Wheelchair-accessible Tokyo: a practical guide

Getting around

Tokyo's trains work well for wheelchair users, with help. Across Japan, 94 percent of the busier stations have a step-free route by lift or similar, but most boardings still need a member of staff with a portable ramp. Tell the staff at the ticket gate where you are going; they take you to the platform, help you on, and tell the station at the other end so someone meets the train. An occupational therapist who travelled with her brother in 2026 told us the metro "turned out to be better than expected, thanks to the help of the metro staff", and to allow about half as long again for any metro trip, for the wait for staff and lifts. Our note on trains, stations and airports covers the rules railway by railway.

The lift is not always at the exit you would choose, and the details are mostly published in Japanese, on each operator's own station pages. A few that matter:

• At Asakusa, the Ginza line's lift is at exit 1, and Tokyo Metro says no advance notice is needed. On the Tobu line at Asakusa, use the lift at the front exit; the north exit is stairs only.
• At Harajuku, JR asks wheelchair users to use the Omotesando gate.
• At Yoyogi, JR's step-free route is from the west gate.
• At Shinjuku, the Marunouchi line's street lifts are at exits A6, A15 and B12a, and they run only at set hours.

Each Tokyo Metro train has two multi-purpose spaces for wheelchairs, marked on the doors nearest them. Since March 2026, staff on the Keikyu, Toei, Keisei and Hokuso lines pass a wheelchair user's journey details to each other, so a trip across those lines is handed on.

Most taxi-company cars in Tokyo are now the JPN TAXI, which carries a wheelchair user seated, with one companion, within size and weight limits. In Tokyo the GO app can call a wheelchair-capable car. For a large power chair, a group or a sightseeing day, a welfare taxi or lift van hired by the hour is the better tool. The detail is in wheelchair taxis in Japan.

What to see

Senso-ji's grounds are flat, and the temple keeps a lift on the left of the main hall for anyone who finds the stairs hard. From October to March the hall opens at 6:30.

Meiji Shrine is a longer push. Cars can enter only by the Yoyogi gate, and every entrance is about ten minutes from the main hall. A wheelchair user's guide describes the approaches as gravel down the middle, with paved strips at the edges that break off in places. Tokyo's tourism office lists wheelchair parking, ramps, a lift, barrier-free toilets and loan wheelchairs at the shrine.

Shinjuku Gyoen says every one of its gardens, the lawns included, can be used in a wheelchair, and lends wheelchairs free at every gate. The formal and Japanese gardens are partly gravel, and the glasshouse is up a slope steep enough that the garden asks for a helper.

The Imperial Palace East Gardens are free, need no booking and close on Mondays and Fridays. A wheelchair user's guide reports the steep Shiomizaka slope signed closed to wheelchairs and suggests entering the upper garden by the Kitahanebashi gate to avoid it.

The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno has lifts or ramps to every building and floor except the garden tea houses, though the Honkan and Hyokeikan have steep entrance ramps and small steps of 1 to 2 cm inside. Come from JR Ueno's Park exit, about 500 m away; the metro stations are further, with steep slopes and steps.

On the water, the Sumida river bus takes a wheelchair user as they are, except at the lowest water on some spring tides, and runs down to Hama-rikyu, a bayside garden with its own wheelchair route the whole way round. Across the bay, Odaiba Seaside Park publishes a barrier-free map: its beach promenade is drawn as flat, and a barrier-free toilet with an assistance bed sits by the water-bus waiting room.

Two newer places: DAWN, the avatar robot café in Nihonbashi, has no steps inside, takes power and stretcher-type chairs and lends power to charge a chair. At teamLab Borderless, riders of power chairs that cannot be held at 2 km/h or less are asked to switch to a museum wheelchair.

And the public toilets are a pleasant surprise. In the same therapist's words: "Japan's public accessible toilets have LOTS of space and are amazing."

For a day-by-day plan that puts these together, see our twelve-day Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka itinerary.

Where to stay

Tokyo's government lists accessible lodging against a published standard: a step-free route from the street to the room, a room door of at least 85 cm, and a bathroom door of at least 80 cm with no step and with rails. Most accessible bathrooms still have a tub, and a barrier-free bathroom is not a roll-in shower. True roll-in showers exist, but they are rare, so ask the hotel for the step at the shower door in centimetres.

At the larger hotels, accessible rooms are few. Hotel Metropolitan Tokyo Marunouchi has five universal kings and one universal twin. The Strings by InterContinental in Shinagawa, which becomes InterContinental Tokyo Shinagawa on 1 December 2026, has two wheelchair rooms and asks for requests early. Keio Plaza Hotel Tokyo prints the transfer space beside the bed in its universal deluxe twin: 150 cm.

For less money, Akabane Holic Hotel has two universal twins with a shower chair kept in the room, Richmond Hotel Asakusa a universal twin with 90 cm doors and a flat bathroom entry, and Henn na Hotel Tokyo Asakusabashi a universal twin that sleeps three. More, with Kyoto and Osaka, in cheaper wheelchair-accessible places to stay.

Whatever the hotel, read the room's floor plan before you book: the size of a room tells you nothing about whether the floor beside the bed is free.

Equipment

WHILL, the Japanese power-chair maker, rents its chairs for trips on a daily plan from four days, delivered to the hotel once the hotel agrees: renting a WHILL. Wheeled shower chairs and hoists can be hired and delivered to a hotel as well, but the renters that state their terms sign only with someone living in Japan or a company there, and the hotel must agree first: see hiring a hoist for a hotel stay.