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Toyosu Tuna Auction: A Lottery You Enter a Month Ahead

Last verified: 2026-08-06 4 min read By Wheels Down Japan editorial Reviewed: Wheels Down Japan editorial

The first line of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s own notice is the whole problem with most English advice about this:

Viewing is by advance application and lottery (not first-come-first-served).

You cannot get up early and queue for the tuna auction deck. You enter a ballot, weeks before you fly, and you either win or you do not.

How the timing actually works

The metropolitan market runs this month by month. For a given month’s viewing dates, the application window opens in the previous month and closes about a week later, with the results published roughly ten days after that.

The example we read — the round covering May 2025 dates — opened for applications on 2 April at 15:00 and closed on 8 April at 23:59, with winners announced from about 18:00 on 17 April.

The dates rotate every month, so those are the shape and not your dates. What does not change is the consequence: this is decided before you leave home. If your trip is planned two weeks out, the auction deck is already unavailable to you.

What the winning ticket actually gets you

  • Viewing runs 05:45 to 06:25.
  • Assembly is 05:30 at the PR Corner, third floor of the Block 7 management building.
  • It is free.
  • 100 people are selected per day.
  • Photography is allowed. Flash is prohibited.

You gather at the PR Corner first and are then moved to the auction deck, where groups view in turn.

The rules that disqualify people

These are the ones worth reading twice, because each one has turned somebody away at 05:30 in the dark.

One group, one entry, five people maximum. Applying again under a different lead name for the same group is explicitly prohibited. One email address cannot submit multiple entries.

A baby counts. The five includes everyone regardless of age — the notice says from newborns to adults. A family of five with an infant is already at the limit.

The lead applicant must be junior-high-school age or older.

Every single person is ID-checked on the day, companions included. Driving licence, passport, residence card, or a student ID with a photograph. For primary-school children and younger with no photo ID, a health insurance card is accepted. The notice is blunt: if identity cannot be confirmed on the day, you do not view the auction.

This is not bureaucratic theatre — it exists because the tickets were being resold. Transferring or selling a viewing place, or recruiting paying companions, is strictly banned, and being caught means being refused.

No date changes. If you cannot come, that is the end of it.

No entry while drunk. If the reception staff judge you intoxicated, you are refused — which tells you something about the 05:30 assembly and the night before.

Smartphones only. The application system does not work on non-smartphone handsets.

If you lose — and most people do

This is the part almost never mentioned in English, and it is the reason to go anyway:

The second-floor visitor walkway is open to everyone. The notice states plainly that people who miss out in the ballot can still watch the wholesale floor from there. You do not see the auction deck itself, but you are looking down at the market working, at the same hour, with no ticket and no lottery.

So the honest plan is: enter the ballot the month before, and build the morning around the walkway. If you win, you have a bonus. If you do not, you have not wasted the alarm.

Getting there at that hour

Toyosu Market is a five-minute walk from Shijo-mae station on the Yurikamome line, entering the third floor of the Block 7 management building by the pedestrian deck. The market asks visitors to come by public transport where possible.

Assembly at 05:30 is the number to plan against, not the 05:45 viewing time — and on the Yurikamome that is an early-first-train question, so check the timetable for your date rather than assuming.

How to decide

  1. Enter the ballot the month before you travel, or accept you are not going on the deck.
  2. Count your group properly. Five includes the baby.
  3. Bring photo ID for everybody, and the winning email, printed or on screen.
  4. Do not buy a place from anyone. Resale is banned and gets you turned away.
  5. Plan the morning around the second-floor walkway regardless. It needs no ticket and it is open to those who lose.
  6. Work backwards from 05:30, not from the auction time.

Official sources

Every rule and time above was read from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s own lottery notice on 6 August 2026. The notice we could read covers the round for May 2025 dates, because the market publishes a fresh notice each month and the current month’s page did not render for our tools; the application dates therefore rotate and the ones quoted are an example of the pattern, not your deadline. Check the market’s own page for the month you are travelling.

Spotted an error? Email [email protected].

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