Tourism Hokkaido to charge lodging tax of up to ¥500/night in 2026

The Hokkaido prefectural government plans to introduce a lodging tax of up to 500 yen (around $3) per night in April 2026, to support infrastructure and public transport in response to increasing tourist numbers. Hokkaido, a popular northern island destination, will join a growing number of prefectures across Japan adopting similar tax schemes to help manage tourism-related costs.

With about 20 municipalities within the prefecture, including Sapporo, the capital, also planning to enforce their lodging taxes, visitors staying at hotels and inns may be subject to overlapping charges. Under the ordinance passed by the Hokkaido assembly in December, the tax will be scaled according to the room rate: guests will pay 100 yen per night for accommodation under 20,000 yen, 200 yen for rates between 20,000 and 50,000 yen, and 500 yen for stays costing 50,000 yen or more.

The imposition of a lodging tax is expected to generate around 4.5 billion yen for the Hokkaido government. Among the municipalities in Hokkaido, Sapporo will request 200 yen a night for a room charge of less than 50,000 yen and 500 yen for fees more than 50,000 yen. This would mean a hotel guest with a 50,000 yen room charge would have to pay 1,000 yen in lodging tax. In Kutchan, where the popular Niseko ski resort is located, a flat rate of 2 percent of the room charge is collected from visitors. Starting with Tokyo in 2002, accommodation taxes have already been introduced in Osaka and Fukuoka prefectures and municipalities including Kanazawa and Kyoto.

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Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.