Tsukiji and Toyosu:
Tokyo's Two Fish Markets
“Isn’t Tsukiji closed?” is one of the most common questions in Tokyo trip-planning, and the confusion is understandable — but the answer is no. In 2018 the famous wholesale market, with its pre-dawn tuna auctions, moved to a vast modern facility at Toyosu. But the Tsukiji Outer Market — the warren of food stalls and shops that visitors actually loved — never went anywhere. So Tokyo now has two fish-market experiences, and the useful question is which to visit, and for what.
A little background
For most of the 20th century, Tsukiji was the largest fish market in the world, and a visit meant two things side by side: the inner market, where the licensed wholesale trade and the celebrated tuna auctions happened, and the outer market, a dense grid of retail stalls, knife shops and tiny sushi counters serving the people who worked there. In October 2018 the inner wholesale market — auctions and all — relocated to the purpose-built Toyosu Market on a reclaimed island in Tokyo Bay. The outer market stayed put at Tsukiji. Understanding that split is the key to the whole thing.
Which to visit — and which is right for you
Tsukiji Outer Market is the one for food, atmosphere and ease. This is where most visitors should go. Its 460-plus shops and stalls remain open and thriving — grilled scallops and tamagoyaki on sticks, sea-urchin and fatty-tuna rice bowls, century-old knife-makers, pickles, tea and dried goods. There’s no reservation, no auction lottery, no dawn alarm strictly required; it’s simply a wonderful place to eat your way through a morning. The crucial tip the guidebooks underplay: **half the best stalls close by around 11am**, so come early, and the standout vendors are often a lane or two off the main drag.
Toyosu Market is the one for the spectacle of the tuna auction — the real, working auction where bluefin sell for staggering sums in seconds of rapid-fire bidding. It is genuinely electrifying, but manage your expectations: this is a sterile, modern facility, you watch from behind glass on designated walkways (never the market floor), and it has none of old Tsukiji’s weathered charm. You can also eat superbly here — many of Tsukiji’s famous inner-market sushi restaurants relocated to Toyosu — and browse the Uogashi Yokocho shopping street, though you cannot buy fresh seafood as a visitor.
If you only have time for one, choose Tsukiji for the food and the atmosphere. If the tuna auction is your priority, choose Toyosu — and, if you’re energetic, you can do both in one morning: Toyosu at dawn, then a short hop to Tsukiji by around 8am for breakfast.
Seeing the tuna auction at Toyosu — how it works
This is the part that needs planning, because there are two ways to watch, and they are different.
The second-floor visitor walkway is free, open to everyone, and needs no reservation at all — you simply turn up (the walkways open around 5am) and watch the auction through the upper windows from about 5:30 to 6:30am. Arrive early for a spot by the glass.
The lower observation deck, right beside the auction floor with only a single pane of glass between you and the action (and close enough to hear it), is the prize — but access is by free monthly lottery, capped at around 100–120 people a day. You apply online via the official Toyosu Market site roughly a month ahead; if there are more applicants than places, winners are drawn at random and notified by email. If the auction is the whole point of your visit, apply early — and note that some tour operators will enter the lottery on your behalf as part of a booked experience.
A practical warning either way: the first trains often don’t reach Toyosu in time for the 5:30am auction, so plan to stay nearby the night before (there are hotels and an onsen complex right by the market) or take a taxi.
Cost and hours
Both are free to enter (Toyosu’s close-up auction deck aside, which is free but lottery-allocated). Toyosu is open roughly 5am to 5pm, and — this matters — is closed on Sundays, public holidays and many Wednesdays, so check the official market calendar before you go, as it closes well over 100 days a year. Its restaurants open early and many sell out and close by mid-afternoon, so go in the morning. Toyosu sits directly above Shijō-mae Station on the Yurikamome line. Tsukiji Outer Market keeps similar days (most shops roughly 5am to 2pm, closed Sundays and some Wednesdays), and is a two-to-three-minute walk from Tsukiji Station (Hibiya line) or Tsukiji-shijō Station (Ōedo line). For both, the rule is the same: the earlier you come, the better it is.
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