Spouse Deduction in Japan: What It Is Worth (2026)

Last updated: 6 October 2026 · figures for the 2026 tax year (令和8年分)

A spouse who lives on your income earns you the exemption for spouse (配偶者控除, haigūsha kōjo, often called the spouse deduction) against both your income tax (所得税) and your resident tax (住民税). On ¥400,000 a month in Tokyo it is worth ¥54,900 a year. It does not vanish the moment they take a job: the deduction is the whole ¥380,000 while their salary for the year is ¥1,360,000 or less, the income-tax half of it is still whole at ¥1,690,000, and it runs out only above ¥2,070,000. What does end it early is your own income: above ¥10,000,000 there is none of it at all.

Who counts as a spouse here

The National Tax Agency sets four tests, and the first is the one that surprises people: the spouse has to be “a spouse under the provisions of the Civil Code”, and the same sentence says that “a person in a common-law relationship does not qualify”. The other three are that you share a livelihood (生計を一にする), that the spouse’s own income for the year is ¥620,000 or less, and that they are not a family employee (事業専従者) of a business of yours — paid as one at any point in the year if you file a blue return, or being one at all if you file a white one.

That limit is income, not pay. For somebody whose only earnings are a salary, the employment income deduction (給与所得控除) takes ¥740,000 off the top first, which makes it ¥1,360,000 of salary — the figure to hold on to. Everything is judged as it stands on 31 December, so a wedding in November counts for the whole of that year.

What it is worth as their pay rises

The same ¥400,000 a month in Tokyo, under 40, no bonus, and a spouse in Japan earning this much:

Above ¥1,360,000 of salary the deduction changes name rather than size: it becomes the special exemption for spouse (配偶者特別控除), and for income tax the first band of that is the same ¥380,000. The National Tax Agency’s table for it has nine rows, and the last of them ends once the spouse’s income passes ¥1,330,000, which is the ¥2,070,000 of salary above.

The two steps that move your payslip

Two of the thresholds do something visible, and neither is where people expect.

• Passing ¥1,360,000 of their salary costs you ¥2,500 a year, and not through income tax. The income-tax deduction is unchanged, but resident tax gives the first kind of exemption for spouse an adjustment (調整控除) that it does not give the special one. Same ¥380,000 for the national tax, ¥2,500 more resident tax.
• ¥950,000 of their income is where your monthly payslip changes. Up to there the spouse is a 源泉控除対象配偶者 — “any spouse whose total amount of income is 950,000 yen or less… (limited to those earners of salary, etc. whose total amount of income is 9,000,000 yen or less)” — and the monthly withholding table counts them. Your income tax each month is ¥7,910 rather than ¥10,750. Above it the table stops counting them and the monthly figure goes back up, though December still settles the year.
• 2026 puts that line in two places. On this year’s deductions ¥950,000 of income is ¥1,690,000 of salary — but payroll does not get this year’s deductions until 1 December, and the National Tax Agency says in as many words that a relative who qualifies only because of the change must be left out of the monthly count until then. Through November the same line sits at ¥1,600,000. It is the monthly figure that moves, not the year.

Your own income ends it sooner

The ¥380,000 is for a taxpayer whose own income is ¥9,000,000 or less, which for a salary and nothing else is ¥10,950,000 of pay. Above that the deduction drops to ¥260,000, above ¥11,450,000 of pay to ¥130,000, and above ¥11,950,000 it is gone — the ¥10 million page is the one about what else changes up there. A spouse of 70 or over (老人控除対象配偶者) is a larger deduction, ¥480,000, worth ¥67,500 a year on ¥400,000 a month.

Most of it is resident tax, and it is late

Resident tax has an exemption for spouse of its own, ¥330,000, and it is the bigger half of the ¥54,900: ¥19,400 of income tax in the year you claim it, and ¥35,500 of resident tax that lands the following June. In your first year in Japan there is no resident tax to reduce at all — resident tax runs a year behind.

How it is claimed

Two forms, and this page does not tell you how to fill them in. A spouse who is a 源泉控除対象配偶者 goes on the Application for (Change in) Exemption for Dependents of Employment Income Earner (扶養控除等（異動）申告書), which is what makes the monthly figure move. The deduction itself is claimed at the year-end on the Application for Basic Exemption of Employment Income Earner and the Application for Exemption for Spouse of Employment Income Earner (基礎控除申告書 兼 配偶者控除等申告書), printed on one sheet. A couple cannot each claim the other. Of the special deduction the National Tax Agency says outright that “it is not possible for a husband and wife to both qualify”, and one of the two goes without either way.

What this page does not do

It is only about what a spouse does to your take-home. The walls people talk about are about the spouse’s own income tax and their own social insurance, which are not this deduction and are not in the figures above. On the tax half of it, 2026 moved the line a long way: a spouse whose only earnings are a salary pays no income tax of their own up to ¥1,780,000 — and that is before their own social insurance is taken into account, which lifts it further.

A spouse living outside Japan is a different filing, with documents to prove the relationship and the money — claiming family abroad covers it, and a spouse is not the exemption for dependents that page is mostly about. The calculator asks for the spouse’s income rather than their salary, so subtract the ¥740,000 yourself before typing it in; it also assumes neither of you is a 事業専従者, which it has no field for. The ¥5,000,000 page works the same deduction through a different salary.

Questions people ask

My spouse earns ¥1,000,000. Have I lost the deduction?

No. That is ¥260,000 of income, comfortably inside the limit, and the table above shows the year unchanged at ¥54,900. Nothing at all happens to your deduction until their salary passes ¥1,360,000, and even then it is ¥2,500.

We married in October. Can I claim for this year?

Yes. The test is the position on 31 December, so a marriage at any point in the year counts for the whole of it — and a marriage in January does not reach back into the year before.

We both work. Can we each claim the other?

No — one of you at most, and only if the other’s income is inside the limits. In practice that means the higher earner claims, because the deduction is worth what the tax band it comes off is worth.

This is a general explanation and an estimate, not advice about your situation. How a particular household is treated, and what your employer’s payroll will accept, is a question for them and for a 税理士 (licensed tax accountant).

Sources

• National Tax Agency — No.1191 配偶者控除 (the four tests, the common-law sentence quoted above, the 2026 income limit and its salary equivalent, and the three bands of the taxpayer’s own income). Japanese.
• National Tax Agency — No.1195 配偶者特別控除 (the nine steps it tapers in, from the 2026 floor to the ceiling where it ends). Japanese.
• National Tax Agency — Withholding Tax Guide 2026 (the definition of a spouse covered by the withholding exemption, quoted above; that a husband and wife cannot both qualify; and the English names of both forms). English, PDF.
• 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 and its Q&A (the 2026 amendment that set the income limit used here, in force from 1 December 2026 and applying to the whole of the 2026 tax year; Q2-1’s note is the instruction to leave a newly qualifying relative out of the monthly count for salaries paid up to 30 November 2026). Japanese.
• National Tax Agency — No.1410 給与所得控除 and No.1199 基礎控除 (the ¥740,000 that turns an income limit into a salary one, and the basic exemption behind the point at which a spouse starts paying income tax of their own). Japanese.
• Local Tax Act (地方税法) 第314条の2 for the resident-tax exemption for spouse, and 第37条・第314条の6 for the 調整控除 — whose list of deduction differences the special deduction is not on.

See what a spouse changes on your salary