Hotel-to-hotel luggage delivery in Japan: what Yamato costs now and when to send the bag

What Yamato charges now

Yamato prices a parcel by size band and by the pair of regions it travels between. Size is length, width and height added together, and each band carries a weight cap: size 120 means up to 120 cm and 15 kg, 140 up to 20 kg, 160 up to 25 kg, and 180 and 200 up to 30 kg. These are cash fares, tax included, from Yamato’s Japanese rate table on the day this note was published:

A small bag in size 100 (up to 100 cm and 10 kg) costs ¥1,650 from Tokyo to Kyoto. Two reductions can trim any of these figures, and a third sometimes can. Yamato takes ¥100 off each parcel you hand over yourself at a sales office, an agency or a convenience store. Paying cashless gives ¥3,157 instead of ¥3,160 on the Tokyo to Kyoto size 160. Two or more parcels sent together to one address can get ¥100 off each on Yamato’s multi-parcel waybill, but only on prepaid TA-Q-BIN, and Yamato says suitcases may be excluded depending on their size.

The last row of the table is new. Since 10 November 2025 Yamato has charged individual senders a separate, lower fare for a parcel that starts and ends in the same prefecture, Okinawa excepted: ¥2,410 for size 160 across Tokyo, against ¥3,020 from Tokyo to Hakone. The fare applies through the channels Yamato lists, such as drop-off at its sales offices and pickup by its drivers, so ask the hotel which fare it will charge.

Yamato’s English “TA-Q-BIN Rates Table” gives a lower figure for the same suitcase. It still shows ¥2,630 for size 160 between Kanto and Kansai, and ¥2,510 within Kanto. ¥2,510 is the old fare in the Japanese notice Yamato issued on 1 May 2025, which raised sizes 120 to 200 from 1 October 2025: within Kanto, size 160 went from ¥2,510 to ¥3,020, while sizes 60 to 100 were left alone. Yamato’s English Hands-Free Travel page already quotes “about 3,160 JPY” for Tokyo to Kyoto, so budget from the Japanese table.

When to hand it over

Yamato’s English pages talk in next-day terms. Its sales offices offer next-day delivery for luggage dropped off by around 6:00 PM (drop-off hours vary by location), and its worked example, a size-160 case from the Tokyo Station sales office to a hotel in Kyoto, is marked “Next day”. The Japanese FAQ for bags addressed to hotels and ryokan is stricter. It asks you to send the bag so that it reaches the accommodation by the day before your stay, points you to a lookup for the ship-by date, and tells you to collect the bag at reception when you arrive. The stay date can be set up to 10 days after the shipping date, and Yamato warns that some hotels charge a storage fee for bags that arrive early.

Here is what that deadline does to an example trip: a Tokyo hotel from Monday night, then a Kyoto hotel from Thursday.

Only the FAQ timing puts the suitcase at the Kyoto hotel before you, and it takes the case away for two of your Tokyo nights. Shipping on moving day costs one night instead, but it falls outside the window Yamato’s FAQ sets, and it works only if the Kyoto hotel will take in a parcel for a guest who has already checked in. Yamato’s advice for any hotel delivery is to confirm in advance that the hotel can accept your luggage; here that email matters more than usual. My preference: follow the FAQ when the next stop is a ryokan or a late arrival, and ship on moving day when you have more nights ahead of you than behind.

Ship it or take it on the Shinkansen: the 160 cm line

Yamato’s size 160 stops at 160 cm, and so does the no-booking limit for big bags on the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen. On those lines, from Tokyo through Shin-Osaka and Hakata to Kagoshima-Chuo, a bag whose three sides add up to more than 160 cm and up to 250 cm needs a reserved seat with an oversized baggage area. JR West says that booking costs only the standard reserved-seat fare, with no extra charge, while boarding with such a bag and no reservation brings a 1,000 yen fee. Over 250 cm, the bag cannot come on board at all. JR East runs its lines differently: its FAQ says there are no designated seats for oversized luggage on the Hokkaido, Tohoku, Akita, Yamagata, Joetsu and Hokuriku Shinkansen, and that its on-board luggage storage area needs no reservation, though some trains don’t have one.

The weight caps sit alongside the centimetres on Yamato’s side (25 kg for size 160, 30 kg for 180 and 200), and JR Central’s general allowance is two pieces, each up to 30 kg, 250 cm in total and 200 cm long. One Yamato inconsistency matters for the biggest cases: its Japanese service page and fare table take parcels up to 200 cm, but its English Hands-Free page says items of size 200 or larger are not accepted, so check a bag over 180 cm at the counter before you count on shipping it.

Read together, the two rule books make shipping a bag of 160 cm or less from Tokyo to Kyoto a comfort purchase: the train would carry it for nothing. Above 160 cm the comfort costs ¥4,480 or ¥5,410, against a seat booking that adds no charge beyond the reserved-seat fare. For an oversized case on the Tokaido line I would book the seat, and ship only when the leg after the train is a bus, a local line or a long walk. If you are also pricing a rail pass for this route, see our Japan transport pass note.

If it has to arrive the same day

For a Kyoto to Osaka move, Yamato’s Kyoto counters offer same-day delivery for ¥1,000 more than the next-day fare. At the counters Yamato lists in Kyoto, Kyoto Station Center among them, a bag handed over by 10:00 is delivered the same day to hotels with a front desk in four Kyoto wards (Shimogyo, Nakagyo, Minami and Higashiyama) and in seven Osaka wards, among them Kita, Chuo and Naniwa. Kyoto Station Center takes these bags on weekdays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays; some of the other counters do so on weekdays only.

Yamato’s Kyoto page prices a size-160 bag at ¥4,020 to Osaka city. For delivery within Kyoto city the same page says ¥2,860, while Yamato’s general English same-day page shows ¥3,470 for a size-160 bag from Kyoto Station, so check that price at the counter. For a Kyoto to Osaka hotel move this is the option I would pick: check out early, leave the bag before 10:00, and spend the day without it.

Between Tokyo and Kyoto or Osaka, same-day delivery is rare. JTB’s Luggage Express, which SoraNews24 covered in August 2026, manages it by carrying bags on the Tokaido Shinkansen, at roughly four to five times Yamato’s truck-based fare. It takes bags by 10:00 AM at counters in Tokyo, Kyoto and Shin-Osaka stations, or at hotels on its list where you already have a reservation. The Express plan delivers to your hotel at 6:00 PM for 16,500 yen a bag and the Regular plan at 8:00 PM for 13,200 yen; bags can be up to 200 cm and 30 kg. Against Yamato’s ¥3,160 for a size-160 case, even the Regular plan costs ¥10,040 more to avoid one night apart from your suitcase. Its Osaka to Kyoto plan, 4,400 yen with delivery at 8:00 PM, is ¥380 more than the ¥4,020 Yamato charges for a size-160 bag from a Kyoto counter to Osaka, and JTB doesn’t take station drop-offs on that short route, so it only helps if your hotel is on its list.

Inside one prefecture, Yamato’s newer same-day service fits a hotel change, provided you carry the bag to a sales office yourself. Since 10 November 2025, a bag taken to a Yamato sales office in the morning and addressed within the same prefecture or city is delivered the same day for the normal fare plus ¥550. Cut-off times differ by office, and depending on the area, delivery starts from 14:00 or from 18:00.

At the front desk

Yamato’s English FAQ covers the handover. A hotel that sends your bag might only take cash for the fare. Vacation rentals and some hotels may not be able to send or receive luggage, and the number of bags a hotel will accept can depend on its storage space, so ask the next hotel before you ship. To collect the bag, give reception your check-in date, the full name on the reservation and the tracking number, which is printed on your shipping label.

Who should ship, and who should carry

Ship when the bag, not the train, is the problem. Two people with two size-160 cases pay ¥6,320 in cash from Tokyo to Kyoto to walk through Tokyo Station with day bags. That is money well spent if the trip continues to a ryokan, an onsen town or a hotel up a hill from the station. It is money badly spent if both hotels sit by Shinkansen stations and both cases measure 160 cm or less, because the train would have taken them without a booking and you would have kept your clothes.

Carry when the bag fits. Same-day delivery earns its price on a short hop like Kyoto to Osaka (¥4,020 for size 160), much less so from Tokyo to Kyoto (¥13,200 or more). If the hotel change is inside one city, first ask whether the move is worth making; our note on splitting a stay and the hotel-move check count what a move costs in time, and on your last day, where to leave bags before you head out is a separate decision.