Five National Art Museums Will Charge ¥1,000 for Their Collection Exhibitions. The Fee Rise Was Written into the Medium-Term Objectives the Education Ministry Set in February

In September 2026 the National Museum of Art, the independent administrative institution that runs seven national museums, announced that it would revise the admission fees for the collection exhibitions at its museums. Six[1] of the seven are covered, all but the National Art Center, Tokyo, which has no collection. The new fees start at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto on 24 October 2026 and reach the National Crafts Museum last, on 22 June 2027.

General admission will be ¥1,000 at five of the museums, and the fees before and after are as follows.

According to the announcement, the following free admission to collection exhibitions continues: for high school students and younger, those under 18 or aged 65 and over, and holders of disability certificates with one companion. Benefits under the National Museum of Art Campus Members scheme, each museum's membership schemes and annual passports also continue.

Collection screenings at the National Film Archive of Japan also go up. General admission rises from ¥520 to ¥1,000, and university students, high school students and those aged 65 and over go from ¥310 to ¥500, while the ¥100 fee for elementary and junior high school students is unchanged.

According to the archive's visitor information（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます）, collection screenings are free for holders of disability certificates with one companion, and for students and staff of Campus Members schools that use the archive (same-day tickets only). The announcement says that free admission for holders of disability certificates with one companion continues, as do the Campus Members benefits.

The announcement gives two reasons for the revision. One is to further enrich the exhibition and screening of the collection, and to improve the viewing environment through digital services and better accessibility. The other is rising costs: in recent years, higher prices and energy costs have pushed up the cost of transport, gallery attendants and security, and exhibition construction.

The Tokyo Shimbun covered the fee rise on 25 September 2026 and carried a comment on the medium-term objectives from Naoya Yokota, representative director of ISVD and the author of this article.

The purpose of art is turning into a question of business, of whether it can make money, rather than of shaping culture. Only people who have money will be able to go, and I wonder whether it will drift further away from shaping culture.

(Tokyo Shimbun, 25 September 2026; translated from Japanese)

The announcement does not use the words "medium-term objectives", "self-generated revenue" or "operating grant" even once. Reading the announcement alone, one cannot tell that the fee rise is an item written into the government's objectives and the institution's own plan.

Targets the minister sets for a fixed period and issues to an institution

The National Museum of Art is an independent administrative institution. Article 29 of Japan's Act on General Rules for Incorporated Administrative Agencies, the general law on independent administrative institutions, requires the competent minister to set operational targets for a period of three to five years, issue them to the institution and publish them. These are the medium-term objectives. Under Article 30 of the same Act, the institution then draws up a medium-term plan based on them.

The current objectives for the National Museum of Art were set by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on 27 February 2026. They cover the five years from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2031. The National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, which runs the national museums, received objectives of the same form on the same date.

Long-term limits on tax revenue, given as the reason

In their section on the institution's current state and challenges, the objectives explain why self-generated revenue should grow.

Japan's declining birth rate, ageing and shrinking population have become a long-term constraint on the country's effective tax revenue. The situation in which operating grants and facility maintenance subsidies make up more than 60% of income needs to be improved, and, drawing on examples from other countries, how to secure self-generated revenue is considered a challenge for running the National Museum of Art sustainably into the future.

(translated from Japanese)

An operating grant is money the state provides to an independent administrative institution to fund its work, based on Article 46 of the same law. When the objectives were set, operating grants and facility maintenance subsidies made up more than 60%[2] of the National Museum of Art's income.

Still, the grant to the institution as a whole rose in FY2026. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the operating grant the state provided to the National Museum of Art for FY2026 was ¥8.46 billion[3]. It newly includes measures for rising prices and is about ¥320 million more than the previous year.

Raising admission fees, in the original text

After listing stronger collection exhibitions and closer ties with regional museums, the objectives contain this sentence on admission fees.

On top of this, from the standpoint of securing diverse, high-quality opportunities to view art on a sustained basis, each museum shall raise its admission fees and introduce dual pricing during the period of these medium-term objectives.

(translated from Japanese)

The section on expanding self-generated revenue by diversifying funding goes further. It says admission fees for collection exhibitions are to be raised in step with enriching those exhibitions, and dual pricing, with separate prices for residents of Japan and for inbound (non-resident) visitors, is to be introduced as well. For donations, it also mentions using crowdfunding.

The same section opens by stating that securing appropriate operating grants and facility maintenance subsidies is indispensable. The aim is not to end the grants. In the objectives' own words, it is a shift to a financial structure that does not rely solely on state funds such as operating grants.

65% of exhibition costs

The numerical target comes in the sentence that follows the measures on raising admission fees, extending evening opening and disclosing more detail.

Through the above, the ratio of self-generated revenue from exhibition programs to the costs of exhibition programs across the institution (including the personnel costs of curators engaged in exhibitions and the facility and other costs exhibitions require) shall be at least 65% in the final year of the current medium-term period, while aiming to reach 100% during the next medium-term period.

(translated from Japanese)

The indicator section gives 53%[2] as the FY2024 result. The order, then, is to raise the share from 53% in FY2024 to at least 65% in FY2030, and to aim for 100% during the next medium-term period.

1. FY202453%Result (reference figure in the objectives' indicator section)
   ↓
2. FY203065% or moreTarget for the final year of the current objectives
   ↓
3. Next medium-term period100%Aimed for during that period

The denominator is the cost of exhibition programs, including the personnel costs of curators engaged in exhibitions and the facility and other costs exhibitions require. The Agency for Cultural Affairs says the numerical target was set for exhibitions only.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs' questions and answers（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） explain the scope of the target. A museum's work covers four areas: collecting and conserving works, education, research and exhibitions. The numerical target for self-generated revenue applies only to exhibitions, and the state budget funds the other three.

Reorganization for museums "below 40%, among other signs"

The objectives also draw a line for each museum. Museums whose share, in the fourth year of the five, falls below 40%, among other signs of not fully fulfilling the role society expects of them[2], become subject to reorganization. The specific reorganization is to be set out in the next medium-term plan from FY2031 and then carried out.

On this reorganization, the Agency for Cultural Affairs answers that it does not envisage closing museums. It adds that a museum's exhibition revenue falling below 40% will not by itself immediately make it subject to reorganization.

ISVD's column（このサイトの記事） from March 2026 and article（このサイトの記事） from May linked these targets to reorganization including closure and to zero operating grants. Neither appears in the original objectives, and both pieces were corrected on 25 September 2026.

An announcement silent on the medium-term objectives

Here are the announcement and the objectives side by side.

Announcement

National Museum of Art, September 2026

Reason 1

Richer exhibits and viewing

Reason 2

Higher prices and energy

Uses of the words “medium-term objectives”

0

Medium-term objectives

MEXT, February 2026

Reason given

Quality viewing access

Admission fees

Raise in the period

Dual pricing

Introduce in the period

Self-generated share

65%+ by FY2030

The announcement, the objectives and the Agency for Cultural Affairs give overlapping reasons. The announcement mentions neither that the rise was already set to be carried out during the period nor the 65% numerical target. The 65% is a share of exhibition costs covered by self-generated revenue.

The two reasons the announcement gives overlap with the Agency for Cultural Affairs' explanation. In its questions and answers, the Agency gives as reasons for revising admission fees the higher cost of exhibitions caused by recent price rises, and the measures needed to provide attractive exhibitions and a better viewing environment. The objectives likewise say that fees are to be raised "from the standpoint of securing diverse, high-quality opportunities to view art on a sustained basis", in step with enriching the collection exhibitions.

The National Museum of Art itself also wrote the fee rise into the sixth medium-term plan it published in March 2026, which says that admission fees will be raised and dual pricing introduced during the period. Its FY2026 plan says it will begin considering how to introduce dual pricing, and that each museum will work to keep its share from falling below 40% in the fourth year.

The announcement mentions neither that the fee rise was an item in the government's objectives and the institution's own plan, nor the numerical target of covering at least 65% of exhibition costs with self-generated revenue. The revision was the National Museum of Art's own decision, but a reader of the announcement alone cannot tell how it came about.

The new price list does not separate residents from non-residents, so dual pricing is not part of this revision. If the objectives are followed, there will be another revision by March 2031 that separates the fees for residents and non-residents.

Curators' salaries in the denominator

A ratio rises when the numerator, self-generated revenue, grows faster than the denominator, exhibition costs. The denominator in this target includes the personnel costs of curators engaged in exhibitions and the facility costs exhibitions require.

Raising admission fees is one way to increase the numerator. Donations and renting out facilities are also listed as ways to expand self-generated revenue, but the objectives do not define whether they count in this ratio's numerator.

The target for reducing costs is in a separate section. General administrative and operating expenses for activities funded by operating grants are to be made at least 5% more efficient[2] by the final year, compared with FY2025 and excluding the effect of price rises. Personnel costs and purchases of artworks are outside that target.

Even so, because exhibition costs include personnel costs, cutting the people and facilities involved in exhibitions would also raise the ratio on paper. The same objectives, however, call for securing highly specialized staff, in the sections on the institution's current state and on personnel planning, and also mention preparing the facilities needed for long-term display. Looking only at the ratio, both paths look like the same achievement.

The objectives do not track the ratio alone. They also include an indicator to run satisfaction surveys for collection exhibitions, special exhibitions, and the National Film Archive of Japan's screenings and exhibitions, and to have around 80%[2] of respondents answer "good" or better. The average results at the time of the projected assessment for the previous objectives period (FY2021 to FY2024) were 84.5% for collection exhibitions and 87.8% for special exhibitions.

Even so, the ratio target does not measure what happened to the people who came to see the works. How to measure outcomes is covered in our guide to designing outcome indicators（このサイトの記事）.

What disclosure would show

The objectives state that detailed disclosure of visitor numbers, admission revenue and other income is to be advanced.

One point to watch is each museum's ratio in FY2029, the fourth year of the five. The objectives make that the year in which museums "below 40%, among other signs" become subject to reorganization, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs says a share below 40% alone does not immediately make a museum subject to reorganization.

Another point to watch is when dual pricing arrives, and at what price. It is not in the new price list, and the FY2026 plan says it will begin considering how to introduce it.

Visitor numbers for collection exhibitions are already published by museum in the institution's performance report（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます）, and admission revenue by museum in its annexed statements（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます）, but the revenue figures do not separate collection exhibitions from special exhibitions. Once disclosure advances, visitor numbers and admission revenue can be checked in figures. Whether the split between those who pay and those admitted free will be disclosed is not stated in the objectives.

There is a target to raise the share of exhibition costs covered by admission fees and other income. Who pays those fees is not shown in the National Museum of Art's performance report.

When the ratio reaches 65%, will it be because more people came to see the works, or because the burden on those who pay went up? Telling the two apart takes visitor numbers split between those who paid and those admitted free.

Recommended Reading

• 転換期の博物館経営: 指定管理者制度・独立行政法人の検証と展望 (Museum Management at a Turning Point: Examining the Designated Manager System and Independent Administrative Institutions)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (edited by 金山喜昭, 同成社). As its subtitle says, the book examines two forms of museum management, the designated manager system and the independent administrative institution. It is a starting point for thinking, from the side of museum management, about what it means for national museums to be run as independent administrative institutions.

References

Medium-Term Objectives for the National Museum of Art (27 February 2026) — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2026). Agency for Cultural Affairs

Medium-Term Plan of the National Museum of Art (Sixth Term) — National Museum of Art (2026). National Museum of Art

FY2026 Annual Plan of the National Museum of Art — National Museum of Art (2026). National Museum of Art

Revision of admission fees for collection exhibitions at the National Museum of Art — National Museum of Art (2026). National Museum of Art

On the next medium-term objectives for the national museums and national art museums — Agency for Cultural Affairs (2026). Agency for Cultural Affairs

On reports about the National Film Archive of Japan's crowdfunding — Agency for Cultural Affairs (2026). Agency for Cultural Affairs

Sixth Medium-Term Objectives for the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2026). Agency for Cultural Affairs

Act on General Rules for Incorporated Administrative Agencies (Act No. 103 of 1999; the general law on independent administrative institutions) — e-Gov Law Search (1999). Digital Agency

National Museum of Art sharply raises admission fees; the state's call for exhibitions that earn draws the response that a country that slights culture is not an advanced nation (in Japanese) — Tokyo Shimbun (2026). Tokyo Shimbun (25 September 2026)