Childcare Leave in Japan: Social Insurance Waiver

Last updated: 6 October 2026 · rules for leave starting on or after 1 October 2022

While you are on childcare leave (育児休業) in Japan, health insurance and pension premiums are waived — yours and your employer’s. Which months are waived, and whether a bonus is, depends on the exact dates. On ¥300,000 a month in Tokyo a waived month is ¥42,570 you do not pay, so a day either side of a month end can matter.

Your employer notifies the Japan Pension Service and decides the dates with you under its own leave rules. This page explains how the rules read; it does not decide your case.

The three rules

• Month-end rule. Monthly premiums are waived from the month the leave starts to the month before the one containing the day after it ends. In practice: a month is waived if you are on leave on its last day.
• 14-day rule. If the leave starts and ends in the same month, that month is still waived when the leave in it is 14 days or more (leave starting from 1 October 2022). Work during post-birth childcare leave (産後パパ育休), done by arrangement with your employer, comes off the 14: a full day worked takes off that day, and hours worked are added up and divided by your normal working day, dropping any fraction. Four hours in total against an eight-hour day takes off nothing.
• Bonus rule. A bonus is free of premiums only if the leave covers the last day of the bonus month and lasts more than a month in a row.

What the dates do

A December bonus in each case, and no work during the leave. “Months waived” are the months with no monthly premium.

Three things stand out. Leave from 5 December to 4 March does not waive March, because it has ended before March’s last day. Leave from 1 to 31 December waives December’s monthly premium but not the December bonus: it is exactly a month, not more than one; add one day and the bonus is waived too. And a short leave inside December is waived at 14 days and not at 13.

Why the last day of the month matters

The month-end rule looks at one day of each month: the last. Leave that started in December and ends on 30 January leaves January’s premium to pay, and leave that ends on 31 January does not — one day, a whole month of premiums. The same day decides whether the month the leave starts in counts, unless the leave in it reaches 14 days. The childcare leave benefit (育児休業給付金) follows its own rules: each full payment period counts as a fixed number of days and the last one counts the days up to the end of the leave, so moving the end date can change the benefit too, though not always by exactly a day. The month-end rule decides only which months carry a premium.

Leave dates are not a free choice. They are agreed with your employer under the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act and the employer’s own rules, and a leave that has started can only be changed in the ways those allow. The point of knowing the rule is to understand the payslips that follow, and to ask the right question when the dates are being set.

Maternity leave comes first

A mother usually takes maternity leave (産前産後休業) before childcare leave. Premiums are waived during maternity leave as well, from the month it starts to the month before the one containing the day after it ends, so the waiver normally runs straight on from one leave to the other. The waived months of maternity leave count towards the pension in the same way.

What it is worth

On ¥300,000 a month in Tokyo, under 40, the employee’s share of health insurance and pension is ¥42,570 a month. A ¥500,000 bonus carries ¥70,950 of it. Your employer pays about the same again, and that is waived too. The waived months still count towards your pension: the Japan Pension Service treats them as paid when your pension is worked out. Employment insurance is a percentage of pay, so with no pay there is none of it either.

The childcare leave benefit calculator marks the waived months for both parents alongside the benefits, and how much you get on childcare leave puts the two together.

Questions people ask

Do I have to apply for the exemption myself?

No. Your employer files the notification (育児休業等取得者申出書) with the Japan Pension Service. Ask your employer’s HR which dates they are notifying.

Does a waived month hurt my pension?

No. The Japan Pension Service states that the exempt period is treated as paid when your pension is worked out in the future.

Is my employer’s share waived too?

Yes. Both the employee’s and the employer’s shares of health insurance and pension premiums are waived for the exempt months.

This is a general explanation of the Japan Pension Service rules for employees on health insurance and employees’ pension. Maternity leave (産前産後休業) has a waiver of its own with the same month-end rule. Leave dates are set with your employer under the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act and its own rules.

Sources

• Japan Pension Service — 従業員が育児休業等を取得・延長したときの手続き (the month-end rule, the 14-day rule, the bonus rule, both shares waived, the employer’s notification)
• Japan Pension Service — 令和４年１０月から育児休業等期間中における社会保険料の免除要件が改正されます。 (work during the leave: hours divided by the normal working day, fractions dropped)
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare — Q&A～育児休業等給付～ (payment periods and the days each one counts)
• Japan Pension Service — 厚生年金保険料等の免除（産前産後休業・育児休業等期間） (the exempt period is treated as paid for the pension)
• Japan Health Insurance Association (協会けんぽ) — 令和8年度 保険料額表 (Tokyo)