Tattoo friendly onsen in Karuizawa

HOSHINOYA Karuizawa

星のや軽井沢

Nothing to cover in the guests’ own bath. Hoshino Resorts states group-wide that it does not restrict guests with tattoos, and keeps the right to refuse the bath where it judges other guests might be frightened. Hoshinoya’s Meditation Bath is for staying guests only, so the unrestricted rule is the one that applies there. Tombo-no-yu, the public bath that HoshinoyaTombo-no-yu, the public bath next door that Hoshinoya also points its guests to,rsquo;s own onsen page lists beside it, is a different case: it is open to everyone and asks for no more than eight cover seals.

私たちは、お客様の文化背景や価値観を尊重し、刺青・タトゥーをされているお客様の利用を制限しておりません。しかしながら、すべてのお客様が快適にお過ごしいただけるよう、他のお客様が恐怖心を抱く可能性があると私たちが判断した場合、温泉・大浴場のご利用をお断りする場合がございます。

Best for: A bath with no seal and no size limit, taken in a room of light and a room of dark

77 rooms, 1 to 4 guests, check-in 15:00, check-out 12:00. The group FAQ says the onsen at Hoshinoya, KAI and RISONARE properties are for staying guests and cannot be used on a day visit. Rooms have an ordinary bathtub with the toilet and basin separate; the operator does not call the room tubs hot spring. The operator lists two onsen for the resort: the guests-only Meditation Bath and Tombo-no-yu, which follows the eight-seal rule. Dogs are accepted in designated rooms.

Hoshino Onsen Tombo-no-yu

星野温泉 トンボの湯

Allowed if it is covered. Tombo-no-yu lists bathing with tattoos among the things it does not permit, then makes one exception: if the house cover seals can hide the tattoo using no more than eight of them, you may bathe. Each seal is 10 by 8 cm and you buy them at the front desk. Anything that eight seals cannot cover is turned away, and Hoshino Resorts’ group FAQ sets the same eight-seal ceiling for every bath it runs that non-staying visitors can use.

タトゥー、刺青がある方の入浴　ただし、指定のカバーシール8枚でタトゥー等が隠せる場合に限り、入浴可能です。カバーシールの寸法は、10 × 8センチです。受付でお買い求めください。

Best for: Bathing in the spring Hoshino Resorts was founded on, with small or medium tattoos under seals

10:00–22:00, last entry 21:15. April to November and 29 December to 3 January: adults 1,550 yen, children 1,050 yen. December to March: adults 1,350 yen, children 800 yen. Towel set 350 yen. Indoor bath, open-air bath, sauna at about 85–90°C, a cold bath fed by spring water from the Wild Bird Forest at about 13°C, and a tap to drink the spring. Every tub is free-flowing, not recirculated and not diluted, and the water is changed daily. Seasonal baths: apples in November (7–15 November 2026), yuzu at the winter solstice. Phones are not allowed in the changing rooms or the bath. The seal price is not published on the page. The group FAQ notes that the in-house baths at Hoshinoya, KAI and RISONARE are for staying guests; Tombo-no-yu is the one Hoshino bath in Karuizawa anyone can walk into.

Karuizawa Marriott Hotel

軽井沢マリオットホテル

The shared bath takes a tattoo only under cover. The hotel refuses bathers with tattoos unless two cover seals of 8 by 10 cm hide the tattoo, and sends questions to the front desk. A tattoo bigger than two seals is better served by a North Wing room, where every room has its own hot spring tub.

※タトゥー（入れ墨）を入れている方のご入浴はお断りしています。ただし、カバーシール（8cm×10cm）2枚でタトゥーを隠していただける場合のみご入浴可能です。詳しくはフロントにお問合せください。

Best for: A small tattoo under two seals in the shared bath, or a North Wing room with a hot spring tub of its own

Two springs. The Kose spring (alkaline simple) fills the Main Wing’s large bath and open-air bath on B1: staying guests 5:00–10:00 and 15:00–24:00, day visitors 15:00–22:00. The Shiozawa spring (sodium chloride and bicarbonate) is piped only to North Wing rooms, opened in July 2017: ground-floor rooms have an open-air hot spring bath and a private garden, second-floor rooms a hot spring view bath. The dog-friendly cottages (ten rooms) include rooms with a hot spring bathroom. The official hot spring page still carries an old notice that the open-air bath closes in winter because the floor freezes; ask about the season. Two seals is a tighter allowance than Tombo-no-yu’s eight.

Kose Onsen Hotel

小瀬温泉ホテル

Kose Onsen Hotel publishes no tattoo rule, and a staying guest does not need one. There are two open-air baths you lock from inside, free and taken whenever one is empty, and the operator says every guest room’s bathtub is plumbed with the hot spring. The indoor bath is shared, and nothing is written about tattoos there.

Best for: Free-flowing hot spring water in a locked open-air bath and again in your own room’s tub

Each private open-air bath holds up to four. Free, no booking, as often as you like: 13:00–23:00 and 7:00–9:00, about 40 minutes a turn, lock the changing room door behind you. The shared indoor bath runs 13:00 to 10:00 the next morning and is drained and cleaned from 10:00 to 13:00. The inn owns two sources, at 52°C and 45°C, sodium bicarbonate, and says it neither recirculates, filters nor heats the water; half the water in the tubs turns over every hour. Dinner is what the hotel calls French cooking eaten with chopsticks. Maintenance closure dates are posted on its news list.

The Prince Villa Karuizawa

ザ・プリンス ヴィラ軽井沢

Book a Maisonette Spa villa and the bath is yours: each has an open-air bath fed free-flowing from the spring. The shared MOMIJI HOT-SPRING next door is another matter. Prince’s rule for it says only that bathers with tattoos may have their use partly restricted, which is not something to plan a trip on.

Best for: A group of up to eight who want a hot spring bath outside their own door

Five Maisonette Spa villas, two floors, 129.5 m², up to eight people (two on sofa beds), with a kitchen, a pellet stove in winter and a TV in the bathroom. The Terrace and plain Maisonette villas have no hot spring bath, so check the room name when booking. Prince’s shared bath rule, on the MOMIJI HOT-SPRING page: 刺青・タトゥーをされた方のご利用は一部制限させていただく場合がございます。

Hotel Cypress Karuizawa

ホテルサイプレス軽井沢

Seven rooms here have an open-air bath of their own, and that is the way to bathe with a tattoo. The hotel’s FAQ and facilities pages say nothing about tattoos in the large shared bath on B1, and silence is not permission.

Best for: A room with its own outdoor tub a short ride from the station and the outlet mall

Three layouts carry the open-air bath: a 55 m² Western room for two to four, and two 65 m² Japanese-Western rooms, numbers 101 and 102, for up to five. All non-smoking. In winter the shower and taps in the open-air bath area are removed so they do not freeze. The hotel does not say whether the room tubs carry hot spring water, so treat them as ordinary baths until it does.

Le Chien Kyu-Karuizawa

ルシアン旧軽井沢

The hotel’s own FAQ answers it: whatever the size, guests with tattoos are asked not to use the large shared bath, and are sent to the private baths instead. Kyoritsu Resort’s group FAQ says the same and adds the room bath. Le Chien has two private baths, free and unbooked, and one of them is filled with natural hot spring water. Lock the door and a lamp on the board outside the bath lounge tells everyone else it is taken.

当館では大きさに関わらず、刺青・タトゥーが入った方の大浴場のご利用はご遠慮いただいております。貸切風呂をご利用ください。

Best for: A hot spring private bath that costs nothing and needs no booking, with the dog asleep upstairs

Private baths 15:00–1:00 and 5:00–10:00: Nagomi-no-yu is natural hot spring, Kaori-no-yu is a cypress tub of carbonated “sparkling” water. Check the lamp board outside the bath lounge for a free one. The hotel’s FAQ says the large bath is natural Kose spring water; that is the bath the tattoo rule closes. A pet bath for dogs (not hot spring) is booked in advance for a fee. No towels are left in the baths; the FAQ says to bring them from your room. Large bath 15:00–11:00, closed 1:00–2:00 for cleaning. No day bathing.

Karuizawa Hotel Longing House

軽井沢ホテル ロンギングハウス

Longing House publishes no tattoo rule, and its bath page lists no shared bath for one to apply to. Its ten private open-air baths are the bathing here, and a staying guest takes one alone. The hotel says plainly that they are not hot spring water: they run on well water through a 24-hour circulation system.

Note: Nothing here is hot spring water. The baths run on well water, and the hotel says so.

Best for: An open-air soak for two with no stranger in the water, on ordinary well water

Ten private open-air baths, each about 20 m² with its changing room, the tub sized for two, no indoor tub. 15:00–23:00 and 8:00–11:00. No advance booking: you give a preferred time at check-in, and the hotel warns there is no refund or substitute if none is free. Currently 45 minutes free as an opening campaign for the new wing. Some come with a stone sauna bed (ganbanyoku). In the operator’s words: ※温泉ではございません。 Every room also has its own bath and toilet.

Piccolo Hotel Opera Karuizawa

ピッコロホテル オペラ軽井沢

There are no men’s and women’s baths at Opera. It has two private baths, one indoor and one open-air, used by one group at a time, so the tattoo question never comes up. The pension’s FAQ says they are not hot spring water.

Note: Nothing here is hot spring water. The pension’s own FAQ says so.

Best for: Two adults who want a small house, a candlelit dinner with music and a bath nobody else walks into

Private baths 15:00–23:00 and 6:00–8:00, 40 minutes a turn, no booking in advance or on the day. The open-air bath closes in winter and reopened in April 2026; in winter only the indoor one runs. Shampoo, conditioner and body soap provided. In the operator’s words: （温泉ではございません）. All rooms but Rosalinde have a unit bath. Adults only, all non-smoking, facilities for staying guests only.

Karuizawa Hotel Soyokaze

軽井沢 ホテルそよかぜ

Book the Annex Comfort Double: the hotel has no family bath and its FAQ sends families to this room, whose bathroom opens as a semi-open-air bath toward the Yatsugatake range. The shared bath has no published tattoo rule. Nothing at Soyokaze is hot spring water; the FAQ says the shared bath is not onsen and uses radium ore and Towada stone.

Note: The hotel’s FAQ says its bath is not hot spring water: it is heated water with radium ore and Towada stone added.

Best for: A guest traveling with a dog or cat who wants a bath with a view in the room

Annex Comfort Double: 36 m² plus a 6.3 m² terrace, first or second floor facing south, a queen-size double, up to four with an extra bed. Dogs, cats, birds and other pets stay in the room. The shared bath, Soyokaze-no-yu, runs 6:00–11:00 and 15:00–24:00. The FAQ, asked whether the bath is hot spring: 温泉ではございませんが、天然のラジウム鉱石や十和田石を使用しております。 The building is on a slope with many stairs and no elevator.

Dormy Club Karuizawa

ドーミー倶楽部 軽井沢

Two indoor private baths, one in cypress and one in stone, rent by the 40-minute slot, and a family takes one alone. Dormy Club publishes no tattoo rule for its shared baths. Its FAQ says none of the water in the house, shared or private, is natural hot spring: it is Togoru-yu, an artificial mineral bath.

Note: Nothing here is hot spring water. Every bath, shared or private, is an artificial mineral bath, and the FAQ says so.

Best for: A family with small children who want a private bath and a hotel built around babies

Private baths: two, the same size, indoor not open-air, 2,200 yen per 40 minutes, slots starting on the hour from 15:00 to 23:00. Some plans include one. The FAQ, asked whether the baths are hot spring: 当館のお風呂は共用の内風呂・露天風呂、貸切風呂ともに天然温泉ではございませんが、温泉の効能のある人工温泉「トゴール湯」となっております。 Shared baths 15:00 to 9:30 the next morning, no swap between sides. Certified a Welcome Baby inn by Miki House; baby baths and bed guards lent free. No elevator.