Toyosu Market
Tokyo / Toyosu Market

Toyosu Market

Tokyo's vast wholesale seafood market, now open to curious visitors.

🏛️ Sights & Landmarks🍽️ Food & Drink🎯 Activities & Experiences
🧗 Adventurous🍽 Foodie🎭 Cultural

Toyosu Market is Tokyo's main wholesale fish and seafood market, opened in October 2018 after the famous Tsukiji Market relocated from its original Chuo City site. Built on a reclaimed island in Tokyo Bay, it handles around 480,000 tons of seafood per year and is the largest wholesale fish market in the world by volume. It's where the city's restaurants, supermarkets, and sushi bars source their ingredients, and it operates with the kind of industrial efficiency and sheer scale that makes it unlike anywhere most visitors have ever been.

Visitors access the market through dedicated observation areas — glassed-in walkways above the tuna auction floor, elevated corridors overlooking the intermediate wholesale zone, and a rooftop garden with views over the market complex and Tokyo Bay. The famous tuna auctions happen in the early morning, and a limited number of spots are available for members of the public to observe. Even without auction access, watching thousands of individual vendors move product in the wholesale building — seafood you simply won't see outside Japan — is genuinely remarkable. The adjacent restaurant building has a cluster of seafood restaurants and sushi bars serving some of the freshest fish in Tokyo.

The key practical thing to know: this is a working market, not a tourist attraction, which means the action peaks between 5am and 9am and winds down sharply after that. Come early for the energy and the best sushi breakfast of your life. Auction viewing slots are limited and must be applied for in advance through the official website — competition is fierce, especially on weekdays. Wednesday and Sunday closures catch a lot of visitors off guard, so double-check the calendar before you go.

Local Tips

  1. 1

    Arrive before 7am if you want to feel the real energy of the market — by 9am the wholesale floors are winding down and the atmosphere thins out considerably.

  2. 2

    The restaurant building (Building 6) has multiple sushi counters and seafood restaurants; lines form early and move quickly, so join one as soon as you arrive rather than exploring first.

  3. 3

    Wear closed-toe shoes — the floors in market areas can be wet, and wheeled vehicles move through without much warning.

  4. 4

    The rooftop garden on top of the market building is free, uncrowded, and gives a surprisingly good overview of the whole complex and Tokyo Bay — worth the five minutes even if you're not a view person.

When to Go

✓Best times
January (New Year)

The first tuna auction of the New Year (hatsu-uri) in early January is a major event, with record-breaking fish prices and significant media coverage — worth timing a visit around if possible.

Summer mornings (July–August)

The market is largely enclosed but the walk from transit and outdoor areas can be intensely hot and humid — arriving right at opening keeps you ahead of the heat.

✕Try to avoid
Wednesdays and Sundays

The market is closed on these days, plus additional irregular closure days throughout the year. Many visitors make the trip and find it shut — always verify the official holiday calendar before visiting.

Why Visit

01

Watch the world's largest tuna auction up close — 200kg bluefin tuna selling for eye-watering sums at 5am is one of the great spectacles in food culture.

02

Eat sushi made from fish that arrived at the dock hours ago, at restaurants that exist precisely because the freshest product in Japan is right next door.

03

See the sheer machinery behind Tokyo's food supply — the forklifts, the ice, the vendors, the volume — a genuinely rare window into how one of the world's greatest food cities actually works.

Other top places in Tokyo

Akihabara
🛍️ Shopping

Akihabara

Asakusa
🛍️ Shopping

Asakusa

Daikanyama
🛍️ Shopping

Daikanyama

Ginza
🛍️ Shopping

Ginza

Harajuku
🛍️ Shopping

Harajuku