Before you start

My Number
Ward registration
Employment records or business accounts
A determination of your residence status for tax purposes

Step-by-step

1
Understand the three tax residence categories
A non-resident is taxed only on Japanese-source income. A non-permanent resident — broadly, someone without Japanese domicile resident five years or less in the past decade — is taxed on Japanese income plus foreign income remitted to Japan. A permanent resident for tax purposes is taxed on worldwide income.
OnlineWho: You
2
Let the year-end adjustment handle it if you are a straightforward employee
Employers run nenmatsu chōsei in December, reconciling the year's withholding against what you owe. Most employees never file a return at all; you submit deduction declarations to your employer rather than to the tax office.
Via employerWho: YouDecember
3
File a return if you are self-employed or have foreign income
The filing season runs mid-February to mid-March for the previous calendar year. The blue return system gives a meaningful deduction in exchange for proper double-entry bookkeeping.
OnlineWho: YouFebruary–March
4
Budget for residence tax arriving in your second year
Jūminzei is assessed on the previous calendar year's income and billed from June. Your first year in Japan produces almost none. Your second year is the real number and it arrives as a step change on the same salary.
OnlineWho: You
5
Know what the Saitama bill is made of
The per-capita portion from FY2024 is ¥3,000 to Saitama City plus ¥1,000 to Saitama Prefecture plus ¥1,000 for the national Forest Environment Tax — ¥5,000 a year regardless of income. The income-based portion is 10% of last year's taxable income, split 8% city and 2% prefecture because Saitama is an ordinance-designated city.
OnlineWho: YouBilled from June
6
Appoint a tax representative before leaving Japan
If you leave partway through a year you may still owe residence tax on income already earned. Appointing a tax representative in Japan before you go is the clean solution; leaving without one creates a debt that is very difficult to settle from abroad.
In personWho: YouBefore departure

Documents you’ll need

My Number
Gensen chōshūhyō — the annual withholding statement from your employer
Business accounts, for the self-employed
Records of any foreign income and overseas assets
Deduction certificates for insurance, mortgage or dependants

Things most newcomers don’t know

Saitama Prefecture adds no forest or environment levy, which makes the floor here ¥5,000 rather than ¥5,500 or ¥6,200.

Most prefectures top up the standard ¥1,000 prefectural per-capita portion with a local environmental surcharge — Hiroshima adds ¥500, Miyagi adds ¥1,200. Saitama does not, so the flat portion of your bill is ¥3,000 city plus ¥1,000 prefecture plus the ¥1,000 national Forest Environment Tax and nothing else. It is a small sum, but it is one of the few genuinely quantifiable ways the tax burden differs between Japanese cities, and it is the line people cannot otherwise account for on a first notice.

Source: Saitama City; Saitama Prefecture

Where you lived on 1 January decides who bills your residence tax for the whole following year.

Residence tax follows your registered address on 1 January, not where you live when the bill arrives in June. In a commuter city with heavy churn in and out of Tokyo, that means a bill can arrive from a municipality you left in March, and a move in late December or early January can change the answer entirely. It is not an error and paying it is not optional.

Source: Saitama City

Being a designated city changes who your 10% goes to, not how much it is.

The income-based residence tax is 10% everywhere in Japan, but the split moved from the usual 6% municipal / 4% prefectural to 8% / 2% in ordinance-designated cities from FY2018, when responsibility for teachers' salaries transferred to those cities. Saitama is one of them. Your total is unchanged; the line items differ from an explanation written for a smaller municipality.

Source: Saitama City

Furusato nōzei lets you redirect part of your residence tax and receive goods for it.

The hometown tax donation scheme lets residents donate to a municipality of their choice, deduct almost all of it against residence and income tax, and receive a return gift worth a meaningful fraction of the donation. It is entirely legitimate and widely used by Japanese residents, and almost unknown among foreign ones.

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

Common mistakes to avoid

Budgeting from your first year, when residence tax is almost nil.
Being surprised by a residence-tax bill from the municipality you lived in on 1 January.
Leaving Japan without settling residence tax or appointing a tax representative.
Reading a Tokyo explanation of the 6%/4% split against a Saitama 8%/2% bill and concluding something is wrong.
Never using furusato nōzei despite paying residence tax every year.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.