Tokyo private high schools: the general exam window, and what the first year cost in fiscal 2026

A private high school in Tokyo (私立高校, shiritsu kōkō) sets its own exam day and its own bill.

The general exam

The Tokyo association of private junior and senior high schools describes the general exam (一般入試, ippan nyūshi) as the sitting where a written paper and the other tests the school chooses decide the result. The pattern it says is the most common is Japanese, mathematics, English, and an interview. Some schools use two subjects and an interview, or an essay. An arts school may add a practical test. The school chooses. The guidebook (募集要項) at the information session is the list that counts.

The association publishes the earliest day it allows, not a single city-wide exam date.

	Earliest day each year
Application opens	25 January
Exam	10 February

Each school picks a day on or after those dates. The association's chart places this after the metropolitan recommendation days in late January and before the metropolitan first-round exam, which for April 2027 is 21 February. A student who passes this general exam and also passes the metropolitan first round can choose which school to enter. That choice is the association's rule for these two results. A recommendation pass, private or metropolitan, is a different promise the student has already made to attend, and is a different application.

Returnee exams (帰国生入試) are earlier still. The association says schools may hold them from 20 November, and its own definition is a stay abroad of at least one year and a return within three years. Each school writes its own years-abroad rule in the guidebook.

The exam fee is not one city price. In the fiscal 2026 survey below, the average application fee (検定料, kenteiryō) was 23,764 yen, across 218 courses that were recruiting. Your school's figure is on its form. Pay that one.

What the first year cost in fiscal 2026

On 18 December 2025 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government published the first-year charges at full-time private high schools in Tokyo for fiscal 2026 (the school year that started in April 2026). The survey covered 233 schools, leaving out schools that were closed. Where a course charges a different fee, each course is counted as its own row, so the averages use 278 rows. These are fiscal 2026 figures, not a forecast for April 2027.

The average first-year total was 1,007,549 yen, up 20,112 yen (2.0 percent) on the year before. The highest total in the survey was 1,942,300 yen. The lowest was 752,000 yen. Of the schools, 75 (32.2 percent) raised the total, 3 (1.3 percent) lowered it, and 155 (66.5 percent) left it unchanged.

Charge	Average, fiscal 2026	When it is paid
Tuition (授業料)	512,882 yen	Every year
Entrance fee (入学金)	254,599 yen	Once, at entry
Facility fee (施設費)	34,386 yen	Once, at entry
Other charges required by the school rules	205,805 yen	Every year
First-year total	1,007,549 yen
Application fee, for comparison	23,764 yen	When you apply

The press note says the averages are rounded, so the four lines do not add exactly to the total.

A household that lives in Tokyo may be able to reduce the tuition line through the national tuition support and Tokyo's private-school top-up. Those are separate applications, with their own residence rules. They do not, on the foundation's own description, pay the facility fee or the reserve funds. Plan for the entrance fee and the facility fee as money due at enrolment even when tuition support is approved.

What to do, and what goes wrong

The association says that if you have already handed a metropolitan enrolment pledge and a private school later offers a place from its waiting list, you tell the junior high and you may still proceed with the private school. Do not assume the metropolitan place stays open after you have gone elsewhere.

A higher first-year total is a higher bill. It is not a prediction of admission, and a lower bill is not a prediction either.

What to do now