The Tsukiji Fish Market Tuna Auction, and Where It Went

The famous pre-dawn tuna auction is not at Tsukiji, and has not been since 6 October 2018. It is at Toyosu Market, about 2.5 kilometres east across the water, and you can still watch it — two ways, one of which needs no application at all.

The auction is at Toyosu, and has been since October 2018

Tokyo's wholesale fish trade stopped trading at Tsukiji on 6 October 2018 and reopened at Toyosu on 11 October 2018. The auctions went with it, along with the licensed wholesalers and the intermediate buyers.

This is the single most common misunderstanding about Tsukiji, and it is easy to carry a long way: the name did not move, so a search for a Tsukiji fish auction tour returns a lively market that has not held an auction in years. A four-star reviewer on one of the walks here makes the point in plainer terms than we can — it is a walk through a busy market, not a visit to the tuna auction.

What moved, and what stayed

Tsukiji and Toyosu, side by side

Toyosu in one paragraph

Toyosu Market sits at 6 Toyosu, Kōtō-ku, on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay. It is a modern, enclosed, refrigerated facility rather than an open market hall, and visitors are routed through it on dedicated walkways above the working floor. It trades 5am to 5pm, and it is closed on Sundays, on public holidays and on its own scheduled closed days — the same calendar that governs Tsukiji's Wednesdays. There is no public parking, so come by rail.

The lottery — about 100 places a day, a month ahead

The close-up viewing area puts you on a deck immediately beside the auction floor, and places on it are drawn by lottery: about 100 places a day are issued. Applications open about a month before the dates they cover, run for roughly a week, and the draw is announced a few days after the window shuts.

The second-floor walkway, which needs no lottery

This is the part most guides do not lead with and most visitors do not know. Above the auction floor runs the second-floor visitors' walkway above the auction floor, which needs no application at all. You see the same fish, the same buyers and the same bidding, through glass and from higher up, without applying for anything.

One reviewer who was drawn in the lottery describes twelve hundred fish sold in under an hour. From the walkway you watch exactly that, standing further back.

Getting there before dawn

The auction runs from roughly 5.30am and it is over quickly, so you need to be at Toyosu before it starts. The Yurikamome line runs early but not that early on every service, which is why almost everybody who does this either stays nearby, takes a taxi, or books a guide who has solved the problem already.

Dress for a refrigerated building. Wear closed shoes. There is nowhere to leave a suitcase.

Doing Toyosu and Tsukiji on one morning

It is the natural pairing and one departure is built around it. The Morning Market Adventure: Toyosu & Tsukiji with Tuna Auction meets at Shijo-mae Station, Toyosu before dawn, gives 1 hour 30 minutes at toyosu, then 1 hour 30 minutes at tsukiji, and finishes in the outer market lanes with the morning still ahead of you. It is private, so the pace is yours; breakfast, the taxi to Toyosu and the bus between the markets are not in the fare.

Getting here covers the Tsukiji end of the morning, the market page explains what stayed behind, and Tsukiji Fish Market Tours compares every walk. A Tsukiji Fish Market food tour is a different morning from this one and most people should book that instead.