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The nine buildings in Shirakawa-gō that are open to visitors, what each costs, and whether it is open on the day you are coming. Everything else is somebody's home.
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Wednesday 26 August
7 of 9 sites open today
Pick another date below to plan ahead.
Festival week, 14–19 October
The official English pages have the old prices
Today · 7 / 9 open
| Site | Status | Hours | Reservation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wada House (和田家) | Open | 09:00–17:00 | — |
| Kanda House (神田家) | Closed today | — | — |
| Nagase House (長瀬家) | Open | See official site | — |
| Myōzenji Temple museum (明善寺庫裡郷土館) | Open | 08:30–17:00 | — |
| Gasshō-zukuri Minka-en open-air museum (合掌造り民家園) | Open | 08:40–17:00 (last entry 16:40) | — |
| Binen Yumeromu-kan (美然 ゆめろむ館) | Open | 10:00–16:00 | — |
| Okuzaemon (大正三年 奥左ヱ門) | Open | 09:00–17:00 | — |
| Kyū-Tōyama House, Miboro (旧遠山家住宅) | Closed today | — | — |
| Gasshō Museum at the Michi-no-Eki (道の駅 白川郷 合掌ミュージアム) | Open | 08:30–17:00 | — |
Almost every steep thatched roof in Ogimachi is a house somebody lives in. Nine buildings in Shirakawa-mura are open to visitors, and this page says which of them are open on the day you are coming, what it costs and when they close.
The village puts it plainly on its own site: 世界遺産集落は住民が生活しています — people live in the World Heritage settlement — do not walk into someone's grounds or fields, look in through a window, or open a door. There is no published list of which houses are private, because it is the other way round: these nine are open, and everything else is a home. The famous view of the roofs is from the Ogimachi castle-ruin viewpoint on the hill, which is free, has no gate and no closing time.
The village also asks that visits to the settlement happen between 8:00 and 17:00, outside light-up evenings, and that is why the public car park keeps those hours.
What a public holiday does here
A public holiday does not treat everything the same way: some places open because it is a holiday, and others shut for exactly the same reason. The dates below are already in this planner, so picking a date gives you the answer for that day.
Open on a public holiday: Kanda House (神田家).
Open on a public holiday, but closed the day BEFORE it instead of the day after: Gasshō-zukuri Minka-en open-air museum (合掌造り民家園), Kyū-Tōyama House, Miboro (旧遠山家住宅). Pick the date to see which day that lands on.
Japan's national holidays, substitute holidays included, from the Cabinet Office's published list (syukujitsu.csv), read on 25 August 2026 and covering dates up to the end of 2027.
Places with no fixed closing day
These places do not close on a set weekday. They can still be shut when you arrive — a family closes for a day, a festival, a funeral — and it is usually announced only a few days ahead. Nothing on this page can predict that, so treat them as likely open rather than certainly open.
No fixed closing day: Wada House (和田家), Nagase House (長瀬家), Myōzenji Temple museum (明善寺庫裡郷土館), Binen Yumeromu-kan (美然 ゆめろむ館), Okuzaemon (大正三年 奥左ヱ門).
A National Important Cultural Property and still a family home: the ground and first floors are open, the family's living space is not. The fee was revised on 1 April 2024.
Closed Wednesdays, but open if the Wednesday is a public holiday, with no closure moved to another day. Open until 19:00 on Winter Light-Up evenings. It also closes at short notice around the October festivals and the New Year, and publishes those dates on its own site. The group size threshold rose from 15 people to 20 on 1 May 2026.
Opens at 9:00. The closing time is genuinely unsettled: the tourism association's page for the house says 16:00 「当分の間」 — for the time being — while the same association's group-visit notice and the village office both still say 17:00, and none of the three is dated. Rather than pick one, this page shows no closing time. Ring 05769-6-1047 if you are coming late in the day.
The five-storey thatched kuri — the priest's house — beside the temple. Opens half an hour earlier from April to November than it does in winter.
Twenty-six buildings moved here across the river, so this is the one place you can walk inside a gasshō house without standing in anybody's home. Last admission is 20 minutes before closing. Two different winters apply: the Thursday closures run December to March, the shorter hours only December to February — so a Thursday in March is shut, and a Monday in March opens at 8:40. It also closes without notice in high wind or heavy snow.
Not a gasshō house — a traditional building of a different kind, from 1914. It publishes no fixed closing day but says it is 「主に水曜日休み」, mostly closed on Wednesdays. That is a tendency, not a rule, so this page does not treat it as one.
About 15 km south of Ogimachi at Miboro — a drive, or the bus to Maki and a ten-minute walk. Not somewhere you wander to from the village. Another National Important Cultural Property, and quieter than anything in Ogimachi. Closed Wednesdays and over the New Year; when the Wednesday is a public holiday it opens and closes the Tuesday before instead. In winter it opens an hour later, not earlier.
Confirm before you go
This is a planner built from dates and rules each house has published, not a live feed. Five of the nine have no fixed closing day at all, and a house can shut for a day at almost no notice. Before you set out — especially if you have come a long way for one particular house — check the tourism association's notices, or ring the house.
7 of 9 sites open today
Public holidays change the answer — check your day.
At the roadside station in Iijima, on the way in from the expressway rather than in the Ogimachi settlement. It explains how a gasshō roof is built and re-thatched, which makes it a good first stop if you have come by car.
Barrier-free and wheelchair accessible.