Tickets for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be available from the Spring of 2019.

If you are a resident of Japan, there will be an open lottery from May 9 to 28, 2019 in which you can win a chance at tickets before they are made available to the rest of the world. This apparently is not normal practice as other Olympics have made tickets available to people around the world at the same time.

For more information on this lottery process, please see this Tokyo2020 site in English.  The video, with English subtitles, below highlights this process and timeline.

The first step for residents of Japan is to get your Tokyo2020 ID. If you can’t read Japanese, find a friend who can. If you can, and you have a physical address in Japan, here are the steps:

1. Go to this site: https://id.tokyo2020.jp/
2. Input your email address
3. When you get an email from Tokyo 2020, click on the link to a registration page
4. Input your address, phone number, password etc
5. Pick your favorite Olympic events
6. Pick your favorite Paralympic events
7. Get confirmation email from Tokyo 2020

For those outside Japan, keep your eyes open for announcements in the Spring of 2019. The online site for the Japan travel agency, JTB, may be your best bet to buy via the internet.

For information on events and approximate pricing, go here. As the announcement states, “ticket prices and the application process will vary from country to country, although the structure will be broadly in line with that for tickets purchased in Japan.”

Again, for detailed information in English, go here.

Good luck!