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Why one bath is capped at ¥600 and the other isn’t
The two baths hold different licenses. A neighborhood sento is an ordinary public bath, so the prefectural governor caps its adult price: ¥600 in Tokyo. A super sento holds the other license, sets its own price, and can stay open all night.
That split explains a common letdown. You’ve read that Japan’s bathhouses run all night, so you walk to the little neighborhood one at 11:30pm. The shutters are down. It typically closed at 11 or midnight, and Tuesday might be its day off altogether. Nothing went wrong. You went to the wrong license.
What a sento is: a public bath with a capped price
Japan’s Public Bath Act dates from 1948, when most homes had no bath of their own. The neighborhood sento is licensed as an ordinary public bath (一般公衆浴場). In law it is daily hygiene infrastructure rather than a leisure business, and a separate 1981 act on securing public baths calls them necessary to residents’ daily life.
Because the bath counts as essential, its admission price is capped. The cap descends from the postwar Price Control Ordinance. Each prefectural governor sets the ceiling by public notice, typically after consulting an advisory fee council (Osaka’s is the Public Bath Admission Fee Council).
The ceilings, as of August 2026: Tokyo ¥600 (raised from ¥550 on August 1, 2026), Osaka ¥600, Kanagawa ¥570, Kyoto ¥550, Hokkaido ¥500. Ceilings move, too. Tokyo’s has risen five times in six years: ¥480 in 2021, then 500, 520, 550, and 600.
Those five prefectures are only the top of the range. Kagawa, Kochi and Miyazaki cap the price at ¥450 and Yamaguchi at ¥480, so the national spread runs from ¥450 to ¥600. The same legally defined service costs a quarter less at one end than the other. Any guide quoting one national "sento price" is wrong by construction. (These are ceilings, not set prices: a bath may charge less.)
Sento keep neighborhood hours, usually afternoon to late evening. Plenty open at 2pm or earlier, a few even in the morning, and many close one day a week. A sento is a bathing facility with no accommodation license. Letting anyone stay the night would need a separate license under the Inns and Hotels Act. (People do doze in the lounge, and nobody minds.)
What a super sento is: a bath with no price cap
The super sento, the kenko land and the all-night sauna complex hold the other license: "other public baths" (その他の公衆浴場), the category for leisure. There is no price cap and no obligation to be cheap. That freedom pays for towels, restaurants, lounger floors, and 24-hour operation with its late-night surcharge. This is the category our 24-hour bathhouses guide covers. When people say "you can sleep in a Japanese bathhouse," this side of the line is the only place it holds true.
Why the price cap still exists
The regulated price is a fossil from the era when the bath was a utility. It is also why the sento experience survives at all. ¥600 in Tokyo buys the same hot water as the ¥3,000 complex across the street, minus the loungers. The cap has been inching up nationwide: Tokyo, Osaka and Kanagawa all raised theirs in 2026, citing fuel costs. The two-tier structure itself hasn’t moved since the 1950s.
Sento or super sento: which one tonight?
- Before about 10pm, and you want the real neighborhood thing: sento. Bring your own towel and soap, carry cash, and check its closing day.
- Missed the last train, or want to stay until morning: super sento. Pick one from the 24-hour guide.