Year-End Adjustment in Japan: Forms in English

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

The year-end adjustment (年末調整) settles your income tax for the whole year, usually in the December or January payslip, and the stack of Japanese forms your employer hands out every autumn decides what it can take into account. The employer works out the year’s tax with your deductions and settles the difference from what it withheld each month. Your part is to fill in up to four declarations and attach the right documents. This page explains each form in English, the extra documents for relatives living abroad, what changes if you arrived or leave during the year, and when you still need a final tax return (確定申告).

This is a general explanation for an employee paid a salary in Japan. Your employer and the National Tax Agency are the authority on what applies to you, and a 税理士 can act for you.

Check what you hand in

Five questions. The answers stay in this page: nothing you choose is sent anywhere.

The forms, in English

Your employer may hand them out on paper or through a payroll app; the content is the same. The names below are the National Tax Agency’s for 2026.

The 2026 forms carry the higher basic exemption (基礎控除) and the new income limits for dependents, which take effect on 1 December 2026; the 2026 guide to that change explains why most of it reaches you in this adjustment.

Relatives living abroad (non-resident relatives, 国外居住親族): the documents

A spouse or relative who lives outside Japan can be claimed at the year-end adjustment, but only with documents, and a Japanese translation of any that are in another language:

• Documents concerning relatives (親族関係書類), with the dependent declaration: a copy of a family register record (戸籍の附票) together with a copy of the relative’s passport, or official documents from their own country that show how they are related to you and carry their name, date of birth and address — a birth or marriage certificate, for example. An identity card on its own does not show the relationship, so it is not enough.
• Documents concerning remittances (送金関係書類), at the year-end adjustment: records showing money you paid to each relative, one by one, during the year — from a bank or money-transfer service, or a credit card statement for a family card they use.
• For a relative other than a spouse aged 30 to 69 on 31 December, only one of three routes counts: they left Japan to study (add a copy of their student visa or the foreign equivalent of a residence card), they are a person with a disability under Japanese income tax law (a certificate from another country does not settle that by itself), or they received ¥380,000 or more from you during the year (the documents concerning remittances have to show that total).

At the year-end you also hand back this year’s dependent declaration with the total you sent each relative during the year written in (生計を一にする事実). If the documents concerning remittances are not ready in time, your employer leaves that relative out, and you claim them on a tax return. The overseas dependents guide goes through the age bands and what each relative is worth.

If you arrived or leave during the year

Arrived this year. If this is your first job in Japan, the adjustment covers your pay from it, with the full year’s deductions — they are not cut down for the months before you started. If you had another main job in Japan earlier in the year — one where you gave the dependent declaration — give your new employer the withholding tax statement (源泉徴収票) from it: the adjustment includes that pay. Without the slip there is no adjustment, and the year is settled by a final tax return. Pay from an earlier side job, without the declaration, is not included; the two-jobs rule below covers it. The withholding tax statement guide explains each box.

Leaving to live abroad. If you move abroad for a year or more you generally become a non-resident for tax, and if you are still employed when you go, the adjustment is done with your last salary as a resident, not in December. A shorter posting abroad usually leaves you a resident, with the usual adjustment. Only insurance premiums paid by the day you leave count, and dependents are judged on that day. If that last salary is paid on or before 30 November 2026, the adjustment uses the old deductions: the 2026 changes are claimed afterwards, by a tax return or a correction claim (更正の請求). The leaving Japan guide covers the return some people must file before departure and the tax agent who files it later instead.

When you still file a tax return

For most employees the adjustment is the end of it. You still must file a tax return if:

• your salary from all your jobs together is over ¥20,000,000 (if the pay from your main job alone is over that, there is no adjustment either);
• you have two jobs, and the pay that was not adjusted plus any other income comes to more than ¥200,000 — unless your salaries in total, less your deductions (leaving out the basic exemption and those for medical expenses, donations and casualty losses), come to ¥1,500,000 or less and your other income to ¥200,000 or less;
• you have one job and other income — freelance work, rent — of more than ¥200,000 after expenses. The side income guide explains that line;
• you are paid for work in Japan by a payer with no Japanese withholding obligation — an employer abroad, for example — whatever the amount: the ¥200,000 lines above assume all your salary is subject to Japanese withholding (a month where the table comes to ¥0 still is).

And you file one to claim what the adjustment cannot give you: medical expenses, the first year of the home-loan credit, and relatives whose documents arrived late. Hometown tax donations (ふるさと納税) need a return too, unless you gave to five municipalities or fewer and sent each the one-stop special procedure application; and filing a return for any reason cancels that application, so every donation then goes on the return.

Questions people ask

Do I have to do the year-end adjustment?

Your employer does it if you work there to the end of the year (or leave Japan while still employed, as above), it holds your dependent declaration and your pay from it for the year is not over ¥20,000,000. If you leave the job partway through the year and do not start another, there is usually none — the exceptions are leaving after the December pay and — only if no one else pays you a salary for the rest of the year, a side job included — a salary for the year of ¥1,360,000 or less or leaving because of a serious illness or disability — and a tax return settles the year. (Under those exceptions the adjustment is done when you leave; with that last pay before 1 December 2026 it uses the old deductions, and the 2026 changes are claimed afterwards by a return.) Your part is to hand in the declarations and documents on time. If you leave something out, the deduction it would have given is not applied, and you can still claim it on a tax return.

Can I claim my parents abroad at the year-end adjustment?

Yes, if they qualify as dependents and you give your employer the documents concerning relatives and, at the adjustment, the documents concerning remittances, with translations. A parent aged 30 to 69 counts only if they left Japan to study, have a disability, or received ¥380,000 or more from you during the year.

I started work in Japan in October. Is my income from abroad earlier in the year included?

The adjustment covers the salary paid by Japanese employers that hold your dependent declaration, and it is worked out with the full year’s deductions. Pay from a job abroad before you moved is not part of it. Whether you need to report any other income is a question for a tax return, and depends on your residence status for tax.

Sources

• National Tax Agency — 令和８年分 年末調整のしかた (the four declarations by name, the dependent declaration due before the first pay of the year, the home-loan credit on a return in the first year and at the adjustment from the second)
• National Tax Agency — No.2665 年末調整の対象となる人 (only with the dependent declaration; not above ¥20,000,000; the adjustment on becoming a non-resident) and No.2511 税額表の種類と使い方 (the 乙欄 column)
• National Tax Agency — No.2674 中途就職者の年末調整 (an earlier employer’s pay included through its withholding tax statement; deductions not cut down)
• National Tax Agency — 国外居住親族に係る扶養控除等の適用について and its Q&A (relationship, remittance and student documents; the 30 to 69 rule and ¥380,000; translations; the total sent written on the declaration; documents not ready by the adjustment)
• National Tax Agency — No.2517 海外に転勤する人の年末調整と転勤後の源泉徴収 (premiums paid by departure, dependents judged at departure)
• National Tax Agency — No.1900 給与所得者で確定申告が必要な人 (over ¥20,000,000; other income over ¥200,000; two jobs)
• National Tax Agency — No.1120 医療費を支払ったとき（医療費控除） and No.1155 ふるさと納税（寄附金控除）
• 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 (effect from 1 December 2026, settled in the December adjustment)