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Leaving Japan: Pension Refund and Your Last Taxes

Last updated: 13 October 2026 · rules as checked on 9 October 2026 with the Japan Pension Service and the National Tax Agency

When you leave Japan after a few years on a salary, three things are still open: the resident tax (住民税) that runs a year behind your pay, the Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment (脱退一時金) that gives back part of what you paid into the pension, and the last settlement of your income tax. Each has its own office, form and dates, and two of them need somebody in Japan after you have gone. This page puts them in one order. The income tax is set out in full in the guide to the final tax return and the tax agent, and the resident tax month by month in the guide to resident tax when leaving.

This is a general explanation for somebody without Japanese nationality who was paid a salary in Japan and leaves to live abroad. The Japan Pension Service, the National Tax Agency and your city office are the authority on your own case; a 税理士 (licensed tax accountant) or 社会保険労務士 (labour and social security attorney) can act for you.

Resident tax: the bill for the year you leave

Resident tax is charged to whoever is living in Japan on 1 January, on the previous year’s income, and it is paid from June. So two things follow.

The bill you are paying now is still owed. If your employer takes it from your pay (特別徴収, special collection), it can take what is left out of your final pay in one sum (一括徴収): for employment ending from 1 January to 30 April that is the rule, provided the pay left by 31 May covers what has not been collected; from 1 June on, it happens if you ask. Whatever is not collected that way comes to you as payment slips (普通徴収, general collection).

The income of the year you leave is charged only if you are still here on the next 1 January. Leave before the year is out and there is no bill for it. Stay into January and a bill on the whole of last year’s income is issued in June, after you have gone — for a 2026 salary, the bill from June 2027.

A bill that arrives after you have left needs somebody to receive it: a tax agent (納税管理人) you name to your municipality before you go. Without one, Hiroshima City notes, the notices are served by publication and delinquent charges can follow. This is a separate appointment from the one for income tax, which goes to the tax office.

The pension refund: the Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment

The Japan Pension Service pays a Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment to somebody who has stopped being covered by the Japanese pension, has left Japan, and meets all of these:

Two limits sit around those. With 120 months (10 years) or more of pension eligibility you cannot claim it, because you will be able to draw a Japanese old-age pension instead. And the claim must be made within 2 years of the day you no longer had an address in Japan.

Think before claiming. Taking the payment cancels all your Japanese coverage before the claim: it no longer counts towards a Japanese pension, or under a social security agreement with another country. The Japan Pension Service asks you to weigh that first.

How much it is

For the Employees’ Pension it is your average standard remuneration (平均標準報酬額, your insured pay and bonuses averaged over all the months you were covered) multiplied by a payment rate that grows with the number of months. The rate stops growing at 60 months: for anybody whose last month of cover was April 2021 or later it tops out at 5.5, which is half the 18.3% pension rate times sixty. Months beyond that still go into the average, but no longer raise the rate — and are cancelled all the same: the Japan Pension Service’s example has 90 months of cover, is paid at the sixty-month rate and loses all ninety.

An example: an average of ¥300,000 over five years gives 5.5 × ¥300,000 = ¥1,650,000.

How to claim

The claim form is in English on the Japan Pension Service’s site. Post it from abroad with a copy of your passport, proof of the bank account to be paid into and a document showing your Basic Pension Number. You can also hand it in before you fly, once you have filed the moving-out notification (転出届) at your city office: it must reach the Japan Pension Service on or after the day your residence record is deleted.

The 20.42% taken from it, and how it comes back

By the time the payment is made you are a non-resident, and from an Employees’ Pension payment the Japan Pension Service withholds income tax of 20.42% (the reconstruction surcharge included). On ¥1,650,000 that is ¥336,930. Nothing is withheld from a National Pension payment.

Some or all of it can be reclaimed. For income tax the payment counts as a retirement allowance, and a non-resident may choose to be taxed on it as if they were a resident. You make the choice by filing a Tax Return for Refund Due to Taxation on Retirement Income at the Taxpayer’s Option (退職所得の選択課税による還付のための申告書) — as a rule from 1 January of the year after the payment is decided; the law allows it sooner only if the year’s total is settled before then. The year is the one of the decision date (支給決定年月日) on the notice the Japan Pension Service sends, not the day the money reaches your account: the National Tax Agency’s own example, decided in 2025, is a return for 2025.

Taxed as a resident, the payment gets the deduction for years of service: ¥400,000 for each year, never less than ¥800,000, with the years counted from the months the payment was worked out on and a part year rounded up. In the example, five years give ¥2,000,000 — more than the ¥1,650,000 paid — so nothing is taxed and the whole ¥336,930 comes back. That assumes the pension payment is your only retirement income. Taxed as a resident, the year’s retirement payments are added together — a retirement allowance from your employer, say — and where their periods overlap with each other or with one paid in the previous few years, the deduction is cut for the overlap. On a higher average, or with other payments, part can be taxed, and the refund is what was withheld less that tax; give your tax agent the papers for any other retirement payment. How a retirement allowance is taxed is set out in the guide to retirement allowances.

The return goes to the tax office for your last address in Japan, through your tax agent: name one with that office before you leave (所得税・消費税の納税管理人の届出書), or send the notification with the return. Post the agent the original Notice of Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment Determination that comes with the payment; it goes with the return.

Your last year-end adjustment and tax return

The income tax on your salary is settled first. If you are still employed when you leave — a transfer abroad, say — your employer does a year-end adjustment (年末調整) with your last salary as a resident. If you left the job first and stayed on a while, there is no adjustment, and only a final tax return (確定申告) settles what was withheld. A return you need anyway, for other income say, is due by the day you leave as a final return before departure (準確定申告) — unless you have named a tax agent, who then files it from 16 February to 15 March of the next year.

In 2026 the higher basic exemption takes effect on 1 December 2026, so an adjustment or a return made before then is done without it; a return filed from that day — or a correction claim (更正の請求), if you filed before you left — gets it, through your tax agent once you are abroad. The guide to the 2026 change has the figures.

One order for all of it

Roughly in the order the steps fall; which comes first in the later years depends on the month you leave.

  1. Your last weeks at work. Hand in what the adjustment needs, and ask whether the rest of your resident tax will come out of the final pay.
  2. Before you fly. Name a tax agent at the tax office and at the city office — two forms, two offices, even if one friend takes on both. File a final return before departure only if you need one and have no agent.
  3. The moving-out notification (転出届) at your city office. From the day it takes effect, the pension claim can go in.
  4. Within 2 years of leaving, claim the Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment, by post if you are already abroad.
  5. When it is paid, with 20.42% withheld, send the original notice of determination to your tax agent.
  6. Resident tax after you have gone. Leave between January and May, and in June that year a new bill on last year’s income arrives; your agent pays it. Leave from June on, and there is no new bill — your agent pays what is left of the current one by its own due dates.
  7. From 16 February to 15 March of the year after you leave: the return for your last year, through your agent, if you need one.
  8. From 1 January of the year after the payment is decided: the return that brings the pension tax back. If it was decided in the same year you left, this can go in the same season as the step before.

Questions people ask

Can I get my Japanese pension contributions back when I leave?

Part of them, as a Lump-sum Withdrawal Payment (脱退一時金), if you are not a Japanese national, were covered for 6 months or more, have less than 120 months of pension eligibility, and claim within 2 years of no longer having an address in Japan. Its payment rate stops growing at 60 months, and taking it cancels all your Japanese coverage before the claim.

Why was 20.42% taken from my pension refund?

Because you were a non-resident when it was paid: on the Employees’ Pension payment, income tax of 20.42% is withheld at source. Nothing is withheld from the National Pension one. You can get some or all of it back with a return that has you taxed on the payment as a resident, filed from 1 January of the year after the payment is decided, through a tax agent.

Do I pay resident tax for the year I leave Japan?

What is left of the bill you are paying now, yes. The income you earn in the year you leave is charged only if you are still living in Japan on the next 1 January; leave before the year is out and there is no bill for it.

Do I need a tax agent if all I want is the pension refund?

In practice, yes. The refund return is filed, as a rule, from 1 January of the year after the payment is decided, when you are abroad, and the National Tax Agency asks for it to be filed through your tax agent in Japan. Name one with the tax office before you leave, or send the notification with the return.

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