Niseko Now: Saturday 17th October 2026
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Niseko region of Hokkaido
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We are six weeks away from the official start of the ski season. Saturday 28th November is the target opening date.
The seasons are gradually changing. We have had a little more dust up on Mt Yotei, and this morning early on we have a mix of cloud and blue sky.
I have not been taking too much notice of weather stuff yet – I have six months of taking too much notice of it ahead of me, so forgive me for wanting to chill a bit longer. Still, my feeling is that in the first half of October we’ve had fluctuating temps (as you might expect), with a notably warm spell with daily highs around 20C up until a few days ago. It has been cooler again in those last few days.
As usual during the pre-season, I wanted to perhaps talk about a few Niseko-related things before the season gets started.
Today, something I do every year, a look at lift ticket prices.
A 1-day Niseko United ticket for the 2026-2027 season in what they call the ‘peak season’ is 13,500 yen at the ticket window. Here’s how that price compares with other recent seasons since the season when covid appeared towards the end:
2019-2020 season: 8,000 yen
2020-2021 season: 8,100 yen (+1.3%)
2021-2022 season: 8,100 yen (0%)
2022-2023 season: 8,500 yen (+4.9%)
2023-2024 season: 9,500 yen (+11.8%)
2024-2025 season: 10,500 yen (+10.5%)
2025-2026 season: 12,000 yen (+14.3%)
2026-2027 season: 13,500 yen (+12.5%)
There’s something important to keep in mind when looking at these numbers. Those prices are the most expensive (‘peak’) prices for a 1-day ticket. But earlier seasons used different pricing arrangements. Not too long ago, it was as simple as there being one main season price, with some discounted, cheaper tickets for early season and spring season. Many Japanese ski areas still use that pattern if they do offer cheaper bookend lift ticket prices. But in recent years, the classification of periods during a season has changed here in Niseko. For this season:
Early season: 28th November – 11th December 2026
Regular season: 12th December – 23rd December 2026
Peak season: 24th December 2026 – 28th February 2027
Regular season: 1st March – 22nd March 2027
Spring season: 23rd March – 4th April 2027
Final season: 5th April – 5th May 2027
It’s a bit complicated, ne!
You might be considered a bit of a silly-billy if you went and bought a ticket at the ticket window in 2026 – with those prices and the availability of cheaper online tickets (‘an average of 5% saving’ apparently) – but for the purposes of comparison, I think it works.
For the 2026-2027 season, the peak price is avoidable, and because of that, the comparison is perhaps less representative of what the average customer actually pays to go skiing. Or snowboarding. It would be interesting to know what people actually pay…
As an aside, it’s interesting to see what has been happening over on the other side of Mt Yotei at Rusutsu Resort. Rusutsu’s pricing, perhaps even more than Niseko’s, gives the impression that it is increasingly only targeting overseas visitors. I’m fairly sure that their peak-season tickets are the most expensive in Japan.
Check this out:
2019-2020 season: 6,200 yen
2020-2021 season: 6,200 yen (0%)
2021–2022 season: 6,500 yen (+4.8%)
2022–2023 season: 8,800 yen (+35.4%)
2023–2024 season: 11,500 yen (+30.7%)
2024–2025 season: 14,500 yen (+26.1%)
2025–2026 season: 16,200 yen (+11.7%)
2026–2027 season: 16,700 yen (+3.1%)
It should be noted that Rusutsu Resort offers a significantly cheaper online prices. That 16,700 yen at the ticket window becomes 13,200 yen online. Big difference.
But from 6,500 yen to 16,700 yen in just a handful of years is quite the increase - over 2.5 times! At least the increases have slowed down, I suppose…
Sometimes people ask why Rusutsu is so expensive and, honestly, I don’t really know. It’s not as if there have been any major lift infrastructure additions or renovations to explain the noticeable price hikes, though no doubt there will have been investments that are less visible. Perhaps they are just going full on with a ‘premium resort strategy’ (I found that phrase online) and reckon their target market of overseas visitors is simply willing to pay the prices. You/we decide!
For the record, I rather like Rusutsu. (But I prefer here).
Just for fun I delved back a bit further. In 1992 a one-day lift ticket at Hirafu was 4,200 yen and 4,500 yen at Rusutsu.
I got that info from Andrew (curator of this site) and all his guidebooks dating back to the 70s. During that conversation, it was interesting to hear that for the upcoming 2026-2027 winter season, there are a lot of (mostly fairly modest) price increases going on – especially at ski areas catering to overseas markets – but some are resisting the pressure to increase prices. One fairly large ski area in Fukushima Prefecture (Grandeco Snow Resort) has even lowered prices with no noticeable cutting of services. Let's strategy!
That’s how things stand with the data for the currently checked and updated 150 or so ski areas.
Service providers take note: as always when demanding premium prices, it is reasonable for visitors to expect premium services.
And premium snow, of course! And lots of it. Regularly. With a bit of sun from time to time. But keeping cold. And then more snow.
Niseko Now2026-2027 season |
Data as of 17th October 2026 Total snowfall at base so far 0cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 0 days |
All snowfall data presented on this page is the snowfall measured and observed at base/town level by our reporter based in Niseko. The 'new snowfall' number represents the amount of snow measured since the previous report. All opinions are those of the individual reporters. Information regarding ski area operations is manually checked every morning and is believed to be correct at the time of the report.