Japan Bonus Tax Calculator 2026

How the tax on a bonus is worked out

A bonus is not taxed like a month's pay. Your employer takes the insurance first, then looks up your pay of the month before, after its insurance, in the National Tax Agency's bonus table, in the column for the spouse and dependents on your 扶養控除等申告書. The row gives a rate from 0 to 45.945 %, and that rate is applied to the whole bonus after insurance. So two people with the same bonus can pay different tax: the month before decides.

When the bonus after insurance is more than ten times the month before, or nothing was paid that month, the table is not used. The tax is then worked out on a sixth of the bonus with the monthly table and multiplied by six (by twelve for a bonus covering more than six months).

Without a 扶養控除等申告書, at a second job for example, the employer uses the higher 乙欄 rates, which this calculator does not cover. Either way the tax taken from a bonus is an advance: the year-end adjustment counts it with the rest of the year.

Insurance on a bonus

Premiums are charged on the bonus down to the 1,000 yen (標準賞与額), at the same rates as a month's pay: in Tokyo 9.85 % for health insurance and 18.3 % for pension, half of each paid by the employer, and 1.62 % for long-term care from 40 to 64. Since April 2026 the child support levy of 0.23 % is added to health insurance, on bonuses too. Employment insurance takes 0.5 % of the whole bonus in most kinds of business.

Two caps: pension counts at most 1.5 million yen of bonuses in one month, health insurance at most 5.73 million from April to March. The pension premiums on a bonus count toward your pension, like those on your pay.

This calculator uses the rates of 協会けんぽ in Tokyo. In other prefectures its health insurance rate runs from 9.44 % (Okinawa) to 10.55 % (Saga), and a company's own health insurance society sets its own.

What a bonus costs later

At the year-end adjustment the bonus counts in the year's income with your pay. If the bonus table took more than the year's tax on the bonus, the difference comes back with the last pay of the year; if it took less, the rest is taken then.

No resident tax is taken from a bonus, but it counts in this year's income, so next year's resident tax, paid from June, goes up, usually by about 10 % of what the bonus adds to your taxable income. A higher income also raises your furusato nozei limit.

When bonuses are paid, and who gets one

Most companies pay a summer bonus in June or July and a winter bonus in December. The law does not require a bonus: your contract or the company's work rules (就業規則) say whether you get one and how it is worked out.

A December bonus is taxed by the same table, even when the year-end adjustment is made with it. The 2026 tables still count a basic deduction of 580,000 yen a year; the raised deductions of the 2026 tax reform reach you at the year-end adjustment.