Luggage Forwarding in Japan (Takkyubin): How to Send Your Suitcase Ahead

Short answer: takkyubin is Japan's door-to-door parcel delivery, and it happily takes suitcases. Hand your bag to your hotel front desk, a convenience store or an airport counter, and it turns up at your next hotel or at the airport before your flight. Between Tokyo and Kyoto or Osaka a normal suitcase costs about ¥1,970–2,630 at the time of writing (October 2026). Send it one or two days ahead and travel with just a small bag.

I work at a station, and every day I watch visitors drag big suitcases up stairs, through ticket gates and onto packed trains. Forwarding your luggage is one of the easiest ways to make a Japan trip more relaxing. Here's how it works.

What takkyubin is and why visitors use it

"Takkyubin" (宅急便) is the name of Yamato Transport's parcel service (the company with the black cat logo), and people in Japan often use the word for any home-delivery parcel. Yamato's English name for it is TA-Q-BIN. Other companies, such as Sagawa Express and Japan Post, offer similar services, but Yamato is the one you'll see most often at hotel desks and airports.

Common ways visitors use it:

• Hotel to hotel. Send your suitcase from your Tokyo hotel to your Kyoto hotel, then ride the shinkansen with just a daypack.
• Hotel to airport. Send your bags to Narita, Haneda or Kansai a couple of days before you fly, and spend your last day sightseeing without luggage.
• Airport to hotel. Drop your bags at the delivery counter in arrivals and take the train into the city hands-free. See our Narita and Haneda guides for the train part.
• Skipping luggage on crowded transport. Kyoto city buses, rush-hour trains and station stairs are much easier without a big suitcase. More on Kyoto in our Kyoto and Osaka transport guide.

How to send your suitcase

From your hotel front desk

This is the easiest option. Most mid-size and large hotels can arrange delivery: tell the front desk where you want to send your bag, and they'll give you a waybill (the delivery form) and often help you fill it in. You usually pay at the desk. Ask the day before, as some hotels have a daily pickup time.

From a convenience store

Many convenience stores accept Yamato parcels. Look for the black cat sign. Waybills are available in the store. Staff will measure and weigh your bag and take payment at the register. Yamato says some convenience stores can't take parcels bigger than Size 180, so a very large suitcase is better sent from a hotel or a Yamato office. Dropping off yourself at a Yamato sales office, agency or convenience store gets a ¥100 discount per parcel at the time of writing.

From an airport counter

Narita, Haneda and Kansai Airport all have luggage delivery counters in their terminals, where you can send bags to your hotel when you land. JNTO says these counters can also arrange same-day delivery or delivery on a date you choose.

Delivery time and cost

Delivery times don't count the day you send. Between big cities on the main island, such as Tokyo and Kyoto or Osaka, bags often arrive the next day, but this isn't guaranteed. Ask the counter for the earliest delivery date when you send, and expect longer for farther places such as Hokkaido, Kyushu or Okinawa. Yamato warns that bad weather or traffic can add about a day.

Price depends on size (length + width + height), weight, and the distance between regions. Here are Yamato's standard rates from the Kanto area (Tokyo) to the Kansai area (Kyoto, Osaka), tax included, at the time of writing:

If your bag goes over the size or the weight limit of a category, it moves up to the bigger one. A typical cabin-size suitcase lands around Size 120, and a large checked suitcase is usually Size 160. Other routes cost more or less depending on distance, and hotels using another company charge their own rates.

Size limits

• Maximum: Size 200. That means up to 200 cm total and 30 kg. Anything bigger can't be sent by standard TA-Q-BIN.
• Longest side: 170 cm. This matters for ski bags and golf bags.
• Value limit. Yamato won't accept a parcel whose contents are worth more than ¥300,000 in total.

Sending luggage to the airport before your flight

Yamato's Airport TA-Q-BIN lets you send bags to the airport and collect them on the day you fly. The key rule: drop them off by two days before your departure date (three days in some areas). The exact deadline depends on where you send from, so ask when you send.

• On departure day, go to the delivery counter at your terminal and show your sender's receipt (the copy of the waybill you were given). They'll hand you your bags, and you check them in as usual.
• Counters are inside the terminals, for example on the 4th floor of Narita Terminal 1 (South Wing), on the international departures floor of Haneda Terminal 2, and on the 4th floor of the Kansai Airport passenger terminal. Check which terminal your airline uses.
• Yamato's rates to an airport include a ¥660 airport fee, so it costs a little more than sending to a hotel.

Flying home from Kansai Airport? Klook also sells a luggage delivery service between Osaka or Kyoto hotels and Kansai International Airport, rated 4.9 from about 1,900 reviews and from about US$14.89 at the time of writing: hotel–Kansai Airport luggage delivery on Klook (affiliate link). Check the drop-off cut-off time on the listing. See also our Kansai Airport transport guide.

What you need

• The address of your next hotel, ideally in Japanese, with its postal code and phone number. Copy it from your booking confirmation or the hotel's Japanese website. Staff can fill in a waybill much faster with it.
• The name on your booking. Yamato's advice for hotel deliveries is to write the hotel name followed by "c/o" and the guest's name.
• A phone number you can be reached on. A Japanese number from an eSIM helps here. See our eSIM and Wi-Fi guide.
• Your check-in date. You can write a preferred delivery date, so the bag arrives on the day you check in, not before.
• A short list of contents for the waybill (e.g. "clothes"). Yamato asks for this, and a missing description can cause delays.

Things you can't send

Never put these in a forwarded suitcase:

• Your passport, cash, credit cards and other hard-to-replace documents.
• Flammable or dangerous items: lighter fluid, gas canisters, fireworks, paint thinner and the like.
• Items with hazardous parts, such as loose batteries. Keep power banks with you anyway, since you'll want them during the day.
• Weapons, including swords.

Also keep medication, laptops and anything fragile or valuable with you. The bag is insured, but only up to ¥300,000.

Tips from someone who works at a station

• Send one to two days ahead. If you leave Tokyo on Tuesday morning, send the bag on Monday or even Sunday.
• Pack an overnight bag. You'll spend at least one night without your suitcase, so keep a change of clothes, toiletries, chargers and medication in a daypack.
• Check that your next hotel accepts deliveries. Big hotels almost always do. Small ryokan, guesthouses and vacation rentals may not, or may have nobody there to receive it. Email them first and ask if they can hold a bag that arrives before you do.
• Keep the receipt. It has the tracking number, which you can check on Yamato's English website.
• Shinkansen and big bags. On the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu shinkansen, bags with a total size over 160 cm need a reserved seat with an oversized baggage area, or you pay a ¥1,000 fee on board. Sending the bag avoids that. Details are in our guide to riding the shinkansen.

Summary

Planning the rest of your trip? See which rail passes are worth it and our guide to Suica, PASMO and ICOCA.