Read the official site
Bath rules, FAQ and house-rules pages of each inn — not reviews, not hearsay. The rules usually exist; they're just in Japanese and three clicks deep.
Night bath · Kusatsu Yubatake
Bathe with your ink.刺青と湯
Tattoo-friendly onsen, per inn and per condition. We searched each inn's official site, quote the rule where one is published, and say so when nothing is.
- inns in the register
- 631
- publish a way in for tattoos
- 85
- last checked (2026)
- 12 Oct
Yubatake at night, Kusatsu Onsen · Photo: yawning hunter (photo page on Wikimedia Commons, opens in a new tab) · CC BY 2.0 (licence, opens in a new tab)
Five onsen towns to start · 37 towns in the register
Pick a town
箱根Hakone23 inns7 verified · 8 possiblePhoto: Charlie fong (photo page on Wikimedia Commons, opens in a new tab) · CC BY-SA 4.0 (licence, opens in a new tab)
河口湖Kawaguchiko21 inns3 verified · 7 possiblePhoto: Marion & Christoph Aistleitner (photo page on Wikimedia Commons, opens in a new tab) · CC0 (licence, opens in a new tab)
城崎Kinosaki31 inns5 verified · 18 possiblePhoto: Mypom9 (photo page on Wikimedia Commons, opens in a new tab) · CC BY-SA 4.0 (licence, opens in a new tab)How we verify
No rumours: the inn's own words
Forum threads go stale and booking sites rarely say. We search each inn's official site for its tattoo rule, copy the sentence that decides it, and record it when nothing is published. Exceptions are labelled: a prefecture database, an operator's group-wide policy, or no official site found. The photos here are atmosphere — none shows an inn in our register.
Quote it verbatim
The original Japanese sentence, untouched — then our English, clearly labelled as ours.
Inn's own words · Fukuzumiro, Hakone
当館でタトゥーに対して特に規制はございません。Our translation
“We have no particular restrictions on tattoos.”
Inn's official site · FAQSee the evidence →
Date it, keep the history
Every policy carries the day we checked it. When an inn changes its wording, the old line stays on record next to the new one.
Checked11 Oct 2026Current register · as of 12 Oct 2026
The sign at the door comes too late
A notice like this is often the first time a traveller learns the rule — at the bath entrance, after the room is paid for. Here: tattoos are “firmly refused”, in the same line as gang members.
At the doorAfter you've bookedFine print, on the night
At the sourceBefore you bookWe go to the inn's own site instead
How to read the register
631 inns · as of 12 Oct 2026
- Shared OK 30
- Covered OK 40
- Private only 35
- Not allowed 69
- Needs check 6
- Private likely 244
- Says nothing 207
- 85 of 631 publish a written way into a hot-spring bath for tattooed guests — about 1 in 7.
- 69 of the 174 with a written rule do not permit tattoos.
- 451 publish no rule at all. 244 of those list a private hot-spring bath — our inference of a possible way in, not the inn's yes.
The map · as of 12 Oct 2026
Where we looked
Every dot is one inn in our register — 631 of them in 23 prefectures. Pick a status to light up its dots; tap a prefecture to zoom in and see every inn there.
One dot = one inn. Colour = tattoo status. The interactive map (zoom into a prefecture, list every inn) is on the map page, with a table of every prefecture.
Tattoo status
As of 12 Oct- All631
- Shared OKShared OK30
- Covered OKCovered OK40
- Private onlyPrivate only35
- Private likelyPrivate likely244
- Not allowedNot allowed69
- Says nothingSays nothing207
- Needs checkNeeds check6