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Zeniarai Benten, Kamakura 2026: Free Entry, 8:00–16:30, How the Money Washing Works and the Snake Days to March 2027

Updated 2026-10-19

Zeniarai Benten is the one famous stop in Kamakura with no entrance fee at all: the Kanagawa tourism office lists it as free, the city's tourist association as shinou, an offering of whatever you choose. What you pay instead is the walk. The shrine sits at the dead end of the Sasuke valley, 25 minutes uphill from the west exit of Kamakura Station, open 8:00 to 16:30 with the city asking visitors to be inside by 16:00. You go in through a tunnel in the rock, borrow a bamboo basket at the office, carry it into the cave where the spring rises and ladle water over your money. The tourist association's figures also put Sasuke Inari and its 49 red torii 20 minutes from the same exit, and Kotoku-in says the Great Buddha is a 30-minute walk on from the shrine. Every number here comes from a public body or the temple's own page, read on 2026-10-19.

Map strip of the Sasuke valley west of Kamakura Station with walking minutes from the west exit: Sasuke Inari 20 minutes, offering, 49 torii; Zeniarai Benten 25 minutes, offering, open 8:00 to 16:30 and arrive by 16:00; Genjiyama Park 25 minutes, free, toilets; Kuzuharaoka Shrine 30 minutes, office 8:30 to 16:30. From Zeniarai Benten the Great Buddha is 30 minutes on foot, 300 yen, with Enoden Hase Station 7 minutes beyond. Checked 2026-10-19.
One valley, four stops, no tickets until the Buddha. The arrow is the order I would walk it: torii first, cave second, then downhill instead of back.

What is free, what is an offering, and when the gates matter

Stop From the west exit Entry Hours the sources give
Sasuke Inari Shrine 20 min offering none published; the shrine lists no gate hours
Zeniarai Benten (Ugafuku Shrine) 25 min offering (listed as free by the prefecture) 8:00–16:30, be in by 16:00
Genjiyama Park 25 min free, public toilets a city park
Kuzuharaoka Shrine 30 min offering office 8:30–16:30
Great Buddha, Kotoku-in 30 min from Zeniarai Benten ¥300, ¥150 for ages 6–12 8:00–17:00 Oct–Mar, 17:30 Apr–Sep

The only clock that bites is Zeniarai Benten's. The 16:00 advice is there because the cave is at the far end of the grounds and the basket has to come back to the office before it shuts; arrive at 16:20 and you will be turned round at the tunnel. Sasuke Inari has no gate and publishes no hours, which in practice means the torii path is open when you get there, but the office that sells amulets keeps shorter days than the hill does.

Zeniarai Benten and Sasuke Inari are both reached from the same lane up the valley, so the 20 and 25 minutes are not two trips but one. The paid temples you may want on the same day, the Great Buddha, Hasedera and Hokokuji, are added up for your group in the Kamakura temple entrance fees calculator.

Washing your money, step by step

Five tickets showing the money-washing steps at Zeniarai Benten. One, through the rock tunnel, hours 8:00 to 16:30 and arrive by 16:00. Two, borrow a bamboo basket at the office, no ticket, offering box. Three, into the cave at the back: put coins or notes in the basket and ladle spring water over them. Four, dry them with your own handkerchief and return the basket. Five, spend it: the shrine's story is that the money comes back multiplied, a custom traced to Hojo Tokiyori on a Day of the Snake. Checked 2026-10-19.
Nothing is sold to you at any step. The circled one is the part first-time visitors miss: the basket comes from the office, not from the cave.
  1. Go in through the tunnel. The shrine is in a hollow the old records call a kakurezato, a hidden village, closed in by ridges on three sides, and the only way in on foot is a tunnel cut through the rock. The hours above apply from here.
  2. Borrow a basket. At the office, ask for a zaru, the shallow bamboo basket. This is where you drop your offering if you want to; there is no price list.
  3. Into the cave. The spring, Zeniarai-mizu, rises inside a cave at the back of the grounds and is counted among Kamakura's Five Famous Waters. Put your coins or notes in the basket and pour spring water over them with the ladle.
  4. Dry them and give the basket back. Bring a handkerchief. Notes come out limp and there is nothing provided to dry them on.
  5. Spend it. The tourist association's own wording is that money washed here "is said to increase". The custom is traced to Hojo Tokiyori, the shogunate's regent, who washed coins here on a Day of the Snake and told people to do the same.

The shrine itself is older than the custom. By the legend the city repeats, Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun, was told in a dream in 1185 to find a spring in a hidden valley and honour the god there; the Kanagawa tourism office adds that the deity, Ugafukujin, is a water god shown with a snake's body and a human head. Until 1970 the place was a branch of Yasaka Shrine in Ogigayatsu, which is why a shrine this famous is this small. My reading of the ¥0: it is the shrine's choice, not an oversight. A ticket gate at the tunnel would turn a custom into an attraction, and the custom is what people come for.

Days of the Snake: the dates to March 2027, and why they matter

The Snake (mi) is Benzaiten's day, and the prefecture's page says plainly that a visit on one is held to bring the strongest luck. Snake days come every 12 days, by the same twelve-animal cycle that names the years. Every fifth one is a tsuchinoto-mi day, which comes round every 60 days and is the one the money-luck calendars circle. Those are the mornings the cave has a queue.

Calendar of the Days of the Snake from October 2026 to March 2027, every 12 days: 10 and 22 October, 3, 15 and 27 November, 9 and 21 December, 2, 14 and 26 January 2027, 7 and 19 February, 3, 15 and 27 March. The 60-day tsuchinoto-mi days, 22 October, 21 December and 19 February, are marked in red. Weekend Snake days are 10 October, 15 November, 2 January, 7 February and 27 March. Checked 2026-10-19.
Red is the 60-day cycle, bold is a weekend. The two together, as on 2 January 2027, is the morning to avoid unless the queue is part of the trip.
Month Days of the Snake Falls on a weekend
October 2026 10, 22 Sat 10
November 2026 3, 15, 27 Sun 15
December 2026 9, 21 —
January 2027 2, 14, 26 Sat 2
February 2027 7, 19 Sun 7
March 2027 3, 15, 27 Sat 27

Bold is a tsuchinoto-mi day. The dates are worked out from the 60-day cycle, anchored on two published tsuchinoto-mi days, 24 February and 23 August 2026, and they agree with the monthly calendars I checked against. For a visit on a Snake day, be at the tunnel at 8:00: the cave holds a handful of people at a time and the ladles are shared. For a quiet visit, pick any of the other 11 days in the cycle and come on a weekday; the grounds are small enough that an hour covers everything, and the prefecture's suggested stay is 45 minutes.

Sasuke Inari: 49 torii, 20 minutes, no ticket either

The shrine you pass on the way up is worth the detour of a few minutes off the lane. Sasuke Inari's own site counts 49 vermilion torii on the steps up to the hall, hung with red banners, and the hall at the top was rebuilt in 1895. The story here is also Yoritomo's: exiled in Izu, he was urged in a dream by the Inari of the hidden village to raise his army, and the shrine took its name, Sasuke, from "helping Suke", his boyhood name. For 650-odd years it belonged to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu as an outlying shrine and only became independent in 1909, which is why it is still nicknamed the Inari of promotion, Shusse Inari.

Two practical points from the shrine itself: the spring in the grounds, Reiko-sen, may be bottled and taken home but is not for drinking, and there is no parking, so the station walk is the way in. Entry is an offering, as at Zeniarai Benten. The association's 20 minutes, counted at the west exit, is the right figure; the shrine's own page says "about 20 minutes from Kamakura Station" without naming the exit, and the east exit adds the walk round the station.

Walking on: the Great Buddha is downhill, the station is not

From Zeniarai Benten, Kotoku-in gives about 30 minutes on foot to the Great Buddha, and that is the way I would leave. Walking back to the station costs you 25 minutes and shows you the same lane twice; walking on costs five minutes more and ends at the Buddha, with Hasedera five minutes beyond it and Enoden Hase Station seven. Fees, the 16:30 cut-off for going inside the statue and the goshuin times are in Kamakura Great Buddha tickets.

The valley is also the middle of the city's Kuzuharaoka–Daibutsu hiking course: about 3 km, about 1 hour 30 minutes, rated for beginners, from Kita-Kamakura Station past Jochiji and Kuzuharaoka Shrine to Genjiyama Park and down to the Buddha. Genjiyama Park, 25 minutes up from the station, is where the course and the lane from the station meet; it has public toilets and the 2-metre statue of a young Yoritomo. Kuzuharaoka Shrine, five minutes further, keeps its office open 8:30 to 16:30 and sells the matchmaking charms the course is known for. The tourist association's warnings for the course are specific: a natural mountain path with slippery and steep sections, mud after rain, hornets from summer into autumn, and shoes fit for a hill. Section times for all three Kamakura courses are in Kamakura hiking trails, and how a Sasuke-valley morning fits with Enoshima in one day is in the Kamakura day trip itinerary. Fares from each Tokyo station are in Tokyo to Kamakura by train.

Kamakura tours and passes

PR Affiliate links (disclosure): booking through them supports this site at no extra cost. Zeniarai Benten and Sasuke Inari themselves sell no tickets, online or at the gate.

Frequently asked questions

Is Zeniarai Benten a temple or a shrine?

A Shinto shrine, Ugafuku Jinja, with Buddhist statues on the grounds. The prefecture's page calls it a fusion of the two religions, and the name people use, Benten, is the Buddhist goddess Benzaiten.

When are Sasuke Inari's festival days?

The Hatsuuma festival is in February, on the first Horse day of the month. The Eleven-headed Kannon in the small Kannon hall is shown only once a year, on 18 May; the rest of the year it is closed.

Is there another money-washing shrine on a Tokyo day trip?

Yes, in Hakone. Fukasawa Zeniarai Benten stands beside the platform of Tonosawa Station on the Hakone Tozan Railway, founded in 1926 after a visiting businessman said he had been told in a vision to build a shrine by the stream; the baskets sit in front of a small pool fed by it. It is a one-stop detour from Hakone-Yumoto, covered in Hakone Tozan Railway tickets.

Official sources (checked 2026-10-19)

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