What a Japanese salary actually pays you

How this is worked out

If you would rather see it worked through on one salary first, there is a page for the most searched one: what a ¥5,000,000 package actually takes home, line by line, with the same figures for ¥3 million to ¥10 million.

Every month: social insurance, then income tax

Health insurance and the employees’ pension are not a percentage of your salary. They are a percentage of a grade (標準報酬月額) that your salary falls into — 50 grades from ¥58,000 to ¥1,390,000 for health, 32 from ¥88,000 to ¥650,000 for pension. You pay half of the premium and your employer pays the other half. In the real world the grade is fixed once a year from your April–June average and then left alone; this page reads it from the salary you typed, which is the same thing for a steady salary.

One thing that is true of the payslip but not of this page: most employers collect the insurance for a month out of the following month’s pay, so your very first payslip in Japan often has no insurance deducted at all and the second has a normal month’s worth. Over a career it comes to the same premiums, but it is not free of consequence here. It moves a whole month of insurance out of your first calendar year — on a ¥300,000 salary that is about ¥44,000 of cash you keep that year and this page shows as deducted — and because that month of insurance is no longer deducted in that year, the December calculation and the following year’s resident tax both move a little the other way. Treat the first year’s deductions here as a month heavier than they will be.

Income tax is then withheld from what is left, using the national monthly table (源泉徴収税額表 月額表), column kou (甲欄), and the number of dependents you declared. It is only an estimate all year: nobody knows in January what your December will look like. Above ¥740,000 a month after insurance the table stops printing bands and instead gives a fixed figure for each base amount plus a percentage of everything above it; this page follows the table there too, so every month on this page comes from the one table. The law allows a second method as well, 電子計算機等を使用して源泉徴収税額を計算する方法, which many payroll systems use. Both are correct and they do not always agree — on the National Tax Agency’s own worked example they are ¥7 apart. Below ¥740,000, with up to seven dependents, they stay within a few hundred yen of each other, because each band of the table is flat while the calculation climbs through it. Dependents are what open the gap up: the table takes a flat ¥1,610 off for each one past the seventh while the calculation allows ¥31,667 of income, so at ¥737,000 with twelve the two are ¥10,600 apart, and at ¥2,000,000 with twelve, ¥95,526. With no dependents they usually stay close — ¥310 and ¥156 at those same two salaries — but not everywhere: at ¥2,245,845 they are ¥5,311 apart, because the two methods taper the basic exemption (基礎控除) at different points. So your employer may withhold more or less than this page shows each month. December settles all of it — unless your salary for the year passes ¥20,000,000, in which case there is no year-end adjustment (年末調整) at all and you settle the year yourself with a final tax return (確定申告) the following year, by 15 March if you still owe tax. This page assumes a single employer throughout. If you change jobs partway through a year, what your new employer can settle in December depends on the pay and the paperwork carried over from the old one, so ask them — that case is outside this page.

December: the year is corrected

At the last payday of the year your employer runs 年末調整 — the real tax for the year, against everything already withheld. If you arrived partway through the year you will usually get a noticeable amount back, because the monthly table assumed twelve months of that salary and you were only paid for part of it. In 2026 there is a second reason: the deductions were raised by a law that takes effect on 1 December 2026, so the tables used from January to November are the old ones and the correction is unusually large.

The June after your first calendar year: resident tax

Resident tax (住民税) is about 10% of your income plus a flat part of roughly ¥5,000 a year — and it is charged on the previous calendar year, collected in twelve instalments from June to the following May, by the municipality you lived in on 1 January. (If the whole year’s bill is no more than the flat part, it comes out of June in one go instead — which is what a very short or very small first year in Japan produces.) So your first months in Japan have none of it, and then it starts — in the June that follows your first 1 January here, which for an April arrival is fourteen months in and for a September arrival is nine. The timeline above marks the month. The cliff is real, and it is the single most common surprise for people who have just moved. There is a longer explanation in why your Japanese tax goes up in your second year.

Bonuses

A bonus is insured on 標準賞与額 — the amount with anything under ¥1,000 dropped — capped at ¥5,730,000 a fiscal year for health insurance and ¥1,500,000 a month for pension. Its income tax uses a different table again: a rate chosen by last month’s salary after social insurance. A first bonus with no previous month of salary behind it falls under a separate rule in the Income Tax Act (第186条第2項) and is handled here too. This page takes one bonus per month — two in the same month are withheld differently depending on whether they are one bonus in instalments or two bonuses, and it does not ask you which.

What changed for 2026

The 2026 tax reform (令和8年度税制改正) raised two of the deductions that everyone gets. The basic exemption is ¥1,040,000 for total income up to ¥4,890,000 — up from ¥580,000 before the 2025 and 2026 reforms — and the floor of the employment income deduction is ¥740,000 for 2026 and 2027. The income threshold for counting somebody as a dependent rose to ¥620,000 of income, which is ¥1,360,000 of salary. A 19 to 22 year old earning more than that no longer falls off a cliff: the new 特定親族特別控除 tapers away up to ¥1,230,000 of their income. The law takes effect on 1 December 2026 and applies to income tax for the whole of 2026, but withholding up to November is unchanged: the December year-end adjustment applies the new deductions to all twelve months, which is why the December payslip does the work.

What this does not do

• Company health societies (健康保険組合) and public-sector mutual aid (共済組合) have their own rates. This uses 協会けんぽ.
• Deductions you claim yourself: life insurance, iDeCo, a home-loan credit, medical expenses, 寄附金 including ふるさと納税. All of them reduce the tax below what is shown.
• Foreign-source income, a second employer, and salary over ¥20,000,000 a year, which is outside 年末調整 and needs a tax return of your own. (The 2.1% 復興特別所得税 surcharge on the income tax is included — it is part of the figures, not one of the gaps.)
• Every year in the timeline is computed with the 2026 rules. The National Tax Agency has since published the 2027 withholding tables and this page does not use them yet; the insurance rates for 2027 are genuinely not out, as they are set each February. The annual totals for 2027 are unaffected — the deductions are the same for 2026 and 2027 — but the December correction shown from 2027 on is larger here than it will be in reality, because by then the amended monthly table will already be in use. From 2028 the basic exemption and the floor of the employment income deduction are both legislated to change again, and those years are computed as though they had not.
• Dependents keep the ages you enter for every year of the timeline: a child who turns 16 or 19, or a parent who turns 70, does not move band. Ages are taken on 31 December, as the tax law takes them.
• The resident-tax exemption for a low-income household uses the thresholds of a 1級地 municipality — Tokyo’s wards, the big cities and most commutable suburbs. Somewhere in a 2級地 or 3級地 they are a little lower. The extra exemptions for a person with a disability, a widow, a single parent or somebody under 20 are not modelled.
• Insurance rates change in March and April, so a timeline that starts in January, February or March of 2026 uses that April’s rates for those months rather than the previous year’s. It is a few hundred yen a month, in those months only.

Sources

• National Tax Agency — 令和8年分 源泉徴収税額表 (the monthly withholding table, the bonus rate table, and the computer-calculation method)
• National Tax Agency — 令和8年度税制改正による所得税の基礎控除の引上げ等について
• Japan Health Insurance Association — 令和8年度の都道府県単位保険料率 and the per-prefecture 保険料額表
• Japan Pension Service — 令和8年度 厚生年金保険料額表 (18.3%)
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare — 令和8年度 雇用保険料率 (0.5% for an employee in an ordinary business)
• Local Tax Act (地方税法) 第39条・第318条 on the 1 January assessment date, and 第321条の5 on collection from June
• National Tax Agency — No.2665 年末調整の対象となる人 (who gets a December year-end adjustment, and the ¥20,000,000 ceiling that ends it), No.1900 給与所得者で確定申告が必要な人 and No.2020 確定申告 (when a return takes its place, and the 16 February to 15 March filing period)

Every rate above was read from the primary source, and the test suite in this repository pins seventy-seven figures taken straight from the published premium and withholding tables, so a wrong edit fails loudly rather than quietly. Even so: this is a calculator, not tax advice. A 税理士 is the person to ask.

Two more calculators

• Unemployment benefit in Japan: how much and when — the basic allowance (基本手当) from employment insurance: the daily amount, the number of days, a calendar of payments, and the re-employment allowance.
• Childcare leave benefit calculator — what both parents receive around a birth, the months with no social insurance, and take-home month by month.

Guides

Sixty-five pages that work one question through — also listed by topic. The pay and tax ones use the same engine as the calculator above; the two on unemployment and childcare leave pay, and the one on premiums during leave, use the benefit calculators’.

• Why your first payslips in Japan have no resident tax — when the bill starts, why the June of your second year is the drop everybody notices, and what happens to it if you leave the country.
• How resident tax is calculated — the 10% income-based part and the flat per-capita part, the small adjustment credit, and one salary worked through next to income tax.
• Who pays no resident tax — the two lines by household size, how they look on a salary, smaller towns, pensions, and what being exempt brings.
• What a ¥5,000,000 salary takes home — one package line by line, with the same figures from ¥3 million to ¥10 million and for a dependent spouse, turning 40, and other prefectures.
• How much of a Japanese bonus you take home — what the four deductions take out of a bonus, and why the tax rate on it is read from last month’s salary rather than from the bonus.
• Social insurance caps for high earners — the top pension and health insurance grades, the bonus caps, and what they do to the share of a high salary that goes in premiums.
• Bonus tax with no salary the month before — why a bonus after a month without pay can have nothing withheld, why one over ten times the salary can have more, column otsu, and the month you join or leave.
• Leaving Japan mid-year: what happens to resident tax — why the bill does not stop when you do, what is left of it in each month of the year, and who pays it once you have gone.
• Claiming family abroad as dependents — the ¥380,000 rule that decides whether a relative outside Japan counts, what you file for them, and what one of them is worth a year.
• ¥10 million salary in Japan: your take-home pay — the payslip on ¥10,000,000, and why the share you keep is smaller than it is on ¥5,000,000.
• Why your December take-home pay is different — what the year-end adjustment (年末調整) settles, why a bigger refund is not the better outcome, and when December takes money instead.
• The year-end tax refund: when and how much — which payslip it comes in, why part of it can wait for January, the refund on six salaries, and putting off a large bill.
• Negotiating a salary: gross and take-home — what comes off an offer, what to ask about bonuses, commuting, housing and overtime, and comparing two offers.
• Housing allowance or company housing — why cash for rent is taxed like pay, the rent value that keeps company housing tax free, and the social insurance side.
• RSUs and stock options: how they are taxed — salary income when the shares become yours, the gain when you sell, and why shares from a parent abroad mean a tax return.
• Part-time and student income limits in 2026 — where resident tax, income tax, the family deductions and health insurance each begin, the 20-hour rule, and the student work limit.
• The commuting allowance: tax-free limits — the ceiling for trains and buses, the table by distance for cars and bicycles, why premiums still rise, and two examples.
• A spouse on your health insurance — the income line, what counts as their income, the new rule that reads the contract, and what the household pays above it.
• What a dependent spouse is worth — the exemption for spouse (配偶者控除) in money, the salary of theirs at which each part of it changes, and the income of yours that ends it.
• Filling in the spouse part of the year-end form — the two income estimates, the boxes and the table on the 配偶者控除等申告書, and what to do when the estimate turns out wrong.
• Changing jobs in Japan: what happens to your resident tax — why a new salary does not change the bill, what the month you leave decides, and why the new employer does not pick it up on its own.
• Furusato nozei for foreign residents — how a hometown tax donation comes back, the limit, the one-stop exception, when it shows, and why leaving Japan matters.
• Furusato nozei in December: a year-end checklist — paying before the year ends, the one-stop exception or a tax return, the forms that must arrive in January, and the receipts to keep.
• The ¥200,000 side-income rule — when side income means filing a tax return, why resident tax has no such rule, and the cliff one yen above the line.
• How side income is taxed: freelance, stocks and crypto — business or miscellaneous income, withholding accounts and NISA, crypto for 2026, and which of them count towards the filing line.
• Does iDeCo change your monthly take-home? — how paying from your own account and paying through payroll differ, and the December 2026 limit increase.
• iDeCo in the year-end adjustment: how to claim — when the contribution certificate comes, the line on the insurance premium form, payroll contributions, and what to do if you miss it.
• ¥3 million salary in Japan: take-home pay explained — a first salary line by line, with and without a bonus, and why the first year keeps more.
• ¥6 million salary in Japan: what you actually take home — the payslip on ¥6,000,000 and the two tax lines just above it.
• Sick leave pay: how the sickness allowance works — the waiting days, two-thirds of a daily rate from your insurance grade, what is left once premiums are paid, and the claim form.
• Employee health insurance or National Health Insurance — how each premium is set, who covers your family, sick pay, and the three choices when you leave a job.
• How retirement allowance (taishokukin) is taxed — the deduction for years of service, the half rule and its exceptions, and the form that stops 20.42% being withheld.
• ¥4 million salary in Japan: take-home pay explained — the payslip on ¥4,000,000, with and without a bonus, month by month from arrival.
• Why your first paycheck has no health insurance or resident tax — insurance a month behind, resident tax a year behind, and why the first payslip withholds more income tax.
• Salary paid in arrears: the first months — closing dates and paydays, why the first month can bring no pay, and the first three payslips on two pay cycles.
• Two jobs: social insurance and tax — when both employers insure you, column otsu at the second job, and the tax return it leads to.
• Why your take-home drops in October — how April to June pay resets the insurance grade, when it moves mid-year instead, and when an April raise reaches the payslip.
• Why your take-home drops at 40 — the long-term care insurance premium that starts at 40, the birthday rule for its first month, and the difference on three salaries.
• Social insurance rates for 2026: what changed — health insurance by prefecture, the new child-care support levy, care insurance, pension and employment insurance, and what they do to take-home.
• Unemployment benefit in Japan for foreign residents — how the daily amount and the number of days are worked out, when the first payment arrives, and why applying late can cost days.
• After quitting a job: money and deadlines — the 14-day deadlines for health insurance and pension, a month of money on the benefit, the pension exemption for job loss, and the tax on the year.
• How much you get on childcare leave — 67% then 50%, why take-home falls by less than pay, and the months before the first payment.
• Japan’s income tax brackets, explained — the seven bands and the surtax, how a salary becomes taxable income, and why the share you pay is far below your top band.
• The monthly withholding table, explained — the two numbers payroll reads it with, columns kou and otsu, bonuses, and why December settles it.
• How to read a Japanese payslip — every line of a 給与明細 in English: the grade behind health insurance and pension, the monthly tax table, and why the deductions move in June and October.
• The exemption for dependents: children and parents — who counts, the amounts by age, a student who earns more, and what each is worth on a salary.
• How the 2026 basic deduction change affects your take-home — the new bands for 2026 and 2027, what they are worth on three salaries, and why most of it arrives in December.
• When social insurance premiums are waived on childcare leave — the month-end rule, the 14-day rule and the more-than-a-month rule for bonuses, with worked dates.
• Maternity and childcare leave: the tax side — why none of the benefits is taxed, your partner’s exemption for spouse, your own year, and the medical expense deduction for the birth.
• How to read your gensen-choshuhyo (withholding tax statement) — every box in English, what an empty box means, and three things on it that point to a tax return.
• Withholding tax statement or tax certificate? — what the gensen-choshuhyo, the resident tax certificate and the tax payment certificates each show, which a visa or a loan asks for, and how to get them.
• Tax documents to keep, and for how long — withholding statements, insurance and donation certificates, medical receipts and business books, why the usual answer is five years, and what to take when you leave.
• Why 20.42% is withheld from your salary as a non-resident — working holidays and other stays under a year, why the flat rate is not refunded, when you count as a resident instead, and resident tax.
• Resident, non-permanent resident or non-resident — how Japan decides your tax category, what each one is taxed on, the first five years, and why 183 days is not the test.
• Leaving Japan mid-year: final tax return and tax agent — the year-end adjustment before you go, the return some people must file before departure, and the tax agent that moves it to the usual season.
• Year-end tax adjustment (nenmatsu chosei): which forms you file — each declaration in English, the documents for relatives abroad, arriving or leaving mid-year, and when a tax return is still needed, with a five-question checker.
• Year-end adjustment missed or wrong — what your employer can still redo until the end of January, the tax return after that, and what usually goes wrong for people from abroad.
• When employees must file a tax return — a table of the cases where an employee must file, the cases where filing brings money back, the filing season and the smartphone route.
• Japan’s pension: what you pay and get back — employees’ and national pension premiums, the ten-year rule, the refund if you leave sooner, and social security agreements.
• National pension exemption: how to apply — the four exemptions and the deferrals for under-50s and students, the income limits, the job-loss exemption, and paying it back later.
• Checking your pension record on Nenkin Net — the two ways in, what the record and the estimate show, the yearly statement by post, and the gaps worth checking.
• Your last paycheck before leaving Japan — why it can carry two months of social insurance, how the day you leave decides that, and where the early year-end adjustment and resident tax fit in.
• Leaving Japan: the pension refund and your last taxes — who can claim the Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment, how the 20.42% withheld from it comes back through a tax agent, resident tax for the year you go, and one order for all of it.
• Life insurance deduction: what the autumn certificate saves — where the insurer’s certificate goes, which policies count, the three categories and their limits, and what the deduction is worth on three salaries.
• Medical expense deduction: how to claim — the threshold, what counts, family members, treatment abroad, the self-medication option and what it gives back on two salaries.