Which should you choose?
The two markets stopped being one place on 11 October 2018, when Tokyo's wholesale fish trade moved from Tsukiji to the new market at Toyosu. What stayed behind at Tsukiji is the outer market: a few blocks of shops, stalls and small restaurants that grew up around the old wholesale site and kept trading after it left. So the question is not which market is better. It is which half of the old story you came for.
- Choose Toyosu if the auction is the point. The bidding for large fish, tuna included, starts at 5:30. You watch it through glass from a second-floor visitor gallery that opens at 5:00, costs nothing and needs no booking. Full detail on the tuna auction page and the building guide to Toyosu Market.
- Choose Tsukiji if breakfast is the point. No alarm and nothing to book. The market association asks visitors to leave the early hours to professional buyers and recommends 9:00 to 14:00. What to order is on the food page.
- Do both if you have one free morning. Toyosu at dawn, then Tsukiji from about 9:00. The order is forced by the clock: the auction is over before Tsukiji's visitor hours begin. The plan is in chapter 03.
One honest caution about Toyosu: it is a working facility, not an attraction that happens to sell fish. Visitors stay on the corridors and look down on the trading floors, and the experience is the view, not the bustle. Expect the old Tsukiji crush and Toyosu will feel cold. Go knowing you are watching a wholesale market at work, and the view of the tuna floor is the reason to be there.
Tsukiji and Toyosu, side by side
Every row below was checked on 29 October 2026 against the market bureau's visitor pages and the Tsukiji association's own site. Where a shop's hours could differ from the headline, the table says so.
| Tsukiji Outer Market | Toyosu Market | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Streets of shops and stalls that stayed after 2018; anyone can buy | Tokyo's wholesale market since 11 October 2018; trading floors for the trade, corridors for visitors |
| Go for | Eating at the stalls, kitchen knives, tableware, cooking tools, food to take home | The tuna auction, the trading floors from above, a seated breakfast in the market restaurants |
| Best hours | 9:00–14:00, the window the association recommends; professional buyers have priority before 9:00 | 5:00–6:30 for the auction; visitor corridors open 5:00–17:00 |
| Closed days | Its calendar marks the wholesale closing days, but each shop decides: on Sundays and holidays about a third of shops, mostly restaurants, open | Sundays, national holidays and most Wednesdays (114 days in 2026); corridors, restaurants and shops all shut, only the rooftop garden opens |
| Tickets | Nothing to book | Gallery free, unbooked, no cap; floor-level deck by free lottery, 100 people a day |
| Eating | At the stall or inside the eatery, not while walking | In the restaurants on the 3rd floors of Block 6 and the Block 7 management building |
| Weather | Open-air streets | A sealed, indoor building |
| Station | Tsukiji (Hibiya line, exits 1–2) or Tsukijishijo (Oedo line, exit A1), each about a minute's walk | Shijo-mae (Yurikamome line), a few minutes along the elevated deck |
The calendars deserve their own line, because they catch people out. On the seafood side Toyosu was closed on 45 of 2026's 52 Wednesdays, which means seven Wednesdays traded: 6 May, 12 August, 23 September, 14 October, 4 November, 25 November and 30 December. The remaining closed days of 2026 are 1, 3, 8, 11, 15, 18, 22, 23 and 29 November and 2, 6, 9, 13, 16, 20, 23 and 31 December. When Toyosu is shut, Tsukiji is quieter but not dark, because its restaurants keep their own hours. All five calendars that govern the two markets are on hours & calendars.
Both in one morning: the clock
This is the plan most first-time visitors should follow if they can face the start. Every time below comes from a timetable or an official notice, not from a tour brochure.
- 05:00The second-floor visitor gallery over the auction floor opens on every market day. No lottery and no limit on numbers.
- 05:15First Yurikamome train from Toyosu Station, at Shijo-mae at 05:18. The first train from Shimbashi leaves at 05:45, which is too late for the start of the bidding, so stay near Toyosu or start from there. Other ways in, including the early bus and a taxi, are on getting there.
- 05:30Bidding for large fish, tuna included, begins in Block 7, the Fish Wholesale Market Building. Lottery winners meet at the same time at the PR Corner on the 3rd floor of the Block 7 Management Facilities Building.
- 05:45The observation-deck window for lottery winners runs to 06:25. Everyone else keeps watching from the gallery.
- 06:30Breakfast inside Toyosu if you want a seat: the restaurants are on the 3rd floor of Block 6 and of the Block 7 management building, and the market's shops are on Block 6's 4th floor. Queues for the famous counters work by their own rules: see sushi breakfast.
- 08:15Cross to Tsukiji. Toei bus route Ichi-01 toward Shimbashi leaves from the stops inside the market; on the weekday timetable we read for 29 October 2026 it ran several times an hour between 7:00 and 9:00. Get off at Kokuritsu Gan Kenkyu Center-mae, the stop the outer market's own access page names.
- 09:00Tsukiji's visitor window opens. Eat at the stall where you bought the food or inside the eatery, keep large bags in a locker, and shop for knives and tableware while the lanes are still manageable.
If you would rather sleep until a normal hour, the trade-off is simple. Skip the auction and give Tsukiji the morning. Toyosu without the auction is mostly corridors, restaurants and shops: worth it on a rainy day, less so otherwise.
The lottery, if you want the floor-level deck. It is free and runs month by month. For visits in December 2026, applications open at 15:00 on 4 November and close at 23:59 on 10 November, and results come out at about 18:00 on 19 November. Groups are up to five people (a baby counts as one), 100 people a day are drawn, and every person shows photo ID on the day. No travel agency or tour can apply for you, there is no waitlist, and no applications are taken for visits from 25 December to 5 January. Losing the draw costs you nothing: the gallery is still open. Full mechanics on the tuna auction page.
Where the two markets are
Tsukiji sits on the west bank of the Sumida River, beside the old wholesale site. Toyosu is across the water to the south-east, on the Yurikamome line. In a straight line they are under 3 km apart.
Which to book, if you want a guide
Neither market needs a guide to get in. What a guide adds is different at each one: at Tsukiji it is knowing which stalls to try and handling the order; at Toyosu it is the 5 a.m. logistics and someone who can read the bidding for you. No tour can sell a place on the lottery deck, so every Toyosu tour watches from the gallery — what auction tours actually sell is explained separately. Pick by the morning you want:
Tsukiji Fish Market Food Walking Tour with 5 Tastings
The breakfast half without the guesswork: five stops chosen and paid for, eaten the way the market asks.
Check the walk →Toyosu Tuna Auction + Breakfast (Sushi Dai or Bentomi)
The gallery with a guide who explains the bidding, then a sushi breakfast with the queue handled.
Check the auction →Private Toyosu & Tsukiji Market Adventure with Tuna Auction
Chapter 03 with someone else doing the transfers: the auction at dawn, then Tsukiji as it opens to visitors.
Check both →Prices, ratings and review counts read on GetYourGuide on 31 October 2026 unless marked; operators use seasonal pricing — treat them as the shape of the market, not a quote.
Cheaper and different formats, including guide-only Tsukiji walks where you buy the food yourself and sushi-making classes, are in the full tours & classes catalogue.
Quick answers
Yes, if you go for the tuna auction. The gallery opens at 5:00 on market days, costs nothing, needs no booking and has no cap on numbers, and the bidding for large fish starts at 5:30. Arrive at midday and you get corridors and restaurants, not the auction. Block-by-block guide: Toyosu Market.
It depends on what you want to see. Toyosu is the working wholesale market and the only place to watch the tuna auction. Tsukiji Outer Market is where you eat and shop. With one free morning, do Toyosu first and Tsukiji second.
If you mean the auction, go to Toyosu: the wholesale market moved there on 11 October 2018. If you mean the food streets, they never left: Tsukiji Outer Market is beside Tsukiji and Tsukijishijo stations. The whole story is on history & redevelopment.
Parts of it are busy with visitors, but it is still a supply street for cooks. Its shops sell knives, tableware, cooking tools, packaging and food to anyone, and the association asks visitors to let professional buyers go first until 9:00. Come between 9:00 and 14:00 and eat at the stall where you bought the food. Prices by dish: what to eat; which half is touristy and which is not: is Tsukiji a tourist trap?
Not for the second-floor gallery: free, unbooked and uncapped from 5:00 on market days. Only the floor-level deck needs a booking, and it is a free monthly lottery for 100 people a day in groups of up to five, which you must enter yourself.
Mostly. Toyosu's seafood side closes on Sundays, national holidays and most Wednesdays, and everything inside shuts with it. Tsukiji's calendar marks the same wholesale closing days, but its shops decide for themselves: on Sundays and holidays about a third of them, mostly restaurants, still open.
Toei bus route Ichi-01 toward Shimbashi from the stops inside Toyosu Market; get off at Kokuritsu Gan Kenkyu Center-mae. On the weekday timetable we read for 29 October 2026 it left several times an hour between 7:00 and 9:00. A taxi is the other door-to-door option; the markets are under 3 km apart. More routes: getting there.