Japan Autumn Leaves 2026: When and Where to See Koyo (Forecast + Timing Guide)

Short answer

Japan’s 2026 autumn leaves are forecast to peak later than normal almost everywhere. In the first 2026 forecast, published September 3 by Weathernews, the Daisetsuzan mountains in Hokkaido start from mid-September, Tohoku runs early October to late November, the Kanto region mid-October to mid-December, and Kyoto turns from late November, with the Kinki region’s window stretching to mid-December. The reason is simple: average temperatures are expected to stay above normal from Hokkaido down to Kyushu, and warm autumns delay the colour.

The good news in the same forecast: leaf condition is rated better than last year in most regions, and the sunshine, rain, and cool mornings that make maples turn properly red are all expected. If you’re choosing dates for a 2026 trip, the rule of thumb is to book a week later than you would in a normal year — and for Kyoto, aim for the last week of November into early December.

What “koyo” means, and why the dates move

Koyo (紅葉, also read momiji) is the autumn colour season — the Japanese maple turning red, the ginkgo turning gold, and the whole country migrating to temple gardens and mountain gorges to look at it. Unlike cherry blossom, which lasts about a week in any one place, koyo is slow: it starts in Hokkaido’s high mountains in September and doesn’t finish in Kyoto or Kyushu until December. The colour front sweeps north to south and high to low over roughly three months.

That’s why “when is koyo?” has no single answer. What matters is the combination of region, elevation, and this year’s temperatures. Colour is triggered by cool mornings; a warm autumn pushes everything back, which is exactly what both the 2025 observations and the 2026 forecast show.

The 2026 forecast, region by region

Everything in this table comes from Weathernews’ 2026 first-round forecast (published September 3, 2026 — the northern, eastern, and western Japan editions). The “normal” column is the Japan Meteorological Agency’s 1991–2020 map of the maple leaf-coloring date — the day when most leaves on a low-elevation city observation tree have turned. Famous mountain spots peak earlier than the city figure.

Region	2026 forecast window (Weathernews)	vs normal	JMA normal leaf-coloring date (city trees)
Hokkaido	Mid-September to early November (Daisetsuzan from mid-Sep)	Later / slightly later	Mid-Oct (eastern Pacific side) to Nov 10 (south)
Tohoku	Early October to late November	Later / slightly later	Around Nov 20
Hokuriku	Mid-September (2,000 m Murodo already turning) to late November	Later / slightly later	Nov 20 (east) to Nov 30
Kanto / Koshin	Kanto: mid-October to mid-December; Koshin: early October to late November	Later / slightly later	Around Nov 30; Pacific coast early-to-mid Dec
Tokai	Late October to mid-December	Later / slightly later	Around Nov 30; coast early-to-mid Dec
Kinki (Kyoto, Osaka, Nara)	Late October to mid-December; Kyoto from late November	Later	Early-to-mid December
Chugoku / Shikoku	Late October to early December	Later	Around Nov 30
Kyushu	Early November to mid-December	Later	Nov 30 (north) to early-mid Dec (south)

Three notes on reading it:

• The windows are wide on purpose. “Mid-October to mid-December” for Kanto means the high mountains of Nikko and Hakone go first and central Tokyo’s ginkgo avenues go last. Pick your spot, then narrow the date.
• Kyushu is the one caveat on quality. The western Japan edition says a hot, low-rainfall summer stressed the trees there, and notes that some access routes remain closed — check road status before driving to a gorge.
• September weather is the wild card. All three regional editions warn that heavy rain, fronts, and typhoons through late September can damage leaves or close mountain roads. A typhoon that strips leaves in September doesn’t change the forecast; it changes the view.

What happened in 2025 (and why it matters for 2026)

The JMA runs a network of observation trees and records the day each one turns — its published 2025 leaf-coloring dates are the cleanest hard data on how late “late” actually was:

• Sapporo: November 6, nine days later than normal
• Sendai: November 20, one day early
• Tokyo: November 23, five days early
• Nagoya: November 25, three days early
• Osaka: December 4, three days late
• Kyoto: December 10, five days late
• Fukuoka: December 1, on the normal date

So even in 2025, Kyoto’s city tree didn’t turn until December 10. Kyoto’s famous temple maples peak a week or two before the city observation tree, which is why “last week of November” has been the reliable Kyoto answer for years — and why the 2026 forecast’s “from late November, later than normal” is worth taking literally rather than gambling on mid-November.

The forecast calendar: who publishes what, and when

Japan has two heavyweight foliage forecasters, and they don’t publish on the same schedule:

• Weathernews published its 2026 first round on September 3 (national overview plus three regional editions), and updates through the season with a live “now at peak” map on its koyo page.
• The Japan Weather Association (tenki.jp) had not yet published its 2026 forecast as of September 8, 2026 — its forecast page still shows the 2025 third round. In 2025 its rounds landed on September 18, October 9, and November 6, so expect the first 2026 edition in the second half of September. Its 2025 conclusion, for the record, was the same story: later than normal in most places.

Both are published in Japanese; the region names and dates in the tables are easy to match to the table above even without reading the text.

Planning a 2026 koyo trip

Pick the region by your travel dates, not the other way round. Late September to mid-October: Hokkaido and the northern Alps. Mid-to-late October: Tohoku gorges and the mountains around Nikko and Nagano. November: Kanto, Tokai, and Chugoku. Late November into early December: Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Kyushu. If your flight is fixed for early November, that’s a Tohoku-and-Nikko trip, not a Kyoto one — in 2026 especially.

Move north-to-south if you’re touring. Because the colour front runs the same direction as the Shinkansen, a two-week trip starting in Sendai and ending in Kyoto can hit peak twice. This is one of the few itineraries where the JR Pass math can actually work in your favour — note that pass prices rise again on October 1, 2026, per the JR Pass site, so buy before then if you’re going.

Book the beds first, then the maples. Kyoto in the last week of November is the single most over-subscribed week in Japanese tourism. Fix accommodation now, and treat the temple visit as flexible: with a wide window, you can shift a day or two toward whichever spot the live maps show at peak.

Pack for two seasons. A mid-September Daisetsuzan trip is cold; a late-November Kyoto trip is coat weather by evening. Koyo season is also the peak of the ekiben calendar — see the Ekiben Atlas for what to buy on the platform on the way — and the moment the tsukimi season hands over to chestnut and sweet-potato everything in the konbini.

Onsen and koyo go together. Many of the best gorge viewpoints are hot-spring towns, and an outdoor bath under red maples is the point of the exercise. Read the unwritten onsen rules before you arrive.

Closing

Japan’s traditional calendar has a name for this: kanro, “cold dew,” the sekki that opens in early October when the mornings finally bite and the maples get the signal — see the full seasonal calendar and the sweets that track it. In 2026 the signal is running late. The published forecasts agree on a warm autumn, a delayed peak, and — if September’s typhoons behave — a vivid one. Apparently the trick to seeing Japan’s best red is to arrive a week after you think you should.