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Tattoo cover sticker size for onsen: 14 facilities' written rules, 8×12 to 13×19 cm, and when covering is pointless

For anyone deciding whether a cover sticker will get them into a Japanese bath · Updated 2026-09-12 · Sources: 14 official facility notices and FAQs, JNTO japan.travel, our verified list; the Japan Tourism Agency 2015 survey could not be opened and is flagged as such

Where a Japanese bath accepts covered tattoos, the written rule is almost always 1 or 2 of the facility's own stickers, each between 8×12 cm and 13×19 cm. That is the size of a postcard, give or take. This guide puts 14 facilities' published sticker rules in one table with prices and dates, shows which tattoos realistically fit, and lists the cases where a cover changes nothing.

The short answer

Every row below links to the facility's own notice or FAQ and shows the date we read it. Rules change; Yunessun's two-sticker rule, for example, dates from 2025-10-01.

Sticker rules from 14 official pages

Sizes are as written by the facility. "Max" means the sticker's maximum dimensions; the tattoo must fit entirely under the stated number of stickers, and the facility decides whether it does.

FacilityAreaPolicy (stickers, size, price)SourceChecked
Tokyo Toyosu Manyo ClubTokyo, KotoUp to 2 designated stickers, max 11×20 cm each; worn throughout the building, not only in the bath; undisclosed tattoos mean immediate removalOfficial tattoo page2026-09-12
Manyo no Yu MachidaTokyo, MachidaUp to 2 designated stickers, max 11×20 cm each; same conditions as ToyosuOfficial tattoo rules2026-09-12
Maenohara Onsen Sayano YudokoroTokyo, ItabashiUp to 2 designated stickers, 11×20 cm, ¥310 each; notice dated 2024-02-25Official notice2026-09-12
Spa Jium JaponTokyo, Higashikurume1 designated sticker, one location only, "one-point" tattoos; size not statedOfficial FAQ2026-09-12
Ryusenji no Yu Nagoya MoriyamaAichi, NagoyaOnly 2 designated stickers of 9.5×14 cm, ¥200 eachOfficial fee page2026-09-12
Spa Metsa Sendai (Ryusenji no Yu)Miyagi, SendaiOnly 2 designated stickers; size and price not on the pageOfficial price page2026-09-12
Spa Alpa, Hotel Emisia SapporoHokkaido, Sapporo1 cover of 8×12 cm, ¥300 at the spa front; notice dated 2021-12-06Official notice2026-09-12
Super Sento Fushimi Chikara no YuKyoto, Fushimi1 designated sticker of 13×19 cm, trial; notice dated 2021-01-15Official notice2026-09-12
Hoshino Onsen Tombo no YuNagano, KaruizawaUp to 8 designated stickers of 10×8 cm, bought at receptionOfficial page2026-09-12
Hakone Kowakien Yunessun, Mori no YuKanagawa, Hakone2 designated paid stickers must fully cover; size not stated; from 2025-10-01Official notice2026-09-12
Solaniwa Onsen Osaka Bay TowerOsaka, MinatoStickers sold at the front in several sizes; must hide every tattoo; no returns; notice dated 2024-10-01Official notice2026-09-12
Ooedo Onsen Monogatari Premium AtamiShizuoka, AtamiDesignated paid stickers must completely cover; size and count not statedOfficial day-trip page2026-09-12
Hotel Mori no Kaze Hakone Sengokuhara / Hotel Shiki no Yakata NasuKanagawa / TochigiTrial since 2024-07-01: every tattoo hidden with dedicated cover seals or similar; no size or countHakone page, Nasu page2026-09-12
Ikaho Onsen YokotekanGunma, ShibukawaExposed tattoos not accepted; tattoo cover or similar requested; no sizeOfficial FAQ2026-09-12

Seven of the 14 give a size. Six of those seven are between 8×12 cm and 13×19 cm, and the seventh, Tombo no Yu, uses smaller 10×8 cm stickers but allows eight of them. Where a count is given, it is 1 or 2 everywhere except Karuizawa.

What fits: a size check you can do at home

Stickers are rectangles and tattoos are not, so the question is whether the tattoo's bounding box fits under the stated number of stickers with no ink at the edges. Measure the longest and widest extent, including faded outer lines.

Coverable area by rule type
1 × 8×12 cm (Spa Alpa): bounding box up to 8×12 cm, about 96 cm²
1 × 13×19 cm (Chikara no Yu): up to 13×19 cm, about 247 cm²
2 × 9.5×14 cm (Ryusenji no Yu): up to 9.5×28 cm or 19×14 cm if the two stickers tile, about 266 cm²
2 × 11×20 cm (Manyo Club, Sayano Yudokoro): up to 11×40 cm or 22×20 cm, about 440 cm²
8 × 10×8 cm (Tombo no Yu): up to about 640 cm² in principle, but only if the pieces tile cleanly
→ A forearm script or a palm-sized piece fits nearly everywhere with a written rule; a half sleeve, a thigh piece or anything on a strongly curved surface does not, whatever the arithmetic says
Two rules that do not appear in the sizes. First, the sticker is the facility's own: the pages say 当館指定 or 当店指定, and several say that refusing the facility's sticker means refusal of entry. Second, some facilities require the sticker for the whole visit, not only in the bath; both Manyo Club pages say so.

When covering is pointless

A cover sticker only matters at the 21 cover-required facilities in our list and at similar places. In the other two cases it is money and effort spent for nothing.

  1. The facility already admits tattoos. 91 entries in our verified list state that tattooed guests may enter as they are: Hakone Yuryo since 2025-04-01, the three Kusatsu town baths, 33 Beppu facilities tagged by the city tourism association, the Kinosaki town baths, a long list of Tokyo sento and private saunas across the country. Wearing a sticker there is harmless but unnecessary.
  2. The facility refuses with no sticker exception. Ryukyu Onsen Senagajima Hotel in Okinawa declines tattooed bathers and its page mentions no cover route. A sticker at that counter buys nothing. The same applies wherever the page says お断り without カバーシール.
  3. The tattoo is bigger than the rule. A sleeve at a two-sticker facility is a refusal, and the pages say so explicitly: "larger than the sticker" and "refuses the sticker" are listed together as grounds for refusal.
  4. Group rules. Tenzan in Hakone accepts a single tattooed visitor and refuses several together. No sticker addresses that.

The practical order is: check whether the facility is tattoo-OK (no sticker needed), then whether it is cover-required (buy theirs, check the size), then whether it refuses (go elsewhere). Our app shows those three states directly; the verified list shows the 91 and the 21 with sources.

The 2015 Japan Tourism Agency survey: what we could and could not verify

Almost every English article on this topic cites a 2015 survey by the Japan Tourism Agency (観光庁) of accommodation with baths, and a follow-up guidance note in 2016 suggesting stickers, separate time slots and private baths as accommodations for tattooed foreign visitors. We tried to open the original release on the agency's site on 2026-09-12. The press-release URLs we tested returned 404, which is consistent with the agency's site having been reorganised, and the web archive was not reachable from our tools. We therefore do not quote the survey's percentages as primary fact here.

What we can cite is JNTO's article of 2020-12-08, which says the 2015 study found that about 30 percent of hotels and inns would allow a tattooed guest in their communal baths. That is secondary reporting, it concerns accommodation rather than day-use baths, and it is eleven years old. Several facilities in the table above changed their rule between 2021 and 2025. A survey of that age is background, not a guide to any particular door.

Frequently asked questions

What size tattoo can I cover to get into a Japanese onsen?

Among the 14 facilities whose written rule we opened on 2026-09-12, the common form is 1 or 2 of the facility's own stickers, each between 8×12 cm and 13×19 cm. The most frequent rule is 2 stickers of 11×20 cm, used by the Manyo Club spas in Toyosu and Machida and by Sayano Yudokoro. So a tattoo that fits inside roughly a postcard, or two postcards side by side, is coverable at most cover-rule facilities; anything larger is not.

Can I bring my own tattoo cover stickers?

Usually not. The rules we read say 当館指定 or 当店指定, the facility's designated sticker, sold at reception for ¥200 to ¥310 each where a price is given. Several pages state that refusing the facility's sticker means refusal of entry. Bring your own only where the facility's page says any cover is acceptable.

What did the Japan Tourism Agency's 2015 tattoo survey find?

We could not open the original 2015 release on the agency's site on 2026-09-12; the URLs we tried returned 404 and the web archive was not reachable from our tools. JNTO's own article of 2020-12-08 cites the study as finding that about 30 percent of hotels and inns would allow a tattooed guest in their communal baths. Treat that as secondary reporting of an 11-year-old survey of accommodation, not as the current state of day-use baths.

Tattoo OK Map: OK, cover-required, or unconfirmed

Tattoo OK Map lists 10,470 onsen, sento and saunas across Japan and shows each as tattoo-OK, cover-required or unconfirmed. The OK and cover labels come only from the facility's or municipality's own published policy, with the source URL and last check date on the entry, so you can see the sticker rule before you travel rather than at the counter. Five interface languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

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Tattoo OK Map

Find onsen, sento and saunas in Japan that admit tattoos. Every verified entry has a source URL and a check date

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Free with ads; a one-time Pro purchase removes them. No account. The verified list is also on the web at /tattoo-onsen/list.html (Japanese).

Related guides

Sources

All checked on 2026-09-12.