The 5,200 Yen Monthly School Lunch Subsidy and School Enrollment Assistance: Two Kinds of Help With School Costs

Japan’s public elementary and junior high schools charge no tuition, and textbooks are distributed free of charge. Even so, families still pay for things such as school lunch fees and school supplies like notebooks and gym clothes, as well as school trip costs. Two mechanisms help with this: “school enrollment assistance,” which municipalities provide to families in financial difficulty, and the national support for public elementary school lunch fees that began in April 2026.

What follows is based on the School Education Act, materials and surveys from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and guidance from the cities of Yokohama and Saitama, checked in September 2026. This article does not determine whether your family can receive school enrollment assistance, or what your lunch fee will be; that is decided by your municipality. The procedure for enrolling in school itself is covered in School Records and Documents Families Can Prepare Before Enrolling a Child in a Japanese School.

From April 2026, National Support for Public Elementary School Lunch Fees

According to MEXT, the “Fundamental Reduction of the School Lunch Fee Burden” (学校給食費の拜本的な負担軽減) began in April 2026. Under this system, the national government supports municipalities with the cost of food ingredients needed for the school lunches of children at public elementary schools (including the earlier stage of compulsory education schools and the elementary division of special-needs schools). It applies uniformly to children at any school that serves lunch, regardless of the guardians’ income, and in principle guardians do not need to take any action.

The standard amount of support, per child per month, is as follows; over a year, it covers 11 months.

Type of lunch	Elementary school / early stage of compulsory education school	Elementary division of special-needs school
Full lunch (staple food + milk + side dishes)	5,200 yen	6,200 yen
Supplementary lunch (milk + side dishes)	4,800 yen	5,800 yen
Milk lunch (milk only)	1,200 yen	1,200 yen

Not Necessarily “Free”

If the food-ingredient cost of a lunch exceeds the standard amount, the municipality can collect the excess from guardians. For this reason, MEXT notes that some out-of-pocket burden can remain depending on the municipality, and has stopped using the earlier term “free school lunches” (給食無償化) in favor of “Fundamental Reduction of the School Lunch Fee Burden.”

Here are examples of the difference between municipalities. The city of Saitama covers, with its own funds, any amount beyond the national grant, and made lunch fees at its municipal elementary schools free from April 2026. The city of Yokohama says it is making elementary school lunch fees “effectively free” (実質無償化) for fiscal year 2026.

Through the Budget, Not a Change in the Law

This system was not created by changing the law. The three-party agreement of December 18, 2025 decided not to amend the School Lunch Act, on the grounds that, while the Act treats lunch fees as a guardian’s expense, it does not prohibit a local government from subsidizing them. Instead, the parties created a “School Lunch Fee Burden Reduction Grant” (給食費負担軽減交付金) in the national budget, disbursed from the national government to prefectures and then from prefectures to municipalities. The agreement states that it will “introduce a one-half burden share for prefectures” for the cost.

What Is Not Covered

• National and private elementary schools (per MEXT’s Q&A for municipalities)
• Junior high schools. The grant cannot be used for junior high school lunch fees. A December 19, 2025 document from MEXT, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and the Ministry of Finance states that junior high school lunches will be “considered after the relevant issues are sorted out.”
• Children already receiving lunch-fee support through the education assistance component of public assistance, or through school enrollment assistance for the “requiring protection” (要保護) category. Those systems are used first.

Regarding children of foreign nationality, MEXT’s Q&A for municipalities asks that they be included in the calculation of support, regardless of nationality, as long as they are enrolled at a public elementary school.

School Enrollment Assistance Is Provided by Municipalities

The basis for school enrollment assistance is Article 19 of the School Education Act.

For the guardians of school-age children or students who are recognized as having difficulty attending school for economic reasons, municipalities must provide the necessary assistance.

School Education Act (Act No. 26 of Showa 22 [1947]), Article 19

Families receiving assistance fall into two categories.

Category	Content	Number (FY2024)
Requiring protection (要保護, yohogo)	A “person requiring protection” as defined in Article 6, paragraph 2 of the Public Assistance Act	About 80,000
Quasi-requiring protection (準要保護, jun’yohogo)	A person the municipal board of education recognizes as being in financial difficulty to a degree comparable to a person requiring protection. The certification standard is set by each municipality	About 1.09 million (109万人)

According to MEXT’s “Survey on the Status of School Enrollment Assistance,” 1,168,756 children and students received school enrollment assistance in fiscal year 2024, or 13.31% of children and students at public elementary and junior high schools. This has now fallen for 13 straight years.

For assistance to requiring-protection families, the national government subsidizes half the cost. National subsidies for assistance to quasi-requiring-protection families ended in fiscal year 2005, and each municipality now covers this from its own funds. As a result, the standard for quasi-requiring-protection status and the items covered by assistance differ by municipality.

Items Covered by Assistance

The items the national government subsidizes are: school supplies, physical education equipment, school supplies for newly enrolled children and students, commuting supplies, commuting costs, school trip costs, off-campus activity costs, club activity costs, student council fees, PTA fees, graduation album costs, online learning communication costs, medical costs, and school lunch fees. The national subsidy rate for “school supplies for newly enrolled children and students,” which covers preparation for entering school, was raised in fiscal year 2026 to 64,300 yen for elementary school and 81,000 yen for junior high school.

Some municipalities pay enrollment-preparation money before enrollment. In MEXT’s fiscal year 2025 survey, the municipalities that made pre-enrollment payments to fiscal year 2025 entrants numbered 1,524 out of 1,746 (87.3%) for elementary school and 1,542 out of 1,761 (87.6%) for junior high school.

Children of Foreign Nationality and Families Who Evacuated From Ukraine

School enrollment assistance is also available to families of children with foreign nationality. MEXT’s Guidebook for Enrollment (就学ガイドブック, April 2015, with a bilingual Ukrainian edition) explains to families who have come from abroad that, if the municipal board of education recognizes that attending public elementary or junior high school is difficult for economic reasons, assistance with school supplies, lunch fees, and other costs is available. However, this Guidebook states that “lunch fees are to be borne by the guardian,” and does not reflect the elementary school lunch fee support that began in April 2026.

For families who evacuated from Ukraine, a notice dated April 18, 2022 from the Administrative Vice-Minister of MEXT asks boards of education, in view of the time it takes to establish a stable living situation, to respond as promptly and flexibly as possible, including by extending application periods, even where the usual procedure is difficult to follow. It also states that, if a family is recognized as receiving public assistance, requiring-protection assistance can be provided regardless of the previous year’s income. For public assistance itself, see the article Public Assistance for Foreign Nationals Is “Applied by Analogy”.

Screening for quasi-requiring-protection status usually checks the previous year’s income. According to Yokohama’s guidance, if you were registered as a resident of Yokohama on January 1 and have filed a tax return, the city will confirm your tax information itself, so you do not need to attach a certificate; otherwise, you attach a withholding tax slip, tax certificate, or similar document. If you had no income in Japan in the previous year, ask the school or board of education before applying. Yokohama publishes a Ukrainian-language version of its school enrollment assistance notice.

When and Where to Apply

According to MEXT’s fiscal year 2025 survey, 1,677 out of 1,763 municipalities (95.1%) accept applications even partway through the fiscal year. However, 1,601 of those (90.8% of the total) will, for applications made after the deadline, only provide assistance from the month of application or the month of certification onward. The earlier you apply, the longer the period of assistance. Here are examples from two cities.

	Yokohama (FY2026)	Saitama (FY2026)
Where to apply	The school the child attends	The school, the Board of Education’s School Affairs Division (mail accepted), or online
Application period	Initial applications in April. Additional applications from July through February 24 of the following year	February 13, 2026 through January 29, 2027
Coverage starts from	If certified on the initial application, paid from the April–July portion (1st period)	The month of application onward
Annual application	Required (every fiscal year)	—

In Yokohama’s example, the rough income threshold for a household (based on 2025 income) is 3.49 million yen (349万円) for a 4-person household and 3.12 million yen (312万円) for a 3-person household. Because certain deductions are made from income for working households or single-parent households, among others, before screening, a household can still be certified even if its income exceeds the threshold, and the city advises applying first if you are unsure. In Yokohama, junior high school lunch fees become free once a family is certified for school enrollment assistance, and any amount paid before certification is refunded.

Things to Ask at the Counter

• Where to get the school enrollment assistance application form, and by when to submit it. If applying partway through the fiscal year, from when assistance will be provided
• If you had no income in Japan the previous year, what document to submit to show income
• How much of the elementary school lunch fee the guardian pays (whether there is any amount above the national standard). What happens with junior high school lunch fees
• Whether a Ukrainian-language version of the guidance or application form exists, and whether an interpreter can be requested at the counter

Allowances available to families raising children are covered in the article The Child Allowance Is Paid From the Month After You Apply at Your Registered Municipality.