Taxi Fare Estimator

Practical tips

Kyoto has a genuine taxi shortage relative to demand, and during cherry blossom and autumn foliage season the line at Kyoto Station's taxi rank can get long while flagging one down on the street in areas like Higashiyama can be close to impossible — the GO app helps, but even that can mean a real wait when the whole city is trying to get a cab at once. A handful of local operators, most famously MK Taxi, specifically train drivers in English and other languages for sightseeing and airport transfers, which is worth knowing if you'd rather not rely on pointing at a map to communicate. Kyoto's old lanes and temple neighborhoods are notoriously hard to pin down by address alone, so having your destination written out in Japanese, not just an English address, makes a real difference to how easily a driver can find it. Like the rest of Japan, tipping a Kyoto taxi driver isn't expected — some will even try to return change you leave behind.