Resident Tax Is Set by Your Address on January 1, and Does Not Disappear Even If You Leave the Country

If you receive a salary in Japan, two taxes apply: income tax, paid to the national government, and resident tax, paid to the municipality where you live. Both are levied regardless of nationality. However, they work differently. Income tax is levied on that year’s income and, for a company employee, is withheld from the monthly salary and settled at the end of the year. Resident tax is levied on the previous year’s income, and the bill arrives the following year.

The following explains the basic framework, and the procedures needed when you leave Japan, based on the National Tax Agency’s Tax Answer (frequently asked tax questions) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ “Individual Resident Tax for Foreign Nationals” page and materials. This information was confirmed as of September 2026. This article does not judge your own tax amount, whether you need to file a final tax return, or whether you count as a resident for tax purposes. Check with the tax office, or the tax counter of the municipality where you live.

Income tax: first, whether you are a “resident”

According to the National Tax Agency, under Japan’s Income Tax Act, a person who has an “address” in Japan, or who has had a “residence” continuously for one year or more up to the present, is a “resident,” and everyone else is a “non-resident.” An “address” is the base of a person’s life, and where the center of that person’s life is, is determined based on objective facts. A “residence” is a place where a person actually lives, but which is not the base of their life.

Taxation of a non-resident is limited to income arising within Japan (“domestic-source income”). The National Tax Agency notes that, to prevent double taxation between countries, a tax treaty may set out how to determine which country’s resident a person counts as.

Company employees: withholding and year-end adjustment

A person receiving a salary from a company or similar has income tax withheld from their monthly salary (withholding, or 源泉徴収). According to the National Tax Agency, year-end adjustment (年末調整) is the procedure that settles the difference between the income tax withheld each month and the income tax the person actually owes for the year. It applies to people who have submitted a “Dependent Exemption Application for Employment Income Earners” to their employer by the day the year-end adjustment is carried out, and who have worked throughout the year, or who started a job partway through the year and worked through the end of the year. People whose total salary for the year exceeds ¥20,000,000, among others, are excluded.

A person who left their company partway through the year is not, in principle, subject to year-end adjustment. The exceptions the National Tax Agency lists include people who became non-residents because of a transfer to an overseas branch, and people who retired after receiving their December salary.

The tax withheld also includes the special reconstruction income tax alongside income tax. The National Tax Agency notes that a special defense income tax will be added to this from the 2027 tax year onward.

Who needs to file a final tax return

A final tax return (確定申告) is the procedure for calculating and finalizing your income and tax for the one-year period from January 1 to December 31. If there is a shortfall or excess in the tax withheld, it is settled here. The filing period is, in principle, from February 16 to March 15 of the following year, and the deadline to file and pay is, in principle, March 15 of the following year.

According to the National Tax Agency, people such as those whose salary income is ¥20,000,000 or less, who receive salary from one place with all of it withheld at source, and whose income other than salary and retirement income is ¥200,000 or less, are not required to file a final tax return. People receiving salary from more than one employer, or people working on an individual contract basis, should check at the tax office whether they need to file.

The National Tax Agency publishes an input manual for foreign nationals (2025 tax year) for the “Final Tax Return Preparation Corner,” which lets you prepare your return on a computer or smartphone, in English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Vietnamese, Portuguese, and Nepali. There is no Ukrainian edition (as of September 2026).

Resident tax: levied by the municipality where you lived on January 1

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ page for foreign nationals explains resident tax as follows. If you have an address in Japan as of January 1 and receive salary or other income above a certain amount, you must pay resident tax to your municipality, whether you are a foreign national or not. This is the same even if you leave Japan on or after January 2. The amount you owe is determined by the salary and other income you received from January 1 to December 31 of the previous year.

According to the Ministry’s materials, this “January 1” is called the assessment date (賦課期日) under the Local Tax Act, and the individual who has an address within the municipality on that date becomes the taxpayer. For someone covered by the Basic Resident Register Act, the person recorded in the Basic Resident Register is treated as the person with that address. In other words, the municipality where you are registered as a resident is what matters. Resident registration is covered in the article on words that come up in Japan’s resident registration.

For this reason, a person who comes to Japan on or after January 2 has no resident tax for that year, because they had no address in Japan on January 1 of that year. Conversely, if you have an address in Japan on January 1 of the year after you earned income, your tax obligation does not disappear even if you leave the country partway through that year. The Ministry’s materials state clearly that, because the tax obligation is fixed by whether you have an address on the assessment date, regardless of nationality, it is not extinguished by leaving the country.

How resident tax is paid

According to the Ministry’s page, there are two ways to pay. For a person working at a company, the principle is “special collection” (特別徴収), in which the company withholds resident tax from the salary and pays it to the municipality; you do not need to pay it yourself. Otherwise, it is “ordinary collection” (普通徴収), in which a payment slip arrives from the municipality around June each year and you pay at a financial institution or similar.

When a person who was paying by special collection leaves their company, the remaining resident tax is switched to ordinary collection, which they pay themselves. If the person requests it, the entire remaining amount can instead be deducted from their final salary or retirement payment (“lump-sum collection”). In its guidance for employers, the Ministry states that, for a resignation between January and May, lump-sum collection must be carried out whether or not the employee requests it.

The Ministry further warns that, if resident tax owed has not been paid, an application to renew your period of stay, among other things, may not be approved.

When you leave Japan: the tax administrator

In case tax procedures remain after you leave the country, there is a system for designating a “tax administrator” (納税管理人) from among people living in Japan, to handle procedures on your behalf. Where you report this differs between income tax and resident tax.

• Resident tax: the Ministry states that, if you cannot pay your resident tax by the time you leave the country, you must designate a tax administrator before leaving and report this to the municipality where you live.
• Income tax: the National Tax Agency states that, if a non-resident needs to file a final tax return, receive documents from the tax office, or pay tax or receive a refund, they must designate a tax administrator. You submit a “Notification of Appointment or Dismissal of a Tax Administrator for Income Tax/Consumption Tax” to the director of the tax office with jurisdiction over your place of tax payment. The tax administrator may be either an individual or a corporation.

Because the resident tax bill arrives around June of the following year, a person who leaves partway through the year may not yet have received a bill at that point. It is reassuring to check with your municipality’s counter, before you leave, when and how much you will need to pay, and whether you need a tax administrator.

Little material is available in Ukrainian

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ resident-tax page for foreign nationals has guidance in Japanese, plus English, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Portuguese, but not Ukrainian. Among the National Tax Agency’s foreign-language tax return forms and manuals, we found no Ukrainian edition within the range checked for this article (both as of September 2026). If the Japanese documents are difficult, you can consult the person in charge at your workplace, or a local consultation counter. Consultation counters are introduced in the article on consultation counters for when you start living in Japan. Social insurance premiums, another major item deducted from your salary, are covered in the article on Japan’s health insurance and pension.