- On every Shinkansen line: up to 250cm in total (length + width + height), 2m long and 30kg per piece, 2 pieces per person. Bigger than that cannot be brought on board (sports gear and instruments you can hold upright are an exception — see below)
- Tokaido, Sanyo, Kyushu and Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen: luggage over 160cm in total needs a reserved “seat with an oversized baggage area” (no extra charge). Without one, you pay a 1,000-yen fee, your bag goes where the staff direct, and if the seats are full you may be asked to reserve another train
- JR East lines (Tohoku, Hokkaido, Akita, Yamagata, Joetsu, Hokuriku): no luggage reservation system — use the baggage areas or your feet
Measure at the widest points, including wheels and handles.
- Online (EX reservation, smartEX, e5489 or JR Kyushu's online train reservation), at a reserved-seat ticket machine, or at a ticket office — tell the staff you have oversized baggage. JR Kyushu notes that its JR KYUSHU RAIL PASS online booking site cannot reserve seats with luggage space
- The space is behind the last row of seats in some reserved cars. On trains with reserved seats, oversized baggage cannot go in the non-reserved cars
- On trains where every car is non-reserved (between Shin-Osaka and Hakata, and on the Kyushu and Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen), oversized baggage can be brought on without a reservation (JR West and JR Kyushu). The Tokaido Shinkansen has no such exception
- JR Central: sports gear, instruments, wheelchairs and strollers up to 250cm in total need no advance reservation, whatever their size within that — but to use the space behind the last row, you need to reserve that seat
- JR East: strollers can be taken on unfolded; sports gear and instruments over 2m are OK in a bag or case if you can hold them upright; bicycles must be taken apart or folded and fully covered in a bag
Sending your bags instead? → Sending your luggage in Japan
- JR Central: Oversized baggage (English)
- JR Central: Baggage (Japanese)
- JR West: Oversized baggage on the Shinkansen (Japanese)
- JR Kyushu: Oversized Baggage (English)
- JR Kyushu: Oversized baggage (Japanese)
- JR East: Bringing large luggage on trains (English)
- JR East: Hand luggage (Japanese)
- JRE Media: Hand luggage rules (Japanese, updated 8 September 2026)
- JR Hokkaido: FAQ on hand luggage (Japanese)
- JR Central and JR West: trial of baggage areas without reservations (4 April 2025, Japanese)
Checked on 7 October 2026. Some JR pages still mention the older “seat with an oversized baggage compartment” (a reservation for the deck baggage areas); those deck areas now need no reservation for luggage up to 160cm. The current system is the “seat with an oversized baggage area”. Rules can change.