What's a realistic daily budget for a Japan ski trip?

Flights and accommodation are where a Japan ski trip actually gets expensive or stays cheap, and those get decided months out. Day to day, once you're there, the spend is smaller and more predictable, which is the part people usually mean when they ask about a daily budget.

A single day's lift pass at most resorts covered on this site sits in a fairly narrow band, and multi-day passes bring the per-day cost down further, sometimes considerably. Buying online ahead of time is usually a little cheaper than paying at the window, and it skips the queue on a morning when everyone else is also trying to buy a ticket.

On-mountain food is the one area foreign visitors are consistently surprised by, in a good way. A proper hot lunch at a resort restaurant, the kind that would be an overpriced afterthought at a lot of Western resorts, is genuinely reasonable in Japan, and convenience stores at the base area cover a cheap breakfast or snacks without much thought.

Rental gear, if you need it, and a lesson if you're booking one, are the two line items that swing a daily budget the most, and both vary a lot by resort and season demand. Book both ahead where you can: walk-up rates for either are usually the most expensive way to pay, and popular resorts can simply run out of instructor slots on a powder day.

The other cost that's easy to forget until you're there: an onsen visit, if it isn't already included in your accommodation. Most are inexpensive on their own, but they add up over a week if you're going most nights, which, once you've tried one after a day on the mountain, you probably will be.