JR East counted 666,809 people boarding at Shinjuku on an average day in the 2024 fiscal year, which put it first among all of the company’s stations. That number is the reason the place feels the way it does, and it is also misleading, because it counts only the people boarding JR East trains at one of several stations in the area whose names contain the word Shinjuku.
Not every station called Shinjuku is part of Shinjuku Station
Seibu Railway operates a station it calls Seibu-Shinjuku, at 1-30-1 Kabukicho in Shinjuku ward. It is the terminus of the Seibu Shinjuku Line, and Seibu’s own page for it lists ten types of train that stop there: the limited express, the Haijima Liner, the S-TRAIN, the rapid express, the express, the commuter express, the rapid, the commuter semi-express, the semi-express and the local.
The Keio New Line has its own separate name too. When the operator of the expressway bus terminal lists how to reach it by train, it writes the Keio Line station as Shinjuku Station and the Keio New Line station as Shinsen-Shinjuku Station, two different names in two consecutive lines of the same list. Keio’s own station page carries separate concourse maps under one station entry, one headed Keio Line Shinjuku Station and one headed Keio New Line Shinjuku Station.
A third name, Shinjuku-sanchome, belongs to the Tokyo Metro station that the bus terminal lists as an eight-minute walk on the Fukutoshin Line and a ten-minute walk on the Marunouchi Line. So a traveller who asks whether there are two Shinjuku stations is under-counting. The question worth asking instead is which of them your ticket is actually for.
Seibu counts the Keio Line as a transfer and Keio does not count Seibu
The two operators do not describe the same neighbourhood the same way. Seibu’s page for Seibu-Shinjuku lists ten lines belonging to other companies as transfers: the JR Saikyo Line, the JR Yamanote Line, the JR Shonan-Shinjuku Line, the JR Chuo-Sobu local line, the JR Chuo Line, the Keio Line, the Odakyu Line, the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line, the Toei Shinjuku Line and the Toei Oedo Line.
Keio’s page for Shinjuku Station lists eight railway transfers: the Chuo Line, the Yamanote Line, the Saikyo Line, the Shonan-Shinjuku Line, the Odakyu Line, the Marunouchi Line, the Toei Shinjuku Line and the Toei Oedo Line. The Seibu Shinjuku Line is not among them. Keio also lists five bus operators at the same station: Keio Bus, Toei Bus, Seibu Bus, Kanto Bus and Odakyu Bus, so Seibu appears on Keio’s page as a bus company and not as a railway.
The practical reading is that the transfer works in the direction you are walking. A passenger heading for the Seibu Shinjuku Line is told by Seibu that ten other lines connect. A passenger standing on the Keio platform is not told that the Seibu Shinjuku Line is there at all, and has to know to walk north-east to Kabukicho to find it.
666,809 people boarded at Shinjuku on an average day in the 2024 fiscal year
JR East publishes a ranking of its own stations by average daily boarding passengers. In the 2024 fiscal year data, released on 12 September 2025, Shinjuku came first with 666,809, having also been first the year before, with a year-on-year figure of 102.5 per cent. Ikebukuro was second with 499,128, Tokyo third with 434,564, Yokohama fourth with 373,010 and Shibuya fifth with 324,414.
The important qualification is in the phrase “boarding passengers” and in whose ranking it is. The table counts people boarding JR East trains at JR East stations. The Odakyu, Keio, Toei and Tokyo Metro passengers who use the same complex are counted by their own operators, in their own publications, and none of them appears in the JR East number. Shinjuku’s real footfall is therefore larger than 666,809, by an amount this particular table cannot tell you.
The gap to second place is worth stating plainly, since subtracting the two published figures gives 167,681 more daily boardings at Shinjuku than at Ikebukuro. That arithmetic is mine; JR East prints the two totals and not the difference.
The New South Gate closes at midnight, and the walk gets longer
Shinjuku’s ticket gates are not interchangeable, and the clearest published example is the one that serves the bus terminal. The operator of Busta Shinjuku states that the terminal is directly connected to the JR New South Gate, two minutes away, and that the New South Gate is open from 5:45 to 24:00. Outside those hours it directs passengers to the South Exit instead, which it puts at a four-minute walk.
The same page gives walking times from every other gate in the complex, and they cluster tightly except at the far end.
| Line and station | Ticket gate | Walk to the bus terminal |
|---|---|---|
| JR lines, Shinjuku Station | New South Gate | Directly connected, 2 minutes |
| Odakyu Line, Shinjuku Station | South Exit gate | 4 minutes |
| Keio Line, Shinjuku Station | Keio Department Store gate | 5 minutes |
| Keio New Line, Shinsen-Shinjuku Station | Keio New Line gate | 5 minutes, via exit 2 |
| Toei Shinjuku Line, Shinjuku Station | Keio New Line gate | 5 minutes, via exit 2 |
| Toei Oedo Line, Shinjuku Station | Keio New Line gate | 5 minutes, via exit 2 |
| Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line, Shinjuku-sanchome Station | Shinjuku-sanchome crossing gate | 8 minutes, via exit E10 |
| Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line, Shinjuku-sanchome Station | Isetan-side gate | 10 minutes, via exit E10 |
Three of those eight rows send you through the same Keio New Line gate, which is why the Toei Shinjuku Line, the Toei Oedo Line and the Keio New Line feel like one station from inside and like three different lines on a map.
The bus terminal above the platforms is registered in a different ward
Busta Shinjuku is run by a separate company, Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal Co., Ltd., founded on 2 December 2014 with capital of 20,000,000 yen and a single stated line of business: motor terminal operation. Its registered address is 5-24-55 Sendagaya, Shibuya ward. The bus terminal that everyone calls Shinjuku is not, on paper, in Shinjuku ward at all, while Seibu-Shinjuku a few hundred metres north is registered in Kabukicho, Shinjuku ward.
The terminal itself is stacked on three levels above the railway, and they are not equally equipped. The fourth floor, where expressway buses depart, carries thirteen items on the operator’s own floor map: the waiting room, the information counter, the staffed ticket office, the automatic ticket machines, coin lockers, an ATM, a multipurpose toilet, a nursing room, a women’s changing room, a convenience store, a lift, an escalator and the souvenir shop. The third floor, where buses arrive, carries four: a multipurpose toilet, a nursing room, a lift and an escalator. The second floor, the pedestrian area with station facilities, carries two: a lift and an escalator. Arriving at Busta Shinjuku and leaving from it are not the same experience.
The ticket office, the machines and the two shops all close at different times
Busta Shinjuku sells tickets for four reservation systems, and the staffed window and the automatic machines do not cover the same hours for any of them.
| Reservation system | Staffed ticket window | Automatic ticket machines |
|---|---|---|
| Highway Bus dot com | 5:40 to 23:45 | 5:00 to 24:00 |
| Kosoku Bus Net | 6:20 to 24:00 | 5:00 to 24:00 |
| Hassha Oorai Net | 5:40 to 23:55 on the services page, 6:20 to 23:55 on the FAQ page | 5:00 to 24:00 |
| Limousine Bus | 4:20 to 22:50 | 3:40 to 22:50 |
One of those eight figures is not stable across the operator’s own website. The service facilities page opens the Hassha Oorai Net window at 5:40 and the frequently asked questions page opens it at 6:20, and the two pages were read on the same day. The other seven figures are identical on both pages, so the safe reading for that one system is the later time.
Routes on any other system are not sold at the terminal at all, and the operator says so rather than leaving it to be discovered at the counter. It divides the departures into three groups: routes whose tickets Busta Shinjuku sells, routes with unreserved seating where you go straight to the bay and pay the driver, and routes that are sold online only, where no counter step is needed.
The shops keep their own hours. The convenience store, a Daily Yamazaki branch, runs from 3:30 to 25:00, which is to say one in the morning. The souvenir shop opens at 6:00 and closes at 24:00. Drink vending machines are installed at four places in the terminal, and a coin-operated charger sits beside the automatic ticket machines on the north side. Two things the operator states it does not provide: there is no smoking area inside the terminal, and no baggage trolleys are lent to passengers.
If the question behind all of this is whether to sleep near Shinjuku or near another station, the answer has a legal dimension as well as a geographic one, because Tokyo licenses places to stay under three separate laws and the limits differ by ward.
Sources Checked
East Japan Railway Company (JR East) — press release of 12 September 2025 on station boarding figures for the 2024 fiscal year
Confirmed that Shinjuku ranked first with a daily average of 666,809 boarding passengers and 102.5 per cent year on year, that Ikebukuro was second with 499,128, Tokyo third with 434,564, Yokohama fourth with 373,010 and Shibuya fifth with 324,414, and that the figures are daily average boarding passengers for the 2024 fiscal year.
https://www.jreast.co.jp/press/2025/20250912_ho03.pdf
Seibu Railway — Seibu-Shinjuku station page
Confirmed the station name Seibu-Shinjuku, the address 1-30-1 Kabukicho, Shinjuku ward, the ten train types that stop there, and the ten other companies’ lines listed as transfers.
https://www.seiburailway.jp/railway/station/seibu-shinjuku/
Keio Corporation — Shinjuku station page (KO01)
Confirmed that Keio publishes separate concourse maps for Keio Line Shinjuku Station and Keio New Line Shinjuku Station, that its railway transfer list names eight lines and does not include the Seibu Shinjuku Line, and that its bus list names Keio Bus, Toei Bus, Seibu Bus, Kanto Bus and Odakyu Bus.
https://www.keio.co.jp/train/station/ko01_shinjuku/
Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal Co., Ltd. — access page
Confirmed every walking time in the table above, the New South Gate hours of 5:45 to 24:00 with the four-minute alternative from the South Exit, and the naming of Shinsen-Shinjuku Station for the Keio New Line.
https://shinjuku-busterminal.co.jp/access
Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal Co., Ltd. — company outline
Confirmed the founding on 2 December 2014, the capital of 20,000,000 yen, the single stated business of motor terminal operation, and the registered address at 5-24-55 Sendagaya in Shibuya ward.
https://shinjuku-busterminal.co.jp/overview
Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal Co., Ltd. — floor maps for the three levels
Confirmed that the 4F departure floor map legend lists thirteen items, the 3F arrival floor map four, and the 2F pedestrian area with station facilities two, and the names of each.
https://shinjuku-busterminal.co.jp/floormap/4f.html
https://shinjuku-busterminal.co.jp/floormap/3f.html
https://shinjuku-busterminal.co.jp/floormap/2f.html
Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal Co., Ltd. — service facilities page
Confirmed the four reservation systems, the staffed-window hours of 5:40 to 23:45, 6:20 to 24:00, 5:40 to 23:55 and 4:20 to 22:50, the ticket-machine hours of 5:00 to 24:00 for three systems and 3:40 to 22:50 for the fourth, the statement that routes on other systems are not handled, the Daily Yamazaki hours of 3:30 to 25:00 and the souvenir shop hours of 6:00 to 24:00, and the four vending machine locations.
https://shinjuku-busterminal.co.jp/service/
Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal Co., Ltd. — frequently asked questions
Confirmed the same staffed-window hours except for Hassha Oorai Net, which this page opens at 6:20 rather than 5:40, the three categories of departing route, the coin charger beside the north-side ticket machines, and the statements that there is no smoking area in the terminal and that no baggage trolleys are lent.
https://shinjuku-busterminal.co.jp/qa/
Last updated: September 2026
