The Imperial Palace occupies the site of the old Edo Castle, and most of what travellers want to see around it, the East Gardens, the outer plaza and the free guided tour, costs nothing. The catch is the calendar: the gardens close every Monday and Friday, and the tour needs an application in advance.
In Short
Yes, the Imperial Palace East Gardens are free to enter, open 9:00 to 16:00 in winter with entry until 15:30, and closed every Monday and Friday plus 28 December to 3 January. The Imperial Household Agency's guided palace tour is also free but requires an advance application. The Kokyogaien outer plaza and Kitanomaru Park are free with no reservation at all.
Part of the Free Things To Do In Tokyo guides series, this page covers the palace grounds in full: what is free, what costs money, when it is closed, and which free walking tours meet nearby.
Quick Facts
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Are the East Gardens free? | Yes, free to enter, no ticket |
| East Gardens closing days | Every Monday and Friday, plus 28 December to 3 January |
| East Gardens winter hours | 9:00 to 16:00, entry until 15:30 |
| Is the guided palace tour free? | Yes, but admission is by advance application |
| Is the outer precinct free? | Yes, Kokyogaien plaza and Kitanomaru Park are free |
| Is anything here paid? | No part of the palace grounds charges admission |
| Nearest free walk platform | GuruWalk, walks meeting at the Imperial Palace, Kokyogaien |
Yes, both are free. The Imperial Palace East Gardens cost nothing to enter and need no ticket, and the guided tour run by the Imperial Household Agency is also free, with the one condition that you apply in advance rather than walk up. The Kokyogaien outer plaza, where most palace photographs are taken, is an open public space with no gate, no fee and no reservation. Free, in this case, really does mean free.
The distinction that matters is between the three layers of the palace grounds. The outer garden, Kokyogaien, is the gravel plaza in front of the Nijubashi bridges, and it is open public space. The East Gardens are the landscaped remains of Edo Castle's inner defences, and they are free but gated, with posted hours and closing days. The palace buildings themselves are not open to casual visitors, and the only way inside on a normal day is the Imperial Household Agency's guided tour, which is free but run on an application system. You can read the current arrangements on the Imperial Household Agency's visit page.
| Place | Free Or Ticketed | What Is Free | What You Still Pay For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Imperial Palace East Gardens | Free | Admission is free. Open 9:00 to 16:00 from November to the end of February (entry to 15:30); 9:00 to 16:30 in October. | Nothing to pay. Season hours widen to 18:00 in summer. |
The East Gardens follow seasonal hours, and the winter schedule now in force is 9:00 to 16:00, with the last entry at 15:30. The closure pattern catches a lot of visitors out: the gardens are closed every Monday and every Friday, in addition to 28 December through 3 January and days when Imperial Court functions are held. That means a five-day Tokyo trip that includes a Monday and a Friday has only three possible garden days. Check the days of your visit against the calendar before you build an itinerary around it, because there is no ticket to buy in advance and no way to visit on a closed day.
The guided tour is the one palace experience that rewards planning. It is free, it takes visitors through areas of the palace grounds not open to independent walkers, and admission is by application, with the request submitted ahead of the visit date. Walk-ins are not accepted. The application process is handled through the Imperial Household Agency, and the tour itself is conducted with an agency guide. If the application window for your date has filled, the East Gardens and the outer plaza remain fully available without one.
One warning worth its own paragraph: a site called tokyoimperialpalace.com sells tickets to the East Gardens, which are free. Do not buy one. The official source for everything palace-related is the Imperial Household Agency, whose official site lists the hours, closures and tour application with no charge anywhere in the process. Any third party asking for money to enter a free public garden is selling you something you can have for nothing.
For context, this site tracks free things to do across Tokyo, and the palace grounds sit alongside the TMG observatories and Ueno Park as the largest genuinely free sights in the centre of the city. The Free Things To Do In Tokyo home page collects them all, and the palace is the natural starting point because so much of it is free at once: gardens, plaza, parkland and a guided tour, all without a yen of admission.
The free layer around the palace is large: the Kokyogaien outer plaza, Kitanomaru Park, the East Gardens themselves, and the Imperial Palace New Year General Greeting, which opens the grounds to the public on 2 January. Around the immediate district, Hibiya Park is free, the TMG observatories at 202 metres are free with no reservation, and a pay-what-you-want walking tradition covers the whole area through GuruWalk. Nothing in this list needs a ticket.
| Place | Free Or Ticketed | What Is Free | What You Still Pay For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitanomaru Park | Free | Entry free, open at all times, no closing days; public use is restricted on days of state functions. | Parking, the Science Museum and the Budokan events are paid separately. |
Start with the grounds themselves. Kitanomaru Park is the forested area on the north side of the palace, and it is free and open around the clock, with access restricted only when state functions require it. The Kokyogaien plaza is the classic view: the gravel expanse, the pine trees and the Nijubashi bridges in the background, all open public space with no hours and no gate. The East Gardens, covered in the previous section, complete the set. Between the three, you can spend half a day inside the palace perimeter without paying anything.
The New Year Greeting is a separate animal. On 2 January the Imperial Family appears on a balcony and the inner grounds are opened for the General Greeting, which is free to attend. The last confirmed edition was 2 January 2026, with entry from 9:30 to 14:10 through the Main Gate. The 2027 notice had not been posted when this page was written, so treat the date and times as a pattern rather than a promise until the agency publishes the new notice. If you are in Tokyo over New Year, it is the one day the inside of the palace is free to everyone without an application.
Step outside the perimeter and the free list keeps going. Hibiya Park, a short way south of the outer plaza, is a free metropolitan park. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government observatories, north-west in Shinjuku, are both free at 202 metres with no reservation, and they give you the palace district laid out below, though each observatory has its own rotating closed weekday: the South Observatory closes the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month, the North Observatory the 2nd and 4th Monday, and both close 29 to 31 December and 2 to 3 January. Marunouchi's Naka-dori, the office boulevard east of the palace, carries a free-to-view illumination from 12 November to 25 December 2026.
| Place | Free Or Ticketed | What Is Free | What You Still Pay For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hibiya Park | Free | Entry free, open at all times; the service centre is staffed 8:30 to 17:30 except at New Year. | Some facilities and events are paid. |
The free walking tradition deserves its own mention. GuruWalk hosts pay-what-you-want walks across the city, and the palace district has walks meeting right at the grounds: the Palace Storytelling Walk by 5 STORY, rated 4.85 out of 5 across 901 GuruWalk reviews, meets at the Imperial Palace, Kokyogaien, and runs 2 hours in English. The Shogun History Walk, English, rated 4.65 out of 5 across 295 GuruWalk reviews, meets at the same spot. Neither has a price, because free, pay what you want is the price on every GuruWalk listing. This site's own free walking tours overview explains how the model works in practice.
If you would rather have a guide around the old Edo Castle site itself, the storytelling walk above is the one that starts on the palace doorstep, meeting at Kokyogaien and running two hours in English on GuruWalk. Reserve a place, meet the guide, and pay what you want at the end. The full detail, including meeting-point logistics and the guide's own page, is on the Palace Storytelling Walk tour page.
Nothing inside the palace perimeter charges admission, so the honest answer is: the money goes to the neighbourhood, not the grounds. The nearest big paid attractions are Shinjuku Gyoen at JPY 500 for adults, the metropolitan gardens Hama-rikyu, Koishikawa Korakuen and Rikugien at JPY 300 each, and the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park at JPY 1,000, with free entry for under 18s and over 70s. None of these is inside the palace grounds.
The paid traps near the palace are mostly gardens people assume are free. Shinjuku Gyoen is the classic one: it is a national garden run by the Ministry of the Environment, it charges adults JPY 500, with JPY 250 for students and visitors over 65, free for children 15 and under, and it is normally closed Mondays. It is open seven days a week from 1 to 15 November during the special autumn period, and closed 29 December to 3 January. Our Shinjuku Gyoen free alternatives guide lists what to do instead when the ticket or the Monday closure puts you off.
| Place | Free Or Ticketed | What Is Free | What You Still Pay For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Imperial Palace Guided Tour | Free on conditions | A free guided walk of about 2.2 km (roughly one hour) inside the palace grounds, run by the Imperial Household Agency. | No cost to enter. Check the tour calendar before a trip. |
| Imperial Palace Outer Garden And Nijubashi | Free | Open public plaza, lawns and moat paths with the Nijubashi bridge view; national garden managed by the Ministry of the Environment. | No fee for the plaza. Rest houses and parking are paid. |
The three great metropolitan gardens each charge JPY 300: Hama-rikyu, Koishikawa Korakuen and Rikugien. All three close 29 December to 1 January. Rikugien runs a paid night viewing from 25 November to 6 December 2026, 18:00 to 20:30, which is worth knowing if you are pairing a palace morning with an evening garden. None of these is a palace cost, but they are the most likely paid items on an itinerary that starts at the palace.
Museums are the other place money goes. The Tokyo National Museum, on the free hill of Ueno Park, charges adults JPY 1,000, with free entry for visitors under 18 and over 70 with proof of age. Its three 2026 free days, 19 May, 21 September and 3 November, have all passed. The National Museum of Western Art charges adults JPY 500 normally, but its permanent collection is free for everyone on the 2nd Sunday of each month, with the next date 13 December 2026, and also on 18 May and 3 November. The Edo-Tokyo Museum is open again and running a paid special exhibition from 28 November 2026 to 24 January 2027. None of this touches the palace, but a day that starts free at Kokyogaien can end costing a few thousand yen in Ueno if you are not keeping the splits straight.
| Sight | Free part | Paid part |
|---|---|---|
| Imperial Palace East Gardens | Whole garden, no ticket | None |
| Imperial Palace guided tour | Tour itself | None, but advance application required |
| Kokyogaien outer plaza | Whole plaza | None |
| Kitanomaru Park | Whole park, open 24 hours | None |
| Shinjuku Gyoen | Children 15 and under | Adults JPY 500 |
| Hama-rikyu, Koishikawa Korakuen, Rikugien | Nothing, entry is ticketed | JPY 300 each |
| Tokyo National Museum | Under 18 and over 70 | Adults JPY 1,000 |
| National Museum of Western Art | 2nd Sunday of the month, 18 May, 3 November | Otherwise JPY 500 |
The one recurring scam to repeat, because it keeps resurfacing: nobody sells tickets to the East Gardens. Any site offering Imperial Palace tickets for money is reselling access to something free. The application for the guided tour, when you want it, goes through the Imperial Household Agency and costs nothing.
Before moving on to timing, one budget note that belongs here rather than later: the pay-what-you-want walks around the palace, including the storytelling walk in the box above, are free to reserve and free to walk. There is no deposit and no minimum on any GuruWalk listing in this district. If your palace day is meant to cost nothing, it can, end to end.
The best time to visit is a weekday other than Monday or Friday, since the gardens close on those days, and a morning arrival works well because winter hours run 9:00 to 16:00 with entry until 15:30. For the palace tour, go on whichever day your advance application secured, and note that the New Year Greeting on 2 January is the most time-sensitive visit of all.
The calendar math first. On a typical week that leaves Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday open. The hours shift with the seasons, and the schedule in force now, the winter one, is 9:00 to 16:00 with the gate closing to new entries at 15:30. A 9:00 arrival on an open Tuesday gives you the longest possible day inside, and the garden is large enough that a full open day is not too much.
Season matters for what the gardens look like, and this site publishes a separate piece on free autumn leaves in Tokyo for the leaf season. The gardens are free to enter, and the winter hours above are the ones to plan against until spring hours are posted. The nearby paid night viewing at Rikugien, 25 November to 6 December 2026, is an evening option if your palace day ends at the 16:00 close and you still want garden time after dark, though that one is ticketed.
The guided tour has its own timing rule. Because admission is by application submitted in advance, the best time to visit on the tour is simply the date you were granted, and the practical advice is to apply as early as your travel dates allow. The National Diet building tour elsewhere in the city works on a similar principle, requiring a reservation at least 24 hours ahead, so travellers who like the application-based free tours should build both into the same itinerary plan.
“Keiko was extremely knowledgeable and very friendly. She explained the history very well and at the end of the tour made sure that we got to the correct metro station by taking us there. Thank you Keiko.”
Gregory Allen, GuruWalk review of Shogun History Walk, English
For the New Year Greeting, timing is everything: the confirmed 2026 edition ran on 2 January with entry from 9:30 to 14:10 at the Main Gate, and the 2027 notice was not yet posted. If your trip spans New Year, watch the agency's page rather than assuming, and see our Imperial Palace New Year greeting post for how the day works. December visitors should also note that the gardens' 28 December to 3 January closure swallows the whole New Year week, so the last December garden days come before the 28th.
If the garden calendar defeats you, a Tuesday or Thursday alternative is the guided walking option above, which meets at Kokyogaien, a plaza that never closes, and runs in the open streets around the perimeter where the gardens' weekday closures do not apply. The walk runs 2 hours in English, is listed on GuruWalk, and is free, pay what you want.
The palace pairs naturally with Hibiya Park and the Marunouchi illumination to the east, with the TMG observatories in Shinjuku for the skyline view, and with Tsukiji's free outer-market lanes to the south. A realistic free day is the East Gardens in the morning, the outer plaza and Naka-dori after, and a pay-what-you-want walk stitched through the middle. Every element of that day costs nothing.
East first. The Marunouchi district starts immediately across from the palace moat, and Naka-dori, its main boulevard, carries a free-to-view illumination from 12 November to 25 December 2026, visible from the street with no ticket. Hibiya Park sits at the south-east corner of the palace perimeter, free and open. This combination, gardens, plaza, park, boulevard, is walkable as one continuous loop and is the standard free palace half-day.
South to Tsukiji. The Tsukiji Outer Market lanes are free to walk, with food and shopping paid, and the market's official site asks visitors not to eat while walking, and in December asks sightseers and group tours to stay away during the New Year shopping rush. There is even a walk built for exactly this pairing: the Palace Walk Ending At Tsukiji, by Japan Navigators, rated 4.84 out of 5 across 587 GuruWalk reviews, meeting at Sakuradamon Gate, Imperial Palace, running 2 hours in English and Spanish.
North-west to Shinjuku. The TMG observatories give you the palace district from 202 metres up, free and with no reservation, and the building is also the meeting point of the 18-Plus Night Walk, Kabukicho, an adults-only walk rated 4.89 out of 5 across 2,714 GuruWalk reviews, the largest review pool of any walk on this site's roster of 46. That walk is for adults only, as its GuruWalk listing states. A palace-and-observatories day, morning gardens and afternoon skyline, costs nothing at either end.
Further afield, the free catalogue is deep enough that the palace can anchor any multi-day plan. The Senso-ji and Asakusa guide, the Meiji Jingu guide and the Ueno Park guide each break down a free sight of the same weight, and each pairs with pay-what-you-want walks in its own district. The palace is simply the centre of the map, and everything else radiates from it along free corridors.
The palace district's walks on GuruWalk meet at the Imperial Palace, Kokyogaien, at Sakuradamon Gate, and at Tokyo Station's Marunouchi South Exit. The two biggest are the Palace Storytelling Walk by 5 STORY, 4.85 out of 5 across 901 reviews, and the Shogun History Walk by Local Guide Stars, 4.65 out of 5 across 295 reviews, both 2 hours in English. All are free, pay what you want.
“His English was excellent. He made the tour interesting with his knowledge. He showed us things we might have missed.”
Valerie, GuruWalk review of Palace Storytelling Walk
The roster of 46 walks this site ships includes a cluster in the Imperial Palace and Central Tokyo category, and the meeting points are the reliable way to choose between them. Kokyogaien is the plaza meeting point, Sakuradamon Gate sits on the south side of the grounds, and the Palace Intro, 1 Hour walk by Local Guide Stars meets at Tokyo Station, Marunouchi South Exit for a shorter 1-hour circuit. It has 15 GuruWalk reviews so far, too few for an overall score yet.
| Walk | Guide | Meets at | Duration | Language | Rating on GuruWalk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palace Storytelling Walk | 5 STORY | Imperial Palace, Kokyogaien | 2 hours | English | 4.85 out of 5, 901 reviews |
| Palace Walk Ending At Tsukiji | Japan Navigators | Sakuradamon Gate, Imperial Palace | 2 hours | English and Spanish | 4.84 out of 5, 587 reviews |
| Shogun History Walk, English | Local Guide Stars | Imperial Palace, Kokyogaien | 2 hours | English | 4.65 out of 5, 295 reviews |
| From The Ashes Of WWII | TokyoXplorers | Tokyo Tower, Shibakoen | 2 hours | English and Spanish | 4.88 out of 5, 239 reviews |
| Ginza Luxury And Hidden Alleys | TokyoXplorers | Marunouchi Station Square | 2 hours | English and Spanish | 4.75 out of 5, 20 reviews |
| Palace Intro, 1 Hour | Local Guide Stars | Tokyo Station, Marunouchi South Exit | 1 hour | English | 15 reviews, no score yet |
Language matters when choosing. Palace-district walks run in English, in both English and Spanish, or in Spanish only. The 3-Hour Imperial Gardens walk by Ignacio is Spanish only: it lasts 3 hours, meets at Kudankita, Chiyoda, and is rated 4.92 out of 5 across 718 GuruWalk reviews. Check the language line on the GuruWalk listing before reserving, because a Spanish-only walk will not switch to English on the day.
The Shogun History Walk is the history-forward option, run by Local Guide Stars, meeting at Kokyogaien, 2 hours in English, rated 4.65 out of 5 across 295 GuruWalk reviews. Like every walk on this site's pages, it is listed on GuruWalk, run by an independent local guide, and this site neither operates it nor is affiliated with GuruWalk.
A practical note on how these fit a garden visit: the walks meet outside the grounds at open public spaces, so a closed garden day does not close the walks. Pairing a walk with the East Gardens on the same morning works only on the gardens' open days, but pairing a walk with the Kokyogaien plaza works any day of the week, and the walks that meet at Tokyo Station give the shortest walk-to-plaza route of all.
The mistakes that cost people here are calendar mistakes and assumption mistakes: turning up on a Monday or Friday to find the East Gardens shut, buying a ticket from a reseller for a free garden, assuming the guided tour takes walk-ins, and treating the whole palace district as one always-open attraction. Each mistake is avoidable with one fact, and each fact is free to check on the Imperial Household Agency's own pages.
The Monday and Friday trap is the big one. Visitors routinely plan a palace visit for a Monday, the day many Tokyo museums close, only to discover the gardens also close Mondays and add Fridays on top. The result is a locked gate and a walk around the outside. The fix is to treat the gardens' open days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, as the anchor of the itinerary and fit museums around them, not the reverse.
The reseller trap follows. Sites selling Imperial Palace tickets are charging for free entry, and the guided tour's genuine application process costs nothing and runs through the Imperial Household Agency. A related mistake is assuming the tour accepts walk-ups: it does not, and showing up without an approved application ends at the same locked situation as a closed-day visit. Apply ahead, or content yourself with the gardens and the plaza, which need nothing.
The assumption mistakes are quieter. Treating the New Year Greeting as guaranteed is one: the 2027 edition's date and times were not posted when this page was written, and a New Year trip planned around an unconfirmed event can fail. Assuming the whole perimeter is one attraction is another: the outer plaza never closes, Kitanomaru is open around the clock, and only the East Gardens keep hours and closed days, so a closed-garden morning still leaves most of the district free to walk. The last mistake is paying for guidance you can have free: the GuruWalk walks meeting at Kokyogaien cover the same ground for pay-what-you-want, and the agency's own tour is free with an application. Between those two options, nobody needs a paid palace excursion.
Yes, completely free, with no ticket and no reservation. The gardens are open 9:00 to 16:00 in winter with entry until 15:30, and closed every Monday and Friday, plus 28 December to 3 January and days of Imperial Court functions. Anyone selling you a ticket is reselling free entry.
Yes, on the Imperial Household Agency's guided tour, which is free but admission is by advance application, submitted ahead of the visit date. Walk-ins are not accepted. The New Year General Greeting on 2 January is the other day the inner grounds open, free, with the 2027 edition's times not yet posted.
The gardens are managed by the Imperial Household Agency, which closes them every Monday and Friday for maintenance and operations, along with 28 December to 3 January and days of Imperial Court functions. The closure schedule is published on the agency's official site. Open days are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
The East Gardens, the Kokyogaien outer plaza with the Nijubashi bridges view, and Kitanomaru Park, which is free and open around the clock. All three cost nothing, and only the gardens are gated with hours. Hibiya Park and the Marunouchi Naka-dori illumination extend the free walk eastward.
Yes. On GuruWalk, the Palace Storytelling Walk by 5 STORY meets at the Imperial Palace, Kokyogaien, rated 4.85 out of 5 across 901 reviews, alongside the Shogun History Walk by Local Guide Stars, rated 4.65 out of 5 across 295 reviews. Both run 2 hours in English and both are free, pay what you want.
The gardens are not: they close 28 December to 3 January. The inner grounds are the exception, opening for the free New Year General Greeting on 2 January, last confirmed for 2026 with entry from 9:30 to 14:10 through the Main Gate. The 2027 notice had not been posted, so confirm before planning around it.
See Tokyo With A Local Guide, Free
Japan Navigators leads this walk in English and Spanish, meeting at Imperial Palace East Gardens. It takes 2 hours, reserving costs nothing, and you tip at the end.
4.84 · 587 GuruWalk reviews
See this free tourReserve free on GuruWalk, tip at the end