Your Real Take-Home Pay in Japan (2026): What's Left After Tax, Pension and Insurance

Your "¥6M salary" is really about ¥4.66M in the bank. Here is exactly what gets deducted on every Japanese payslip — national tax, residence tax, pension, health insurance, employment insurance — with a cheat sheet by income bracket and tips on the residence-tax delay trap.

Updated October 2026: employment insurance dropped to 0.5% in April 2026, long-term care insurance rose to 0.81%, Tokyo's health insurance rate is now 9.85%, a new child-rearing support levy appeared on payslips, and the 2026 tax reform raised the basic deduction. Every rate and the cheat sheet below now use 2026 figures, and we fixed where the top tax brackets start.

The "¥6 million salary" lie

When a Japanese recruiter tells you "the role pays ¥6 million", that number is your annual gross — what gets stamped on your contract before anything is deducted. Your actual take-home (手取り, tedori) is roughly ¥4.66 million at that level (single, in Tokyo, under 40). Here is exactly where each yen goes, and how to calculate yours instantly using our take-home pay calculator.

The five deductions on every payslip

Open a Japanese 給与明細書 (kyuyo meisai-sho) and you will see five kinds of deductions coming out before you get paid: income tax, residence tax, pension, health insurance and employment insurance. A couple of them bring a little sidekick, so here is the full list:

National income tax (所得税, shotokuzei) — progressive, from 5% to 45%. At ¥6M gross with no dependents, roughly ¥146k for 2026.
Reconstruction surtax (復興特別所得税) — 2.1% of your income tax, until 2037. About ¥3,000 on the above.
Residence tax (住民税, juminzei) — 10% of last year's taxable income + a ¥5,000 per-capita levy. Roughly ¥307k/year at ¥6M.
Employee pension (厚生年金, kosei nenkin) — 9.15% of your monthly pay, capped at the ¥650k band. ¥6M salary = roughly ¥549k/year.
Health insurance (健康保険) — about 4.6% to 5.3% depending on your prefecture (your half of the 協会けんぽ rate). ¥6M in Tokyo (4.925%) = roughly ¥296k/year.
Child-rearing support levy (子ども・子育て支援金, kodomo kosodate shienkin) — new in 2026, collected with health insurance from the April 2026 premium: 0.115% for you (0.23% split with your employer). About ¥7k/year at ¥6M.
Employment insurance (雇用保険, koyou hoken) — 0.5% of gross since April 2026 (it was 0.55%). ¥30k/year on ¥6M.
Long-term care insurance (介護保険, kaigo hoken) — 0.81% added if you're 40-64 (1.62% split in two). Roughly ¥49k/year on ¥6M at age 45.

The take-home cheat sheet

These figures come straight from our calculator with 2026 rates: single, no dependents, Tokyo, age 35, no bonus.

Gross salary	Take-home (single, 30s)	% kept
¥3M	~¥2.41M	80.5%
¥5M	~¥3.93M	78.6%
¥7M	~¥5.32M	76.0%
¥10M	~¥7.27M	72.7%
¥15M	~¥10.25M	68.3%
¥20M	~¥13.0M	65.0%

Pattern: the more you earn, the smaller share you keep. The 40% bracket starts above ¥18M of taxable income (what's left after all deductions), the top 45% above ¥40M, and the reconstruction surtax piles on top. For your exact figure with spouse, dependents and prefecture, use the calculator.

What changed in 2026

The 2026 tax reform is mostly good news for your income tax. The basic deduction (基礎控除, kiso kojo) is now ¥1.04 million if your total income is ¥4.89 million or less (a salary of up to about ¥6.66 million), and the minimum employment income deduction went from ¥650,000 to ¥740,000. Put together, someone paid only a salary owes no income tax up to ¥1.78 million a year, even before counting social insurance.

The catch is timing. The new rules legally start on 1 December 2026, so the monthly withholding on your 2026 payslips doesn't change: the whole year gets recalculated at the December year-end adjustment, and the difference usually lands in your December or January pay. From January 2027, the new withholding tables apply every month. Residence tax doesn't follow the same schedule: it has its own smaller deductions, and the ¥740,000 minimum only reaches it from fiscal 2027.

Hidden traps

Residence tax delay: your first year in Japan you pay no residence tax (because it's based on prior-year income). Year two you suddenly lose about 5% of your salary to it at ¥6M. Budget for it from day one.

Health insurance jumps when you leave employment: National Health Insurance (国民健康保険, kokumin kenko hoken) is calculated on last year's income and nobody pays half for you, so the bill is usually much bigger than the ~5% you paid as an employee. Ask your city hall for an estimate and plan a cash buffer if you're going freelance.

If your monthly salary goes past the ¥650k band: the pension premium plateaus. Your take-home ratio still keeps falling, just more slowly, because income tax keeps climbing and health insurance has a much higher ceiling than the pension.

How to verify your own payslip

Three things to check every month:

Are the social insurance amounts in line with the official pension table? Match your standard monthly salary band.
Is your prefecture's correct health insurance rate applied? (Tokyo Kyokai Kenpo is 9.85% total / 4.925% employee for fiscal 2026, plus 0.81% for long-term care if you're 40-64.)
Does the residence tax line match what city hall sent you in June? If not, ask HR.