The market week at a glance
Tsukiji Outer Market keeps a rest day on Wednesdays, Sundays and public holidays, and many shops close with it. Toyosu Market is closed to visitors on Sundays, public holidays and on the other closing days of its own calendar, which in 2026 include most Wednesdays. The city publishes the calendar for each year. A tour still runs on a quiet day, but it shows you less.
| Day | Tsukiji Outer Market | Toyosu Market (auction) |
|---|
| Monday |
Open |
Open |
| Tuesday |
Open |
Open |
| Wednesday |
Market rest day, many shops closed |
Closed on most Wednesdays; check the calendar |
| Thursday |
Open |
Open |
| Friday |
Open |
Open |
| Saturday |
Open |
Open |
| Sunday |
Market rest day, many shops closed |
Closed |
| Public holidays |
Market rest day, many shops closed |
Closed |
The busiest hours in Tsukiji are between 9:00 and 13:00, and most stalls close well before evening. The ground floor of the Uogashi building, where the market traders shop, stays closed to visitors until 9:00. Toyosu lets visitors in from 5:00 to 17:00 on market days, though each restaurant there keeps its own hours.
A guide without food, or five tastings in the ticket
The two-hour Traveling Tokyo walk pays for the guide and nothing else. You decide at each stall what you want to try and pay for it there, mostly in cash. Guests who liked it say the guide suggested what to order and handled the paying for them, which makes it a sensible choice if you are hungry for some things and not for others. Japan Wonder Travel turns the same streets into a three-hour route with five fixed tastings: a wagyu skewer, sushi or a seafood bowl depending on the day, a rolled omelette, seasonal fruit and a fried fish cake. The flip side is the diet rule. That tour takes no vegetarian, halal or gluten-free requests, and if you cannot eat fish you cannot join.
Before you book a Sunday
A French guest on the walking tour wrote that on a Sunday the non-tourist part of the market was closed and the group ended up in the shops aimed at visitors. Japan Wonder Travel states the same closures for the wholesale section and drops some tastings on those days. If Tsukiji is high on your list, put it on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
The tuna auction morning in Toyosu
JRT Group meets at 5:00 at the Lawson shop at Toyosu Market. Trains are not yet running at that hour, so the operator tells you to come by taxi; hotel pickup is an optional extra. You watch the auction from the public observation deck on the second floor. The floor-level viewing area is only open to guests drawn in a lottery, and there is no lottery in December. Afterwards the group rides to Tsukiji for food, with that transfer included. The breakfast stop at Toyosu is marked as an extra charge on the listing. The tour cannot cater for vegetarian, halal or gluten-free diets, it is not suitable with food allergies, and a late arrival or no-show is not refunded.
You can also visit Toyosu without a tour. The city runs its own applications for the auction observation deck, with a lottery when there are more applicants than places, and visitors who are not drawn can follow the auction from the second-floor walkway.
Market manners that change how a tour runs
Tsukiji does not allow eating while walking. You eat what you buy in front of the stall or in a designated eating area, which is why tastings on these tours happen standing still. Throw rubbish into the bins of the shop you bought from. The lanes are narrow, and GO TOKYO, the city’s visitor site, advises coming in small groups. Bring cash: most shops do not take cards.
Sake has its own address in Tsukiji too: a private salon on the fifth floor of the Tsukiji Base building runs unlimited tastings with snacks; it is compared with other tastings on our sake tasting page.
