tokyo Station is enormous and finding the right Shinkansen entrance can eat 15 minutes.

Shinagawa — better if you’re staying south or west

Every Tokaido Shinkansen (Nozomi, Hikari, Kodama) also stops at Shinagawa, one stop south, about seven minutes after leaving Tokyo Station. If your hotel is in Shinagawa, Shibuya, Meguro or anywhere on the southern or western Yamanote arc, board at Shinagawa instead — same train, same seat, less backtracking. Shinagawa is also the more convenient catch for travellers coming from Haneda Airport.

Ueno — for the northbound trains

If you’re heading north on the Tohoku, Hokkaido, Akita, Yamagata, Joetsu or Hokuriku Shinkansen, those trains stop at Ueno about five minutes after Tokyo Station. Ueno is handy if you’re staying in Asakusa, Ueno or the northeast of the city. Note: Tokaido trains (to Kyoto and Osaka) do not stop at Ueno — only the JR EAST northbound lines do.

The simple rule: going west or southwest (Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Hakone), use Tokyo or Shinagawa. Going north (Sendai, Aomori, Niigata, Kanazawa, Nagano), use Tokyo or Ueno.

02 —The shinkansen lines that start in Tokyo

Eight shinkansen lines radiate out of Tokyo. Here’s where each one actually goes and what you’d use it for.

• Tokaido Shinkansen — the famous one. Tokyo → Shin-Yokohama → Nagoya → Kyoto → Shin-Osaka. Operated by JR Central. This is your line for Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya and, via a transfer, most of western Japan.
• Sanyo Shinkansen — continues west from Shin-Osaka to Okayama, Hiroshima and Hakata (Fukuoka). Through Nozomi trains run Tokyo all the way to Hakata.
• Tohoku Shinkansen — the main northbound trunk. Tokyo → Omiya → Sendai → Morioka → Shin-Aomori. Trains: Hayabusa, Hayate, Yamabiko, Nasuno.
• Hokkaido Shinkansen — extends the Tohoku line under the sea through the Seikan Tunnel to Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto. Hayabusa trains run through from Tokyo.
• Akita Shinkansen — Komachi trains split from the Tohoku line at Morioka and run to Akita.
• Yamagata Shinkansen — Tsubasa trains branch off at Fukushima for Yamagata and Shinjo.
• Joetsu Shinkansen — Tokyo → Omiya → Echigo-Yuzawa → Niigata. Toki and Tanigawa trains. This is the line for the Niigata coast and the GALA Yuzawa ski resort.
• Hokuriku Shinkansen — Tokyo → Nagano → Toyama → Kanazawa → Tsuruga (extended in 2024). Kagayaki and Hakutaka trains. The line for Nagano, the snow monkeys, and the Sea of Japan side.

03 —Nozomi, Hikari, Kodama: train types and speed tiers

On the Tokaido and Sanyo line, the same tracks carry three service tiers. They are nearly identical trains (mostly the N700S) — the difference is how many stops they make.

• Nozomi — the express. Stops only at the biggest stations (Tokyo, Shinagawa, Shin-Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Shin-Osaka and onward). Tokyo to Kyoto in about 2h14, Shin-Osaka in about 2h30. The fastest, and it carries a slightly higher fee.
• Hikari — the middle tier. Makes a few more stops, so Tokyo to Kyoto runs roughly 2h40–3h. Crucially, Hikari is covered by the Japan Rail Pass at no surcharge.
• Kodama — the all-stations local. Stops everywhere, including Odawara (for Hakone), Atami and Mishima. Slow over long distances but perfect for short hops.

On the northbound JR EAST lines the equivalent fast trains are Hayabusa (Tohoku and Hokkaido), Komachi (Akita), Kagayaki (Hokuriku) and Toki (Joetsu). Hayabusa, Komachi, Kagayaki and a few others are fully reserved — there are no non-reserved seats at all, so you cannot just walk on with a basic pass and sit down.

Why JR Pass holders can’t easily ride the Nozomi

Here is the rule that confuses everyone. Since October 2023 the Japan Rail Pass technically lets you board the Nozomi and Mizuho — but only if you buy an extra “ONLY WITH JAPAN RAIL PASS” NOZOMI MIZUHO supplement ticket each time. That supplement is ¥4,180 Tokyo–Nagoya, ¥4,960 Tokyo–Kyoto and ¥4,960 Tokyo–Shin-Osaka in 2026. For free, your pass covers the Hikari and Kodama instead, which on the Tokyo–Kyoto run only cost you about 25–40 extra minutes. My advice: with a rail pass, just take the Hikari. Pay the Nozomi supplement only if you are in a genuine hurry.

04 —Reserved, non-reserved and Green Car seats

Every shinkansen ticket is really two charges stacked together: a basic fare (distance-based, like a normal train ticket) plus a limited express or shinkansen surcharge. The seat class changes that second charge.

• Non-reserved (jiyuseki) — cheapest. You can ride any non-reserved car on any train that day; sit in the first free seat. Tokaido Nozomi trains have non-reserved cars 1–3, fewer during peak periods. Fine off-peak; risky on holidays when you might stand.
• Reserved (shiteiseki) — a specific seat on a specific train. Costs a few hundred yen more than non-reserved. Worth it for peace of mind, for the window seats on the Fuji side, and essential on the fully-reserved Hayabusa, Komachi and Kagayaki trains.
• Green Car (gurin-sha) — first class. Wider 2+2 seating, more legroom, quieter. Roughly 30–50% more than a reserved ordinary seat. A treat, not a necessity. On the Hokuriku line there is also Gran Class, a step above Green with airline-style service.

For the Fuji view: on the Tokaido line, sit on the right-hand side (seats E and D) heading from Tokyo toward Osaka. The mountain appears roughly 40–45 minutes out, between Shin-Yokohama and Shizuoka, weather permitting.

05 —How to buy shinkansen tickets

You have more options than you think, and the cheapest is not always the official counter. Here is how to actually get a ticket.

At the station: machines and ticket offices

Every shinkansen station has English-language ticket machines (the tall green-and-silver ones) and a staffed ticket office, the Midori-no-madoguchi. The machines handle reserved and non-reserved tickets, take cash and most credit cards, and let you pick your seat from a map. For anything complicated — rail pass exchanges, oversized-baggage seats, odd routings — queue at the office.

The apps: smartEX, EkiNet and EX

For the Tokaido and Sanyo line (Kyoto, Osaka), download smartEX — it is free, works with an overseas credit card, and lets you book, change and even link your reservation to a Suica or PASMO so you tap straight through the gate with no paper ticket. For the JR EAST lines north of Tokyo (Tohoku, Joetsu, Hokuriku), use EkiNet, which has its own discounted advance fares that can knock 20–35% off if you book early. Both apps are in English.

From overseas, before you fly

You can reserve through smartEX or EkiNet from home, or buy a Japan Rail Pass in advance if you are doing a lot of long-distance travel. Don’t buy individual shinkansen e-tickets from random resellers at a markup — the official apps are cheaper and just as easy.

06 —Example fares and journey times from Tokyo

These are one-way, ordinary-class reserved-seat fares in cash (basic fare plus surcharge combined), current for 2026. Non-reserved is a few hundred yen cheaper; the Green Car is noticeably more. Prices shift slightly with seasonal peak and off-peak surcharges of around ¥200.

Destination	Line / fastest train	Time (fastest)	Reserved fare (approx.)	Good for
Odawara (for Hakone)	Tokaido / Kodama or Hikari	~30–35 min	¥3,280–3,440	Hakone day trips, Mount Fuji area
Kyoto	Tokaido / Nozomi	~2h14	¥14,170	Temples, classic Japan
Shin-Osaka (Osaka)	Tokaido / Nozomi	~2h30	¥14,720	Osaka, Kobe, Nara
Nagoya	Tokaido / Nozomi	~1h40	¥11,300	Central Japan, Ghibli Park
Nagano	Hokuriku / Kagayaki	~1h20–1h25	~¥8,500	Snow monkeys, Zenko-ji, Nagano ski
Kanazawa	Hokuriku / Kagayaki	~2h30	~¥14,600	Kenroku-en, Sea of Japan side
Niigata	Joetsu / Toki	~1h40–2h	~¥10,800	Sake, coast, GALA Yuzawa skiing
Sendai	Tohoku / Hayabusa	~1h30	~¥11,500	Northern Japan, Matsushima
Shin-Aomori	Tohoku / Hayabusa	~3h	~¥17,500	Far north, gateway to Hokkaido

A note on Hakone: the shinkansen only gets you as far as Odawara, and many travellers find the Hakone Free Pass with the Odakyu Romancecar from Shinjuku is simpler and cheaper for a Hakone trip. The shinkansen to Odawara mainly makes sense if you already hold a rail pass. For the full breakdown, see our Mount Fuji day trip guide.

07 —Luggage rules and the oversized-baggage reservation

You can bring normal suitcases on board free — there is an overhead rack and space behind the last row of seats in each car (reserve a seat in the back row and you get the deep luggage space behind it). The rule that catches people out is for oversized baggage.

On the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen, any bag whose three dimensions (length plus width plus height) add up to between 160 cm and 250 cm — think a large check-in suitcase — requires a free oversized baggage area seat reservation. You book it when you reserve your seat (the machine, app and office all offer it) and it costs nothing extra. Turn up with an oversized bag and no reservation and you will be charged a ¥1,000 fee on board and pointed to whatever space is left. Bags over 250 cm total are not allowed at all. Most carry-on and mid-size cases are under 160 cm and need no reservation — this only bites for the big four-wheeler suitcases.

08 —Ekiben: the best part of the journey

Eating on the shinkansen is not just allowed, it is practically the point. Ekiben — from eki (station) plus bento — are boxed meals made for train travel, and they are excellent. At Tokyo Station, head inside the JR gates near the Marunouchi central area to Ekibenya Matsuri, which stocks over 200 regional varieties: grilled eel, beef, sea-urchin rice, seasonal specials. Grab one before you board (the queues are real during rush hour), settle into your seat, fold down the tray table, and you are set.

A few unspoken rules: ekiben are designed to be low-odour, so avoid bringing strong-smelling outside food. There are bins at the end of each car for your empty box. A cold beer or a coffee from the platform kiosk is completely normal. The fold-down trays and the two-hour ride make this one of the nicest meals you will have in Japan.

09 —Using the shinkansen for day trips

Because the trains are so fast and so frequent, a lot of far-flung places become easy day trips from Tokyo. Nagano and the snow monkeys, Karuizawa for the highlands, Odawara and Hakone for hot springs and Fuji views, even Kyoto if you start early and don’t mind a long day. A reserved Kodama to Odawara and back, or a Kagayaki to Nagano, turns the bullet train into a day-trip machine. We have mapped the best of them in our day trips from Tokyo guide.

10 —What riding the shinkansen is actually like

If you have never done it, here is the rhythm of a trip. You arrive at the station, buy or collect your ticket, and pass through the dedicated shinkansen gates (separate from the local-train gates). Electronic boards show the next departures with the platform number and the train name — Nozomi 235, Hikari 645, and so on. Car positions are painted on the platform floor, so you stand exactly where your car will stop. Trains are punctual to the minute; if the board says 10:03, the doors close at 10:03. Cleaning crews turn a train around in about seven minutes, bowing as they board, so you sometimes wait until the previous service is wiped down before you can step on.

Onboard, ordinary cars are arranged three-and-two across with a generous seat pitch, big windows, a fold-down tray, a seat-back pocket and a footrest. Newer N700S trains have power sockets at every seat and free wifi. It is quiet by design: phone calls are taken in the vestibule between cars, not at your seat, and people keep conversations low. There is a toilet, a washroom and usually a vending machine in alternate cars. The ride is so smooth you can balance a coffee on the tray at 300 km/h. Announcements come in Japanese and English, and the scrolling display tells you the next stop and which side the doors open.

11 —Shinkansen or fly? How the bullet train compares

For trips up to around three hours of rail time, the shinkansen usually beats flying once you count the full door-to-door picture. There is no airport an hour out of town, no security line, no checking in 90 minutes early. You turn up five minutes before departure, walk on, and arrive in the centre of the destination city. Tokyo to Osaka by air looks faster on paper, but add the trip to Haneda, security, boarding and the trip from the far-flung Itami or Kansai airport into town and the train wins or ties — while being roomier and letting you work the whole way.

Where flying pulls ahead is the very long hauls: Tokyo to Fukuoka or Sapporo, where the plane is dramatically quicker and often cheaper on a budget carrier. For everything in between — Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Kanazawa, Sendai — the shinkansen is the obvious choice, and the reason most visitors never set foot in a domestic airport.

12 —Mistakes to avoid

• Trying to ride a Hayabusa or Kagayaki on a non-reserved ticket. These trains have no non-reserved cars. You must hold a reserved seat — walking on with just a basic ticket is not allowed.
• Assuming a rail pass covers the Nozomi. It does not, unless you buy the supplement. Take the Hikari for free instead.
• Showing up with a giant suitcase and no oversized-baggage seat. That is a ¥1,000 charge on the Tokaido line. Reserve the special seat — it is free.
• Going to the wrong station. Northbound trains do not stop at Shinagawa; Tokaido trains do not stop at Ueno. Check before you ride.
• Cutting it too fine at Tokyo Station. It is vast. Allow 20–25 minutes to find your platform, buy an ekiben and board, especially if you are transferring between the JR Central and JR EAST sides.
• Feeding paper tickets through the gate one at a time. If you hold a basic-fare ticket and a separate reserved ticket, insert them stacked together — the gate takes them both at once.

13 —Ways to spend less on the bullet train

The shinkansen is not cheap, but there are honest ways to trim the cost. Booking through EkiNet for the northbound JR EAST lines unlocks advance-purchase discounts that can save 20–35% if you commit a day or more ahead. On the Tokaido side, smartEX sometimes offers early-bird and off-peak round-trip deals. Travelling at off-peak times (mid-week, outside the morning and evening rush) dodges the seasonal peak surcharge of roughly ¥200 each way. And if your itinerary involves several long hops in a short window, run the numbers on a Japan Rail Pass versus individual tickets — for a Tokyo–Kyoto–Hiroshima–back kind of trip it can pay for itself, while for a single return to Kyoto it usually will not.

One more tip: non-reserved seats are the same physical seats as reserved ones on a Hikari or Kodama, just unguaranteed. If you are flexible and travelling light off-peak, buying non-reserved and grabbing whatever is free can save you a few hundred yen per leg without any real downside.

14 —Frequently Asked Questions

15 —Photo Credits

• An N700S series bullet train, the backbone of the Tokaido Shinkansen — Photo: MaedaAkihiko / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• A bullet train races past Mount Fuji on the Tokaido line — Photo: Alpsdake / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• The Shinkansen platforms at Tokyo Station, the main departure point — Photo: Syced / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Inside an ordinary-class Shinkansen car, with three-and-two seating — Photo: MNXANL / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• The E7 series runs the Hokuriku Shinkansen toward Nagano and Kanazawa — Photo: i北陸 (i Hokuriku) / CC BY 2.1 jp via Wikimedia Commons
• An ekiben – the regional bento boxes sold for eating on the train — Photo: Cassiopeia sweet / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons