E-scooters in Kyoto: renting LUUP, who may ride, where to ride and where to park

Electric scooter rental in Kyoto: LUUP on the map

The map shows one company’s e-scooters in Kyoto, LUUP, counted at its ports: each port on the Kyoto map shows how many scooters stand there, without their charge or range, and ports closed at the time are left off. At 15:51 on Thursday 29 October 2026, Kyoto time, the map’s Kyoto figure was about 1,450 LUUP scooters: a snapshot, not a fleet size.

That figure is the map’s count for LUUP’s Kyoto service as a whole, not for the city alone: any ports the service has beyond the city limits count as Kyoto too. We couldn’t confirm whether it has any in the neighbouring cities of Muko, Nagaokakyo, Uji or Otsu.

ScootRadar shows standing e-scooters only: not LUUP’s e-bikes or seated scooters, nor the bicycles of the City’s three other share partners, HELLO CYCLING (Open Street), Clew and Charichari. We found no other company renting e-scooters in Kyoto.

New to shared scooters? See how to rent an e-scooter.

LUUP in Kyoto: where it runs and where to end a ride

Kyoto City has had agreements with share operators since January 2023, and since April 2023 has rented them public land for ports. LUUP is one of the four partners it lists.

The City counted 2,086 share ports in March 2026, for all four operators, against 690 in April 2023; it doesn’t say how many take scooters.

Japan’s guideline for rental companies asks them to oblige riders, in their terms, to return the scooter to a rental point (貸出拠点); the app shows where a ride may end.

Don’t leave it on the street. Kyoto City removes abandoned e-scooters as it does bicycles: getting one back costs ¥5,000, at the Sanjo-Senbon depot (noon to 21:00 daily, except over New Year).

Japanese law sets no night ban for e-scooters.

Can you ride one? Age, licence and what visitors need

Japan’s rules hang on a class the Road Traffic Act (道路交通法) has had since 1 July 2023: the specified small motorised bicycle, 特定原付 for short. To count, a scooter can’t go faster than 20 km/h, is no more than 190 cm long and 60 cm wide, has a motor of no more than 0.6 kW and carries a green lamp that shows its top speed. A scooter that doesn’t meet the standards stays a moped or a motor vehicle under the law, even if it looks like a kickboard, Kyoto Prefectural Police say.

• No driving licence is needed for the class.
• 16 or over. Riding under 16 is banned, and so is giving an e-scooter to someone under 16 who may ride it.
• Helmet. The law asks riders to try to wear one (an effort duty, 努力義務) and sets no penalty.

Kyoto Prefectural Police’s English page on e-scooters is out of date: written on 11 September 2020, before the class existed, it says every e-scooter needs a moped licence and a helmet, which now holds only for scooters outside the class. Their Japanese page, updated on 31 March 2026, gives the current rules.

Japan’s March 2023 guideline for rental companies, from the National Police Agency (NPA), asks them to check every user’s age, for example by an official ID or a credit card in their own name, and to have every user, foreigners included, pass a rules test or watch a video before the first ride. The app shows what it asks of you.

Where can you ride in Kyoto? The road, cycle lanes and the 6 km/h pavement mode

On the road. Ride at the left edge of the roadway, or in the leftmost lane where there are lanes, never on the right-hand side. Cycle tracks (自転車道) and bicycle lanes are open to you too, Kyoto Prefectural Police say. Riding where you may not, the pavement included, costs ¥6,000 on the spot.

On the pavement, only where a sign allows bicycles (普通自転車等及び歩行者等専用, “bicycles and pedestrians only”) and only in the scooter’s pavement mode, in which the green top-speed lamp flashes and it can’t go faster than 6 km/h. Keep to the half nearer the roadway, let pedestrians go first and stop if they are in the way: not doing so costs ¥3,000. In that mode you may also use the roadside strip (路側帯) on the left unless it is for pedestrians only, and on a crossing you follow the pedestrian lights.

Signs and lights. Stop at stop signs and level crossings, and where a light carries a “pedestrians and bicycles” plate, follow it, the police add. Never ride the wrong way up a one-way street unless a plate exempts bicycles (自転車を除く), which covers e-scooters too, the NPA says.

Right turns always take two stages: ride straight across to the far corner, turn to face your new direction and go when the light ahead turns green. Turning any other way costs ¥3,000.

One rider, hands free, sober. Carrying a passenger costs ¥5,000, and using a phone for a call or watching its screen while moving ¥12,000. Riding after drinking is banned outright.

The Kamo River banks, temples and Kyoto University

Not on the Kamo River banks. Kyoto Prefecture’s Kamo River ordinance (京都府鴨川条例) bans riding mopeds onto the banks of the Kamo along most of its course through the city, and of the Takano below Uma bridge (馬橋); bridges and other roads are left out. E-scooters count as mopeds, the prefecture says, and it kept the ban for the new class in 2023; breaking it can bring a fine of up to ¥50,000.

LUUP announced on 23 June 2026 that its scooters slow down and stop by themselves, after a spoken warning, on about 4 km of the banks, where riders had gone several times, Kyodo reported that day.

Temples, shrines, Arashiyama and Gion. We found no e-scooter rule of their own from Kyoto’s temples and shrines, or for Arashiyama or Gion’s Hanamikoji: on their streets the road rules above apply.

Kyoto University. Its campus traffic rules count mopeds as motor vehicles: riding one onto its Yoshida campuses needs permission from the department in charge, and you may park only where allowed. They don’t name e-scooters, but the Road Transport Vehicle Act counts them as mopeds.

Japan’s e-scooter rules in 2026, as Kyoto police list them

The Road Traffic Act sets the riding rules everywhere in Japan, and its Enforcement Order the on-the-spot penalties (反則金) below, as in force on 29 October 2026. Kyoto Prefectural Police list the rules; the prefecture and the City add their own.

Repeat offenders go back to class. Under its standard of 1 July 2023, Kyoto Prefecture’s public safety commission orders a rider who commits one of 17 kinds of dangerous riding, red lights and riding on the pavement among them, within three years of another onto the e-scooter riders’ course, to be taken within three months. It lasts three hours, at ¥2,100 an hour under the prefecture’s fee rules; skipping it can bring a fine of up to ¥50,000.

Taking your own e-scooter on Kyoto’s trains and buses

Kintetsu, whose line to Nara starts at Kyoto Station, and Keihan let e-scooters aboard only as they do bicycles: taken apart or folded and packed in a bag made for them (Kintetsu’s rules as of 6 August 2026, Keihan’s read on 29 October 2026). Each passenger may bring two free items, each within 250 cm in length, width and height added together, 2 m long and 30 kg.

JR West’s passenger rules set the same limits and let bicycles aboard only taken apart or folded and bagged; they don’t name e-scooters (art. 308). We found no e-scooter rule from Kyoto City Bus and Subway; their guide says drivers and station staff may refuse very large or many items.

A shared scooter ends its ride at a port instead; to find one near your station, open the Kyoto map.

Osaka, Kobe and Tokyo

At 15:51 on 29 October the map also showed about 3,200 LUUP scooters in Osaka and 200 in Kobe. The rules are Japan’s everywhere: see e-scooters in Osaka and in Tokyo.

Did you know?

• Electric kickboards. In Japanese these scooters are 電動キックボード (“electric kickboards”): to find them, search “電動キックボード 京都”.
• The prefecture signed up with LUUP. On 19 January 2026 Kyoto Prefecture and LUUP signed an agreement on using shared mobility in the prefecture’s own work, the governor’s diary records.
• Hard to balance. Members of Kyoto Prefecture’s public safety commission tried e-scooters on 1 December 2022 and found them hard to balance, and one warned of crashes by visitors unused to Kyoto’s narrow alleys, their minutes record.