Two dates and a fee
The Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, on the western side of Tokyo, closes for 15 days from Wednesday 4 November, then sells its December tickets on Tuesday 10 November at 10:00 Japan time, which is 02:00 in Madrid and 01:00 in London. Those tickets come with a change the museum has so far announced only in Japanese: a system fee of ¥110 on every ticket, since it moved to a new QR code ticket system with the November batch.
The museum reopens on Thursday 19 November with a different short film in its cinema. For a December visit, the official routes are that release on Lawson Ticket or the Sunrise Tours (JTB) bus tour the museum lists: nothing is sold at the door, and resold tickets are refused.
What changes
Three things, all on the museum's own site, ghibli-museum.jp.
- A new ticket system and a fee. Tickets for November admissions, sold from 10 October, were the first on a QR code system, and each ticket now carries a system fee of ¥110, tax included. The museum said so on its Japanese news page on 6 October; its English ticket page lists the prices without the fee.
- Browser e-tickets. From November admissions, Lawson Ticket offers an e-ticket you open in your phone's browser from a link it emails you, or a paper ticket printed at a Lawson convenience store in Japan.
- A closure, then another film. The museum's calendar shows it closed every day from 4 to 18 November, and on Tuesday 24 November. When it reopens, the Saturn Theater swaps The Whale Hunt for Treasure Hunting, a 9-minute short scheduled until 26 December. The museum calls both film dates tentative.
Key details
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| On sale | Tuesday 10 November 2026, 10:00 Japan time, for every December date |
| Your clock | 02:00 Madrid, 01:00 London (10 November); 20:00 New York, 19:00 Mexico City (9 November) |
| Price | ¥1,000 from age 19, ¥700 ages 13 to 18, ¥400 ages 7 to 12, ¥100 ages 4 to 6; under 4 free, no ticket needed |
| Fee | ¥110 per ticket, tax included |
| Where | Lawson Ticket online, with an English site; or the Sunrise Tours (JTB) bus tour |
| Entry times | On the hour from 10:00 to 16:00; enter within an hour of yours; no set exit time; open to 18:00 |
| Open in December | 22 days; closed 1, 8, 15 and 22 December and from 27 December to 2 January |
| Closed in November | 4 to 18 November and 24 November |
| Resale | Not allowed |
| Unknown | How Lawson's English site shows the fee; how fast December sells |
What it means for your trip
- Travelling in November: there is nothing to book from 4 to 18 November. The 11 open days from 19 to 30 November went on sale on 10 October; whatever is left is on Lawson Ticket, whose availability we could not read.
- Travelling in December: set an alarm for the hour in the table. December has 22 open days with seven entry times each, and a missed slot means another day, another month or the bus tour.
- Budget the fee. Two adults and two children aged 7 to 12 pay ¥2,800 in tickets plus ¥440 in fees, ¥3,240 in all.
- Pick the ticket form at checkout. The e-ticket opens from an email link in your phone's browser, so you need data on the day; the paper ticket needs a stop at a Lawson store in Japan before your visit.
- The last open day of the year is 26 December, which is also the last scheduled day of Treasure Hunting.
Our take
This is opinion. The ¥110 fee is small next to a ¥1,000 ticket; the calendar is what matters. With no door sales and no resale, 10 November is the one official chance at a December slot outside the bus tour, so we would book the first entry time that fits the trip rather than wait for the ideal one. One thing stays the same: Treasure Hunting, like The Whale Hunt, comes from a book illustrated by Yuriko Yamawaki, whose recreated studio is the museum's current exhibition, so the film and the exhibition still go together.
Read more on must30
Ghibli Museum tickets sold out? What still works now includes the fee and the new ticket forms. For the rest of the trip, see Tokyo and Japan.
Sources
All read on 2 November 2026; times are Central European Time.
- Ghibli Museum, news of 6 October 2026, in Japanese: the QR code system from November admissions, the ¥110 fee per ticket, the e-ticket and paper ticket steps. ghibli-museum.jp/news/015628 (read 09:56)
- Ghibli Museum, ticket page in Japanese: the release at 10:00 on the 10th for the next month, entry times and the one-hour rule, the two ticket forms (an e-ticket shown on a smartphone or a paper ticket printed at a Lawson store), prices. ghibli-museum.jp/ticket (read 09:56)
- Ghibli Museum, Tickets in English: prices, the release rule, the resale ban, Lawson Ticket and Sunrise Tours (JTB), and the calendar with the closed days of November and December 2026. ghibli-museum.jp/en/tickets (read 09:56)
- Ghibli Museum, Films: The Whale Hunt to 3 November, Treasure Hunting from 19 November to 26 December, both tentative, and one screening per visit. ghibli-museum.jp/en/films (read 09:56)
- Ghibli Museum, Exhibitions: the Yuriko Yamawaki studio exhibition from 19 November 2025 to May 2027, tentative, and the picture books behind both films. ghibli-museum.jp/en/exhibitions (read 09:56)
Lawson Ticket's own pages were not read. The local times are ours, converted from 10:00 Japan time (UTC+9).
How we made this: drafted with AI tools from the sources above, then checked fact by fact against each source in a separate second review on 2 Nov 2026. It is a report from official sources: nobody from must30 visited for it. Corrections go on this page with a note.
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