Smoking in Osaka
Osaka tightened this twice in three months, in 2025-01-27 and 2025-04-01. Anything written before 2025 is wrong about both.
Outdoors: the whole city
Since 2025-01-27 smoking on the street is banned across the whole of Osaka city, on roads, squares, parks and other public places. Smoking there is subject to a fine of 1,000 yen. Osaka City
It was not always the whole city. Until then the ban covered named districts only, which is why older guides tell you it applies in Umeda and Namba and nowhere else.
Where you can
The city runs designated smoking places that are free and open to anyone, indoors and outdoors, and maps them ward by ward. Osaka City
The city also lists smoking places inside shops and commercial buildings, separately from its own. Those usually expect you to be a customer.
Indoors: what changed in 2025
Indoor smoking in restaurants and bars has been prohibited in principle since April 2020 under national law, with an exemption for existing small places.
In Osaka Prefecture that exemption got much smaller on 2025-04-01. A place needs to have been trading on 1 April 2020, to have capital of 50 million yen or less, and to have 30 square metres of seating or less. The seating threshold used to be 100. Osaka Prefecture
In practice: a place bigger than that is indoor no-smoking, whatever it did before. The sign at the door tells you which case you are in.
喫煙専用室
Smoking only. You cannot eat or drink in it.
加熱式たばこ専用喫煙室
Heated tobacco only, and eating and drinking are allowed.
喫煙可能室
The exemption for an existing small place. Smoking and eating together.
Sources
- Osaka City: the street ban extended citywide
- Osaka City: where smoking is possible
- Osaka Prefecture: the ordinance in full force
- Osaka Prefecture: the rules for restaurants
Read 2026-09-24. The Japanese era dates on those pages were converted here by hand, not by a machine: 令和7年1月27日 is 2025-01-27, and the first automatic reading of it came back 2026.
