Tokyo to Yokohama (2026): Every Route Priced from Official Fare Tables — and the JR Trap

Yokohama is the day trip Tokyo forgets to brag about: Japan's second-largest city, a harbor skyline, the country's biggest Chinatown — and it starts at ¥310 from Shibuya. This guide prices every route from the operators' own official fare tables (the PDFs, not blog hearsay), matches each sight to its actual station, and explains the one fare we deliberately refuse to print.

Tokyo to Yokohama at a glance

What the trip and the harbor district actually look like:

The route everyone should default to: Toyoko → Minatomirai Line

From Shibuya, the Tokyu Toyoko Line is the tourist's route not because it's cheapest (though it is — ¥310 against the official table) but because it keeps going: at Yokohama Station the same train dives underground and becomes the Minatomirai Line, delivering you to the sightseeing district with zero transfers. The official standard timing is about 35 minutes Shibuya–Yokohama on the through service — the operator explicitly notes service type changes this, and no official page publishes the express-only minutes the blogs love, so plan loosely. Through fares, computed from the two operators' official tables (no discount applies to this pairing, per the MM line's own transfer-discount rules): ¥510 to Minatomirai, ¥540 to Motomachi-Chukagai at the Chinatown end.

Which station for which sight?

The Minatomirai Line's official station pages draw the map for you: Minatomirai Station is the skyscraper quarter — Landmark Tower, the Yokohama Museum of Art, Pacifico and Queen's Square are its listed neighbors. Motomachi-Chukagai Station is the payoff stop: Chinatown, Yamashita Park, the Motomachi shopping street and Harbor View Park, all officially at its exits. The Red Brick Warehouse sits between worlds — Bashamichi Station's own page calls itself the midpoint of Minato Mirai and the historic quarter. The classic loop: off at Minatomirai, walk the waterfront east past the Red Brick, dinner in Chinatown, home from Motomachi-Chukagai — one day ticket, zero backtracking. Where a Yokohama day slots into a longer route is in our two-week itinerary.

🚨 The JR fare we refuse to print

So how should I handle JR?

Every English guide quotes JR's Tokyo–Yokohama fare from the ¥490 era. Here's the problem, stated plainly: JR East revised its fares in March 2026, and its website blocked every automated attempt we made to read the new tables — so we cannot verify the current number, and neither can the guides still reprinting the old one. Our rule is absolute: no number we haven't seen at the source. What we can say officially: JR's Tokaido, Yokosuka and Shonan-Shinjuku lines remain the fastest Yokohama routes from Tokyo Station, Shinagawa and the Shinjuku/Shibuya west side, IC cards work, and the fare board above any JR ticket machine settles the question in five seconds. If a guide shows you a JR fare with no as-of date, you now know what it's worth.

The passes: ¥460 that does a full day's work

Which pass fits which plan?

The Minatomirai Line One-Day Ticket — officially ¥460 adult, ¥230 child, from any MM station machine — is the quiet best buy in Yokohama: singles on the line cost enough that three hops break even, and the ticket moonlights as a coupon (the line's official August 2026 tie-up takes ¥200 off Red Brick Warehouse event admission on presentation). Starting from Tokyo, the Tokyu Minatomirai Pass wraps the Shibuya round trip and that unlimited day into ¥920 — effectively ¥300 over the bare round trip for all-day freedom — with two official fine-print items: it's sold at Tokyu machines only (you cannot buy it in Yokohama for the return) and it's valid only on the day of purchase. Families, one official rounding quirk: child fares differ by medium — tickets round half-fare up to ¥10, IC rounds down to the yen.

The harbor from water level — a Japanese vlogger's Seabass ferry day in Minatomirai (Japanese narration; the route and views need no translation):

Paying: IC everywhere, and one line ahead of the curve

Do I even need a Suica for this trip?

Suica and PASMO work on every route in this guide, per each operator's official pages — top-up logistics in our Suica guide. The Minatomirai Line goes one better, officially: open-loop contactless — tap a compatible credit, debit or prepaid card directly at the gate, no Japanese IC card required. That makes the Yokohama leg one of the few Japanese rail rides a day-one arrival can pay for with the card already in their pocket. One timing footnote for planners: all through-service timetables on this corridor were revised March 14, 2026 — treat any last-train time published before that as expired, and check the station apps on the night.

(Want the seaside escape with onsen and fireworks instead? Atami is under an hour by Kodama — the fireworks calendar and the 2,000-year-old shrine tree are in our Atami guide.)

FAQ

Sources

Tokyu fares (Shibuya–Yokohama ¥310 ticket / ¥309 IC, 24.2 km) and the ticket-vs-IC rounding rule: Tokyu's official fare-table PDFs and fares page. Keikyu (Shinagawa–Yokohama ¥320 / ¥313): the official fare-table PDFs dated October 1, 2023. Through fares to Minatomirai and Motomachi-Chukagai: computed sums of the Tokyu and Minatomirai Line official tables, with the MM line's official transfer-discount rule confirming no discount applies. The ~35-minute standard timing, one-day ticket (¥460/¥230), station-to-sight mapping, open-loop contactless acceptance, child-fare rounding, and the August 2026 Pokémon train, photo rally and Red Brick discount tie-up: the Minatomirai Line's official pages and news feed. The Tokyu Minatomirai Pass (¥920/¥470, day-of-purchase, Tokyu machines only): the official pass page and price PDF. The March 14, 2026 timetable revision: Tokyu's official timetable index. JR East's site returned 403 to every request — its fares are deliberately absent, noted against its March 2026 fare revision. All read August 10, 2026. The embedded videos are by their creators.

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