Beppu day onsen: a ¥300 public bath, or rent a private family bath?

In Beppu a father cannot take his eight-year-old daughter into the men’s bath. A friend with a tattooed arm will be turned away at some hotel baths. So when you reach steamy Kannawa and want one good soak, the choice between a public bath and a family bath turns first on who needs to bathe together, not on price.

On price, too, the answer flips once there are three of you. At Hyotan Onsen in Kannawa, three adults pay ¥3,480 (Japanese yen) for the communal baths; renting one of its family baths for 60 minutes costs ¥2,400. If there are three or more of you, or a child aged seven or over of the other sex is travelling with you, phone Hyotan Onsen seven days before the day you want to bathe and book a family bath. If two of you are happy to bathe separately, a ¥300 soak at Takegawara Onsen or ¥250 at Furosen, both near Beppu Station, is all you need. The hard part of a family bath is not the price but that one phone call.

First, decide who needs to go in together

Since 1 January 2022, Oita Prefecture has not allowed children aged seven or over into the bath of the other sex. Six is the last age at which a parent can take a child in with them. A mother on her own with a seven-year-old son has no way to bathe with him at a communal bath: he cannot go into the women’s side and she cannot go into the men’s. For a group like that, a family bath is not a luxury. It is the simplest way to bathe together.

Tattoo rules differ from one bath to the next. Enjoy Onsen, the English onsen site run by Beppu City, lists Hyotan Onsen and Takegawara Onsen among the public baths that welcome tattooed guests. The same article says tattoos are never a problem in a private bath, but not every hotel agrees. Onyado Nono Beppu, the hotel in front of Beppu Station, says it turns away bathers with tattoos. It adds that a tattoo small enough to hide under an 8 × 10 cm cover patch is allowed, but says only that the patches are provided “at some properties”. The notice sits with its 13th-floor baths, where the private baths are, and nothing exempts them. If you are counting on a hotel’s private bath because of a tattoo, read that hotel’s rules first.

If neither applies, and your group does not mind parting for a while at the men’s and women’s doors, pick a public bath. The municipal baths near Beppu Station cost around ¥300 an adult.

From three people, renting is cheaper

Hyotan Onsen is a day-use bath complex at the entrance to Kannawa, about 25 minutes by bus from Beppu Station. Communal admission is ¥1,160 for ages 13 and over, ¥400 for ages 7–12 and ¥280 for ages 4–6; children aged 3 and under are free. A family bath is priced per room: ¥2,400 for 60 minutes, and that base price covers three adults. Each extra person adds ¥700 (aged 13 and over) or ¥300 (aged 4–12).

Using the official price table on 7 October 2026, here are the bathing charges alone for each group, communal baths against a 60-minute family bath.

For two adults the gap is ¥80, which is the same price for practical purposes. From three, renting is clearly cheaper. For a family of four with children, the price table alone does not give an exact figure, because it does not say whether a child can take one of the three places in the base price. Even if both children are charged as extras the total is ¥3,000, so either way it beats the communal baths. Only a parent alone with one child pays more for the family bath, ¥840 more. If that child is of the other sex and seven or older, the ¥840 is the price of bathing together at all.

A family bath does mean giving something up. Hyotan’s sand bath can only be used together with the communal baths, never with a family bath. To have the sand bath, an adult adds the ¥840 sand-bath yukata rental to communal admission. In return, each of the 14 family baths has its own steam room, runs on a coin timer, and is refilled with fresh water for every group.

Bring your own towels whichever you choose. Hyotan provides none and sells them at the front desk for ¥250 each. For four people that adds ¥1,000.

With three or more people and no great longing for the sand bath, we would take the family bath. If being buried in hot sand is the reason you came to Beppu, go communal. That is worth more to you than the ¥1,080 three people would save.

The Hyotan family bath comes down to one phone call

Every family bath at Hyotan needs a reservation. Ten of the 14 rooms take phone bookings from seven days before the date, and Hyotan does not take bookings by email. The other four, the open-air “Makuyu Junsaku” rooms, are listed for same-day booking on Hyotan’s facilities page and on its English page. The family-bath page marks those four as phone-bookable too, so if you want one, ask when you call. The booking line is 0977-67-3010 within Japan, or +81-977-67-3010 from abroad. Hyotan’s FAQ says staff can help in Chinese and names no other foreign language; it does not say whether that covers the booking line.

Two things make planning easier. Bath bookings carry no cancellation fee, and Hyotan also takes same-day bookings by phone. On the day it will try to fit you in, though when it is busy it may not manage. So once your date is within seven days, it is worth holding a slot. If your plans change, let them know in good time; Hyotan asks guests not to cancel at the last minute. If no one in your group can make the call, ask your hotel’s front desk whether they can phone for you. And if you never managed to call ahead, you can still go early on the day and ask about the four same-day rooms.

What to know before you dial:

• Time: on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays you get 60 minutes only. On weekdays you can ask to extend, but only at the front desk, not by phone, and it may be refused when busy. The price table also lists 75-minute (¥3,000) and 90-minute (¥3,600) slots.
• Payment: Japanese yen in cash only.
• Hours: the complex is open 09:00 to 01:00 the next morning; the communal baths close at 24:00. The English page gives family-bath reception as running until midnight.
• Wheelchairs: the Japanese family-bath page marks some rooms as barrier-free, and says guests with disabilities can extend their time and one carer goes free. Ask for one of those rooms, and confirm the terms, when you book.
• Closed days: the whole complex is closed on Friday 9 October, Thursday 12 November, and from Monday 30 November to Friday 4 December 2026. Its two restaurants stay closed until 11 December. Hyotan also notes maintenance closures in mid-April, mid-July and mid-December.

If you are pairing the bath with the hells, ending the afternoon in Kannawa is the easiest way to arrange the day. The tickets and buses for the hells are in our Beppu hells guide.

A quick soak near the station: Takegawara or Furosen

If you want a soak as soon as you step off the train, or just before you leave, there is no need to go up to Kannawa. Two municipal baths near Beppu Station charge around ¥300.

Takegawara Onsen still uses the building put up in 1938. Its curved front gable has become something like a symbol of Beppu’s hot springs. It is about a 10-minute walk from Beppu Station along the main street, and a regular bath costs ¥300 for an adult. The draw is the sand bath: you lie down on the sand in a yukata and an attendant covers you with sand warmed by the hot spring. It costs ¥1,500 and is open to ages 6 and up.

Expect to queue for the sand. Up to eight people can be in at once, and Takegawara takes no bookings of any kind, by phone or online. Reception closes at 21:30, or earlier when it is busy. A couple in Beppu over the 2024 year-end holidays went to Takegawara after lunch, found the next sand-bath turn was at 15:30, and took a bus to Hyotan Onsen instead. Hyotan was crowded too, they wrote, but they got into its sand bath there. If you have your heart set on a sand bath and a tight day, go to Takegawara early, or plan on Hyotan’s communal baths from the start.

Furosen is about a five-minute walk from Beppu Station and costs ¥250 for an adult. It has the largest tub of any municipal bath, with a hot tub and a lukewarm tub to choose from. There is a ramp at the entrance and an accessible toilet, and you can transfer to the bath’s own bathing wheelchair to go into the bathing area. If very hot water is too much for you, or someone in your group uses a wheelchair, those two things are the reasons to pick Furosen.

Check the closing days for both. Furosen closes on the first Monday of every month (this may change when it falls on a public holiday), and from 14:00 to 15:00 it shuts for cleaning. Takegawara closes on the third Wednesday of every month (the next day if that is a public holiday). Furosen’s monthly closure and afternoon cleaning hour do not appear on Beppu City’s English page for the bath, which mentions only a year-end maintenance closure. Go by the English page alone, turn up on a first Monday or at two in the afternoon, and you will be standing outside a locked door. For the rest of 2026 that means Furosen is closed on 2 November and 7 December, and Takegawara on 21 October, 18 November and 16 December. The city’s closure notices (updated 18 September 2026) list no temporary closure for either bath.

Bring a towel. Furosen sells them for ¥300, Takegawara for ¥350.

If the phone call is the problem

If ringing Hyotan feels like too much, a few places take bookings differently. Each comes with a catch.

Suginoi Hotel, Oita Goto (大分伍湯): five private baths at the Suginoi Hotel, open to day visitors as well as guests. Bookings are taken on the day only, from 09:00 until last reception at 21:00, at the reception desk for the hotel’s Tanayu panoramic bath, or by phone on 0977-24-1147 (+81-977-24-1147 from abroad). An hour costs ¥4,100 on weekdays and ¥5,100 on weekends, public holidays and designated dates. The Take (篁) room, with windows over the city and Beppu Bay, costs ¥5,500 and ¥6,500. In 2026 the designated dates include 10–12 October, 21–23 November and 26 December to 3 January 2027. Room for room, that is ¥1,700 more than a 60-minute Hyotan family bath on a weekday, and ¥2,700 more at the weekend. The page gives no capacity per room, so ask at the desk if your group is large. For travellers who cannot pin down a date a week ahead, the difference buys that flexibility.

Ofuyu: a private-bath facility that opened in November 2025 and takes online bookings from around 10:00 one week before the date. It accepts credit cards and gives every guest a free towel. Prices are per room: starting before 16:00 on a weekday, an hour in an indoor-bath room starts at ¥2,000 and a room with an open-air bath at ¥2,600. The price covers up to two adults, each further adult adds ¥400, and children aged 12 and under are free. It bills itself as a minute from the Beppu interchange, so it suits travellers with a rental car. The Japanese page charges the full price for cancellations from two hours before your slot, the English page from three hours, so treat three hours as the cut-off.

A hotel’s private baths: Onyado Nono Beppu, a minute’s walk from Beppu Station, has seven private baths on its 13th floor. They are first come, first served, and guests are asked to keep to about 45 minutes. The hotel group’s FAQ list of properties open to day bathers (as of 5 August 2025) does not include this one, so treat the baths as for hotel guests. The tattoo rule above applies on the same floor. A guest who stayed in midwinter and posted in January 2025 wrote that no booking was needed, and that the baths could be nearly all taken at some hours but you could find a free one by picking your time. The writer found an empty one late at night. When a hotel listing mentions a “private bath”, find out whether it is attached to your room or shared among guests by turns. A shared one is hard to fit around a child’s bedtime.

Our picks by group

Two adults on a first visit to Beppu, with time for one soak: we would go to Takegawara. It is ¥600 for the two of you, in a bath built in 1938. The same two would pay ¥2,400 for a family bath at Hyotan, and with no reason to bathe together we would not rent one. We would try for the sand bath in the morning, and if the queue were long, take a plain bath without regret. On any day but a first Monday, Furosen and its lukewarm tub are a good choice too.

With three or more, or with a child of the other sex aged seven or over, we would phone Hyotan Onsen seven days before the day we wanted to bathe. Take cash, pack towels, and at the weekend plan to be done in 60 minutes. If you are in Beppu on 9 October, 12 November or 30 November to 4 December, leave Hyotan out and choose again.