Hakone Free Pass: Prices, What It Covers and How to Use the Digital Ticket

At the ticket machines in Shinjuku Station, the Hakone question comes up in every language: pay each leg as you go, or buy one pass and stop counting. The Hakone Free Pass is Odakyu’s answer, a single ticket that bundles the mountain railway, the cable car, the ropeway, the pirate-style cruise ships on Lake Ashi and a set of local buses. It is sold as a digital ticket for a short stay in Hakone, and it suits anyone planning to loop through the area by public transport.

Mount Fuji and the Japanese countryside · Illustration

What is the Hakone Free Pass?

The Hakone Free Pass is a multi-day Odakyu pass that lets you ride a defined set of Hakone transport as often as you like, instead of paying for each ride separately. It comes in a two-day and a three-day version, and each version has two starting points, Shinjuku in Tokyo or Odawara, the gateway town to the mountains.

The starting point changes the price because it changes what the ticket is built around. The Shinjuku version is sold for travelers leaving central Tokyo. The Odawara version is described as covering the Hakone area only, so it suits someone who is already in Odawara, perhaps arriving by another route.

Prices for the Hakone Freepass

Departing from	Days	Adult (yen)	Child (yen)
Shinjuku, Tokyo	2	7,100	1,600
Shinjuku, Tokyo	3	7,500	1,850
Odawara (Hakone area only)	2	6,000	1,500
Odawara (Hakone area only)	3	6,400	1,750

The gap between the two-day and three-day tickets is small compared with the gap between a Shinjuku and an Odawara start, so the choice usually comes down to where your trip begins and how many mountain loops you want to fit in. The Shinjuku ticket is the one most visitors from Tokyo will look at first.

Children and families

Child fares apply to children aged 6 to 11. Children under 6 do not need a ticket for the Hakone Freepass, which matters for families with toddlers who ride on a lap or walk beside you at the cable car gates.

Every traveler who needs a ticket, children included, uses a digital pass on their own smartphone. A parent therefore sets up one pass per child, and a family of mixed ages ends up with several tickets spread over the phones in the group.

The Hako Ticket Plus version

A larger package, the Hakone Freepass Hako Ticket Plus, pairs the Digital Hakone Freepass with a second ticket called the Hako Ticket. The Hako Ticket gives unlimited visits to applicable art museums, hot springs and activity facilities during the validity period. The package is valid for two days or three days, and it also gives discounts on entrance fees at around 70 tourist spots. For departures from October 1, 2025, the two-day Hako Ticket Plus is priced by starting station, as follows.

Departing from	2-day adult (yen)	2-day child (yen)
Shinjuku	13,100	4,100
Machida	12,820	4,100
Fujisawa	13,050	4,100
Odawara	12,000	5,000

The Hako Ticket Plus with an Odakyu Line ticket includes a return trip on the Odakyu Line between your departure station and Odawara. That is why it has Shinjuku, Machida and Fujisawa prices, and why the Odawara price has no such leg to cover.

What does it cover?

The Digital Hakone Freepass covers eight kinds of transport around Hakone, from the mountain railway to a lake cruise, and the Hako Ticket Plus adds entry to museums, hot springs and activity facilities. The Romancecar is the one thing that always costs extra.

The transport you can ride

The Hakone Tozan Line, the mountain railway, which is the first mountain railway in Japan.
The Hakone Tozan Cable Car, a funicular linking Gora with Sounzan.
The Hakone Ropeway, which runs from Sounzan to Togendai via Owakudani.
The Hakone Sightseeing Cruise on Lake Ashi.
Hakone Tozan Bus in designated areas.
Odakyu Highway Bus in designated areas.
Tokai Bus in designated areas.
The KANKO SHISETSU-MEGURI Bus.

Together these form an end-to-end chain. The services run by Odakyu Hakone connect from Odawara all the way to Togendai, and at Togendai you can step from the ropeway onto the cruise ships, which sail counter-clockwise on Lake Ashi between three ports.

The ropeway and the cable car

The ropeway is the part of the loop most travelers remember. It is made of twin ropeways, Sounzan to Owakudani and Owakudani to Togendai, and since the cabins hold eighteen people each, it works as a steady stream rather than a rare treat. It runs as a funitel, a type of lift that Japan has only a couple of.

Owakudani sits at the midpoint, with Ubako as another station on the line. Because the pass covers the whole ropeway, you can stop at the middle station and carry on whenever you choose. The cable car gets you from Gora up to Sounzan, where the ropeway starts.

What the Romancecar adds

The Romancecar is the limited express sightseeing train from Shinjuku to Hakone-Yumoto, run by Odakyu Electric Railway. It is not included in the pass. You need a separate limited express ticket plus the regular fare, even with the Hakone Freepass in your phone, and the Hako Ticket Plus has the same rule.

Romancecar route	Adult seat ticket (yen)	Child seat ticket (yen)
Shinjuku to Hakone-Yumoto	1,200	600
Odawara to Hakone-Yumoto	200	100

The train takes approximately 80 minutes from Shinjuku to Hakone-Yumoto. Added to the two-day pass from Shinjuku, a one-way Romancecar ride brings the adult total to 8,300 yen. Bento meals are sold on board, and the newest GSE trains carry panorama seats, sixteen at the front and sixteen at the rear, with no charge beyond the ordinary fares.

If you travel with big bags, the GSE has space for large luggage and room under the seats for smaller items. The EXEα trains have a luggage area designed for suitcases.

Museums, hot springs and discounts

With the Hako Ticket Plus, the second ticket opens the doors. Art museums, popular hot springs and activity facilities that take part in the scheme let you in as often as you like within the pass dates, so a rainy afternoon can become a museum afternoon without a second payment at the desk.

The discounts at around 70 tourist spots work differently, cutting entrance fees at places that are not part of the unlimited list. Travel outside the designated areas is not covered, and you pay the fare for that stretch.

How do you use it?

You use the pass as a digital ticket on your own smartphone, and you show it each time you board a covered train, cable car, ropeway, ship or bus. Digital tickets work on smartphones only and cannot be used on other devices such as tablets.

Setting up the digital ticket

Only one Digital Hakone Freepass can be active at the same time on the same smartphone, and each traveler, children included, has to use their own pass on their own phone. A parent can, however, buy tickets for the group from a single device, up to four tickets, adults and children combined.

In practice this means a family of five splits its purchase into two rounds, and each pass is then moved onto the phone of the person who will use it. It is simplest to sort that out before you reach the station, so the gates are not where you first try to open the ticket.

From Tokyo to Hakone

The Odawara Line is Odakyu’s main line, running from Shinjuku in central Tokyo through the southwest suburbs to Odawara. Rapid Express trains on it carry no extra charge and run to Odawara and Fujisawa. Most Local trains stop at Hon-Atsugi, though some continue to Odawara.

From Odawara, limited express and local trains continue to Hakone-Yumoto over the Hakone Tozan Line, so the journey from the capital to the mountains does not have to stop at the end of the main line. With the Hako Ticket Plus and Odakyu Line ticket, you can get on and off at any station between your departure point and Odawara, with no limit on stops.

Reserving the Romancecar

Limited express tickets for the Romancecar go on sale at 10 a.m. Japan time one month before the departure date. Children aged 6 to 11 need a child limited express ticket and a regular ticket, each at half the adult fare. A child under 6 needs neither if they do not take a seat, for example when sitting on an adult’s lap.

The Mt. Fuji Romancecar to Gotemba is a different service on JR Central’s Gotemba Line. Limited express tickets for sections that include Matsuda, Suruga-Oyama and Gotemba on that line are sold only through e-Romancecar. The Super Hakone service runs on weekends only, with no intermediate stops.

Moving around the loop

Once you are in Hakone, the pass turns the area into a loop. The mountain railway climbs from Hakone-Yumoto on slopes where the speed limit drops further on the way down, the cable car continues to Sounzan, and the ropeway carries you across to Togendai and the lake ships.

Buses fill the gaps, and the pass covers those that run in designated areas. A ride to a spot outside those areas is paid at the usual fare, so check the bus company before you board a route you have not used.

Good to know before you go

All prices are in yen, per traveler, with a separate child price for those aged 6 to 11. The Hako Ticket Plus is a set of two tickets, the Digital Hakone Freepass and the Hako Ticket, and its parts cannot be refunded one by one. Odakyu Hakone, the company that runs the mountain railway, cable car and ropeway, was formed in April 2024, so older guidebooks may still name the Hakone Tozan Railway.

Sources

Odakyu Electric Railway, Hakone Freepass (https://www.odakyu.jp/english/passes/hakone/), checked October 11, 2026
Odakyu Electric Railway, Romancecar (https://www.odakyu.jp/english/romancecar/), checked October 11, 2026
Hakone Tourist Information, Hakone Freepass (https://www.hakonenavi.jp/international/en/freepass/), checked October 11, 2026
Wikipedia, Hakone Ropeway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakone_Ropeway), checked October 11, 2026
Wikipedia, Hakone Tozan Railway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakone_Tozan_Railway), checked October 11, 2026
Wikipedia, Odakyu Odawara Line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odakyu_Odawara_Line), checked October 11, 2026
Wikipedia, Romancecar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romancecar), checked October 11, 2026