E-scooters in Tokyo: who rents them, who may ride, where to ride and where to park

E-scooters in Tokyo: LUUP and Lime

The map shows two companies’ e-scooters in Tokyo:

• LUUP, counted at its ports: each port on the Tokyo map shows how many scooters stand there, without their charge or range, and ports closed at the time are left off. At 05:13 on Tuesday 27 October 2026, Tokyo time, the map’s Tokyo figure was about 13,000 LUUP scooters: an early-morning snapshot, not a fleet size.
• Lime, each scooter at its own position with its battery level. A full scan of Lime’s Tokyo zone, which finished at 09:32 on Monday 26 October, found about 2,300 Lime scooters: a separate count, not part of that snapshot.

The LUUP figure is the map’s count for LUUP’s Tokyo service as a whole, not for the 23 wards: every port of that service counts as Tokyo, including any beyond the wards or over the borders of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa.

ScootRadar shows standing e-scooters only, not LUUP’s e-bikes and seated scooters or docomo bike share’s e-assist bicycles. Each app shows its price before you start; any other company’s scooters are only in its own app.

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

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, Act No. 105 of 25 June 1960) has had since 1 July 2023: the specified small motorised bicycle, 特定原付 on signs. 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 0.60 kW and carries a lamp that shows its top speed. A scooter outside the class is treated as a moped or a motor vehicle, the National Police Agency (NPA) says, and needs a driving licence.

• 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. Each can bring up to six months’ imprisonment or a ¥100,000 fine, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) says.
• Helmet. The law asks riders to try to wear one (an effort duty, 努力義務) and sets no penalty.

The rest is up to the rental companies. Japan’s March 2023 guideline for them, published by the NPA, asks them to check every user’s age, for example by an official ID such as a My Number card or driving licence, or by taking payment only from the user’s own credit card, and to have every user, foreigners included, pass a traffic-rules test or watch a video before the first ride. The app shows what it asks of you.

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

On the road. Ride on the roadway or a cycle track (自転車道), at the left edge and never on the right-hand side; where the road has marked lanes, that normally means the leftmost lane, the MPD says. 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 roadway side, 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 marked for pedestrians only, without getting in walkers’ way; at 20 km/h you may use neither.

Right turns always take two stages. At lights, ride straight across on the green to the far corner, turn to face your new direction and go when the light ahead turns green; a green right-turn arrow is not for you, the NPA warns. Without lights, keep left, ride straight across to the far side, slow well down and turn. Turning any other way costs ¥3,000.

When a car passes. Since 1 April 2026, a car, motorbike or moped passing you on the right without enough room must slow to a speed safe for the gap, and you must keep as far left as you can (Road Traffic Act art. 18(3)–(4)). The NPA’s guide for drivers is a gap of at least about a metre, or 20 to 30 km/h where there isn’t one.

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, and whoever lent the scooter, served the drink or rode along can be punished too.

Where to park an e-scooter in Tokyo

Japan’s guideline asks rental companies to oblige riders, in their terms, to return the scooter to a rental point (貸出拠点). Suginami ward wrote on 3 June 2026 that LUUP had more than 8,500 ports across Tokyo, over 700 of them in Suginami. Each app shows where a ride may end. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s advice for every e-scooter is short: don’t leave it at the roadside.

The rental company, as the scooter’s user (使用者), can be ordered to pay Japan’s parking penalty (放置違反金) for one left illegally, the guideline notes; it asks companies to tell riders in their terms what to do if the police tag a scooter, on pain of a suspended account.

Sumida ward removes bicycles and e-scooters left in the no-parking zones around its stations, and charges ¥5,000 to collect one (page updated 29 January 2025).

Japan’s e-scooter rules in 2026

The Road Traffic Act sets the riding rules everywhere in Japan, and its Enforcement Order (道路交通法施行令, Cabinet Order No. 270 of 11 October 1960) the on-the-spot penalties (反則金) the MPD lists for e-scooters, as in force on 27 October 2026. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government stresses that the rules are the same for a shared e-scooter and your own.

Repeat offenders go back to class. A rider caught again and again for any of 17 kinds of dangerous riding can be ordered onto a safety course by the prefecture’s public safety commission, and skipping it can bring a fine of up to ¥50,000.

Japanese law sets no night ban for e-scooters; the national guideline only suggests, as an example, that rental companies stop renting at night from ports in nightlife districts.

Expressways and Yoyogi Park

Expressways. The MPD’s English poster is plain: “E-Scooters, 125cc or less Motorcycle and Pedestrians, Bicycles are not allowed to enter the Metropolitan expressway (Shutoko)”.

Yoyogi Park. A notice from the park’s service centre dated 9 June 2023 bans bringing in or riding “motorbikes, Segways and the like” (バイク、セグウェイなど). It doesn’t name e-scooters; as we read it, they come under it.

Kawasaki, Yokohama and further afield

Kawasaki and Yokohama, next door in Kanagawa, have their own figures on the map. At 05:13 on 27 October it showed about 210 LUUP scooters in Kawasaki and about 640 in Yokohama. A separate scan of Lime’s Yokohama zone, which finished at 08:52 on 26 October, found about 50 Lime scooters there.

Heading west? At the same moment the map showed about 3,300 LUUP scooters in Osaka and 1,500 in Kyoto.

Did you know?

• Tokyo has most of Japan’s e-scooter accidents: 278 of the 386 injury accidents involving the class in 2025 (72%), up from 244 in 2024, in the NPA’s count as of 16 September 2026. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s provisional count, as of 13 January 2026, was 280.
• Tokyo was the first local government in Japan to sign an agreement with the Micromobility Promotion Council, an industry group then chaired by LUUP’s chief executive, before the July 2023 rules; it has a new one with the group, now the Japan Micromobility Association.
• Tokyo asks less of riders than Seoul. In Seoul, Korean law requires a licence that covers mopeds and a helmet; Japan’s 20 km/h class needs neither.