Japan Resident Tax (住民税) Calculator

Because Japan's resident tax (住民税) is legally assessed on your income from the previous calendar year (1 January to 31 December), then billed and collected the following year. This is a structural feature of the tax, not a delay or error, your city or ward tax office calculates your bill using your final income figure for the year just ended, then starts collecting it from around June of the following year, typically withheld from your payslip in 12 monthly installments through the following May.

If last calendar year was before you had any Japan-sourced income, or you only worked part of it, there's little or nothing to base this year's resident tax on. Your first real resident tax bill typically appears around June of your second calendar year, based on everything you earned in year one. Many newcomers mistake this for a permanently low rate and are caught off guard when the bill appears the following June on an unchanged salary.

The income-based portion (所得割) is a flat 10% of your taxable income, split roughly 6% municipal (市町村民税) and 4% prefectural (道府県民税, or 都民税 in Tokyo). On top of that, nearly everyone pays a small flat per-capita levy (均等割) of about ¥5,000/year regardless of income, split roughly ¥3,000 municipal and ¥1,000 prefectural, plus a small national forest environment tax component added since FY2024.

Not everyone. Most municipalities exempt residents below a certain income threshold from both the income levy and the per-capita levy entirely, and the exact threshold varies by municipality and household circumstances (number of dependents, single-parent status, etc). This calculator applies the standard per-capita amount without modeling those exemptions, so very low earners may see a slightly lower real bill than shown here.

No, they're separate taxes calculated differently in time. National income tax is calculated on your CURRENT year's income and withheld from each paycheck as you earn it. Resident tax is calculated on your PREVIOUS year's income and withheld the following year. Both use a similar taxable-income base (after the employment income deduction, social insurance, and basic deduction), but they're never based on the same calendar year at the same time, which is exactly the mismatch this calculator makes visible.

You remain liable for resident tax based on your income from the previous calendar year even after you leave, since that liability was already fixed based on a year you were resident for. Employers typically either deduct the remaining balance from your final paychecks (一括徴収) or require you to appoint a tax representative (納税管理人) to handle ongoing payments if you're leaving Japan permanently. This is a common surprise for people who assume moving away clears any outstanding tax obligation.