Leaving Japan: Your Checklist with Dates (2026)

Who this is for

Anyone with a residence card who is leaving Japan for good: at the end of a job, of studies, or of a trainee or SSW contract. A trip abroad with a return within a year is different: you keep the card and, for a short trip, file no moving-out notice. The re-entry planner covers that.

Your plan and the steps you tick stay in this browser only. The link and the calendar file carry the plan, not the ticks.

Taxes when you leave

Resident tax is charged by the city where you lived on 1 January, on the year before's income, in slips from June to the next January. Leaving between January and May, you still owe the year that starts in June; leaving from June to December, you owe only the rest of the current year.

An employee leaving between January and April has the rest of the year's resident tax taken from the last pay; from June to December, on request. Otherwise the city sends slips, and someone in Japan has to receive and pay them: your tax representative, named at the city office.

Income tax: the employer does a year-end adjustment with the last pay of an employee who becomes a non-resident. If you have to file a return for the year, with a tax representative it is due by 15 March of next year; without one, before you leave.

The pension lump sum

With 6 months or more of pension paid and no right to a Japanese pension, you can claim the lump-sum withdrawal payment (脱退一時金) within two years of leaving. The claim must arrive on or after the day your address in Japan ends. About four months later the money comes, minus 20.42 % income tax on the employees' pension part, which your tax representative gets back with a return from the next 1 January.

Your cards

The residence card is handed in at departure immigration when you leave for good. The My Number card is handed back with the moving-out notice: for foreign residents it ends on the day you leave. Keep copies of both and of your passport: the pension claim and your representative will ask for them.