The first hour is booked online.
Almost nobody books it.

Three things decide whether this visit works: the hour you arrive, the time you allow, and whether you book the quiet first or last hour online. Everything else is ¥200 and a coin locker.

The Peace Memorial Museum is walk-up for most of the day: buy at the counter, a machine or online. Only the first hour after opening and the last hour before closing are online-reservation-only, and those are the emptiest hours the building has. Around Obon it goes further — in 2026 it took no walk-ups at all from 8 to 16 August, with timed tickets released on 29 May; the 2027 arrangements have not been announced.

Two corrections to things you have almost certainly read elsewhere. The day does not start with the walk-up queue: there is an earlier hour, bookable online only, and it is the emptiest the building ever gets — most visitors never hear about it. And 6 August runs on its own timetable: the museum opens only after the ceremony, at a time the city announces each summer, and a Prime Minister's tour can hold entry back further. That single fact breaks more Hiroshima itineraries than anything else in the city — the detail is on the 6 August page.

Allow two hours in the Peace Memorial Museum, three if you read properly, and leave the two hours after it empty. At the museum's own published peak, 11:00 to 15:00, crowding inside has made it hard to move through the galleries at all. Everyone who budgeted 45 minutes regrets it.

If you want the official anchor rather than ours: the museum's own ¥500 audio guide runs about 70 minutes of narration, which is the only duration the institution itself publishes. Treat 70 minutes as the floor, 90 minutes as a fast pass, and two hours as a normal unhurried visit.

The museum's own numbers explain why. FY2025 brought 2,580,926 admissions — a third consecutive record — of which 945,618, or 36.6%, were overseas visitors. Mid-August is the worst of it: in 2026 the city trialled all-day online reservation for the Obon week for the first time. The museum also runs live congestion cameras on its own website — outside the entrance, at the East Building entrance and on the 3rd-floor corridor; check them the morning you go, because they will tell you more than any guide can.

All year: the first hour after opening and the last hour before closing are online-reservation-only, capped at 300 visitors, and no tickets are sold at the counter for them. The rest of the day is walk-up — counter, ticket machine or online — with no cap, which is also why you may queue. The museum itself recommends the reserved hours as the less-crowded way to visit, which is unusual candour and worth taking at face value.

Mid-August: in 2026 the city trialled all-day online reservation for the Obon week, 8–16 August, capped at 1,000 people an hour — the first time it had done so. Whether it returns in 2027 has not been announced; if your dates fall in mid-August, check the museum's site from late May.

Web tickets go on sale 90 days ahead, at midnight Japan time. Domestic sales run through Asoview and overseas sales through Klook; the price is the same ¥200 you would pay at the counter.

The 2019 renovation completed a shift that began when the life-sized burn-victim figures were removed in 2017. What the building leads with now is ihin — belongings left by the dead — and survivor testimony. A tricycle. A school uniform. A watch stopped at 8:15. It is less graphic than its reputation, and the museum still warns that the exhibits "can be quite disturbing". Both of those are true at once.

Photography and video are permitted throughout, without flash, for personal use; flash, or shooting for publication, needs an application in advance. No tripods, no selfie sticks, no large bags — lockers are on the first floor of the East Building. No phone calls in the galleries; eating and drinking only in the first-floor Visitor's Lounge. The conduct page covers the gap between what is permitted and what is actually done, which is the more useful distinction.

The free daily English testimony talk runs 13:00–14:00 in the East Building's basement Temporary Exhibition Room, with no booking. It is the single most valuable free thing in the park and it is covered in full on the testimony page.