Japan Pension Refund Calculator (Lump-Sum Withdrawal Payment)

Who can claim it

• You do not have Japanese nationality.
• You paid into employees' pension (kōsei nenkin) or national pension (kokumin nenkin) for 6 months or more.
• You have left Japan and no longer have an address here, and you are no longer enrolled in either pension.
• You have not qualified for a Japanese old-age pension (10 years of coverage in total) and have never had a right to a disability pension.
• You claim within 2 years of the day you stopped having an address in Japan.

How the payment is calculated

For employees' pension, the payment is your average standard remuneration (your banded monthly pay plus bonuses, averaged over your months of enrollment) multiplied by a payment multiplier. With the current 18.3% premium rate, the multiplier rises from 0.5 for 6 months to 5.5 for 60 months. Months beyond 60 do not increase it.

For national pension, the payment is a fixed amount: half of the monthly premium in the fiscal year of your last payment, times the number of months (in steps of 6, up to 60). For payments made from April 2026, that is ¥53,760 for 6 months up to ¥537,600 for 60 months or more. No tax is withheld from the national pension payment.

Getting the 20.42% tax back

The Japan Pension Service withholds 20.42% income tax from the employees' pension lump sum, because you are a non-resident when it is paid. You can choose instead to be taxed as if it were retirement income received as a resident (taishoku shotoku no sentaku kazei). Retirement income gets a large deduction (¥400,000 per year of coverage, at least ¥800,000), so for most people the tax becomes zero and the whole 20.42% comes back. In the ¥300,000 × 36 months example above, all ¥202,158 is refundable.

The catch is that you are abroad when you can file. You need a tax agent (nōzei kanrinin) in Japan (a friend, colleague or tax accountant), notified to the tax office for your last address before you leave. The agent files the return and receives the refund for you.

Timeline

1. Before you leave: choose a tax agent and submit the tax agent notification (nōzei kanrinin no todokedesho) to the tax office for your address. Submit your moving-out notification (tenshutsu todoke) at your city office.
2. After you leave (within 2 years): send the lump-sum withdrawal claim form to the Japan Pension Service with a copy of your passport and details of a bank account in your name (the form lists the documents to attach). Forms are available in English and other languages.
3. When it is paid: the Japan Pension Service sends a notice of payment (dattai ichijikin shikyū kettei tsūchisho). Send the original to your tax agent.
4. Within 5 years: your tax agent files the tax return for elective taxation of retirement income and receives the refund.

Before you claim: what you give up

• Once you receive the lump sum, the months it was based on no longer count as Japanese pension coverage. If you might come back to Japan, or might reach 10 years of coverage in total, you may be better off not claiming.
• Japan has social security agreements with many countries. If your home country is one of them, your Japanese coverage may count toward a pension there instead. Check before claiming, because the lump sum ends that option for those months.

Assumptions

• Your monthly salary is converted to the employees' pension standard monthly remuneration band; bonuses are averaged per month (up to ¥1.5 million per payment, twice a year).
• Your coverage ended in April 2021 or later (the 60-month rule) and the premium rate is 18.3%.
• The refund estimate uses your months of enrollment (rounded up to years) as years of service for the retirement income deduction, and income tax only. If you received other retirement pay in the same year, the result differs.
• Coverage from before April 2003 is calculated differently and is not handled here.

Everything else to do before and after you leave is in the Leaving Japan money checklist.