Your Last Paycheck Before Leaving Japan

Last updated: 19 October 2026 · the Health Insurance Act and the Employees’ Pension Insurance Act · premiums at fiscal 2026 rates

The last salary before you leave Japan often looks wrong. It can carry two months of social insurance instead of one, a year-end adjustment that often gives back some income tax, and, if you leave early in the year, what is left of the year’s resident tax in one sum. This page explains the social insurance part, which turns on the day you leave, and points to the guides for the rest. For an ordinary month to compare with, use the take-home calculator.

This is a general explanation for an employee who leaves a job in Japan. How your employer runs its payroll can differ; your payslip, your employer and the Japan Pension Service are the authority on your own case.

Social insurance ends the day after your employment ends

You stop being insured under your employer’s health insurance and employees’ pension on the day after your employment end date (退職日) — the date your employment ends, which is later than your last day at work if you use up paid leave first, or if your last working day falls before a weekend. Premiums are due for each month you were insured, but not for the month in which you stopped being insured. So the date makes a difference:

• Employment ends 31 October: you are insured to the end of October, cover ends on 1 November, and October’s premium is due.
• Employment ends 30 October: cover ends on 31 October, so October is the month you stopped being insured, and no premium is due for it.

Last working on 30 October but staying employed until 31 October is the first case, not the second. Either way you are covered up to your employment end date. Ending on the last day of a month costs one more month of premiums, and that month then counts on your employees’ pension record.

All of this assumes you were insured from before the month you leave. If you join and leave in the same month, health insurance is due for that month, and so is employees’ pension unless you join another pension scheme later in that month.

Two months on the last payslip

Each salary normally has the previous month’s premium taken from it. When you leave, the law also lets your employer take the premium for the month you leave from the last salary, so if your employment ends on the last day of a month, that salary can carry two months at once. For somebody aged 30 in Tokyo, health insurance (with the child-care support levy) and employees’ pension on an October salary:

The first column is September’s premium alone; the second adds October’s. Employment insurance is taken from the pay itself as usual, and if you are 40 to 64, long-term care insurance is added for each month. The rates are the ones in the guide to the 2026 rates.

Income tax: the year settled early

If you are still on the payroll when you leave to live abroad, your employer normally does the year-end adjustment (年末調整) with your last salary, for the part of the year you lived in Japan. A year’s worth of deductions set against part of a year’s pay often gives some tax back, and it shows on the same payslip. What counts, how a last salary paid before 1 December 2026 is handled, and when you need a tax return instead are in the guide to the final tax return and tax agent.

Resident tax: what is left of the bill

Resident tax is charged for a year at a time to whoever lived in a city on 1 January, so leaving does not end the bill you are paying. If you leave between January and April, what is left of it is, as a rule, taken from your last pay in one sum, as long as that pay covers it. From June to December that happens only if you ask; otherwise the rest comes to you as payment slips, to pay yourself or through a tax agent. The guide to resident tax when leaving Japan has the detail.

After the last payslip

If you will need a tax agent (納税管理人) for a return or resident tax after you go, appoint them before you leave: without one, a return that is due has to be filed before departure. The pension refund comes after you have left. The guide to the pension refund and your last taxes puts all of it in order.

Questions people ask

Why is my last paycheck in Japan so small?

Usually because of what it has to cover at once: two months of social insurance if your employment ends on the last day of a month, and, if you leave between January and April, the rest of the year's resident tax. A year-end adjustment on the same payslip often gives some income tax back, which makes up part of it.

Is it cheaper to leave a day before the end of the month?

If you were insured from before that month, it saves that month's health insurance and pension premiums, but your employer's insurance then does not cover the rest of the month. If you are still living in Japan for those days, you may have to join National Health Insurance and the national pension for that month instead, so check with your city office before you choose the date.

Can my employer take two months of premiums from one salary?

Yes, when you leave. Each salary normally carries the previous month's premium; the Health Insurance Act and the Employees' Pension Insurance Act also let the employer take the premium for the month you leave from the last one.

Sources

• Health Insurance Act (健康保険法) — e-Gov: 第36条 (insurance ends the day after you stop working there), 第156条第3項 (no premium for the month it ends in) and 第167条 (the previous month’s premium from each salary; on leaving, that month’s as well). Opened 19 October 2026.
• Employees’ Pension Insurance Act (厚生年金保険法) — e-Gov: 第14条 (the same day), 第19条 and 第81条 (months counted and charged up to the month before it ends) and 第84条 (the deduction, as in the Health Insurance Act). Opened 19 October 2026.
• Kyokai Kenpo — 令和8年度の協会けんぽの保険料率 (the Tokyo rate and the levy used in the table). Japanese, opened 19 October 2026.
• Japan Pension Service — 従業員が退職・死亡したとき（健康保険・厚生年金保険の資格喪失）の手続き (coverage is lost the day after the employment end date). Japanese, opened 19 October 2026.
• Japan Health Insurance Association (協会けんぽ) — よくあるご質問：保険料について（任意継続） (no premium for the month coverage is lost, but if coverage starts and ends in the same month, that month is due — stated for voluntary continuation, on the same month rule). Japanese, opened 19 October 2026.