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
Establish which of the three tax residence categories you are in
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 into Japan. A permanent tax resident is taxed on worldwide income. The category changes on its own over time and nobody tells you.
OnlineWho: You
2
Let the year-end adjustment handle it if you are a straightforward employee
Employers run nenmatsu chōsei in December, reconciling withholding against actual liability. Most employees never file at all — you submit deduction declarations to your employer rather than to a tax office.
Via employerWho: YouDecember
3
File a return if you have side income, foreign income or two employers
The filing window runs mid-February to mid-March for the previous calendar year, at the tax office covering your ward. Sapporo has several. Filing online through e-Tax with the My Number card avoids the March queue entirely.
OnlineWho: YouFebruary–March
4
Budget for residence tax landing in your second June
Jūminzei is assessed on the previous calendar year and billed from June by Hokkaido Prefecture and the City of Sapporo together. Your first year produces almost nothing because the assessment year had no Japanese income; the second is the real figure and it arrives as a step change.
OnlineWho: You
5
Keep receipts for roof snow clearing
In heavy-snow conditions the National Tax Agency treats the cost of clearing snow from a dwelling as a disaster-related expense under the zassonkōjo miscellaneous loss deduction — a position set out in its circular Choku-sho 3-92 of 29 January 1981, which also covers clearing snow from around the house and hauling it away, and accepts a household expense record where a receipt genuinely cannot be obtained. It applies to your own home rather than a rented flat where the landlord pays, and it needs a filed return. Very few people claim it.
OnlineWho: YouFebruary–March
6
Appoint a tax representative before you leave Japan
Leaving partway through a year can still leave residence tax owing on income already earned. Appointing a tax representative — a person in Japan authorised to deal with it — before you go is the clean solution, and it is also who receives your pension refund paperwork.
In personWho: YouBefore departure

Documents you’ll need

My Number
Gensen chōshūhyō — the annual withholding statement from your employer
Records of foreign income and overseas assets
Japanese bank details
Receipts for deductible expenses, including snow removal where it applies

Things most newcomers don’t know

Residence tax is billed a year in arrears, which produces a second-year shock and an exit trap.

Jūminzei is calculated on the previous calendar year's income and collected from the following June. Arrive in Japan and your first year is nearly free of it; the second carries the full weight of the first year's earnings. Worse, leaving Japan does not extinguish it — you can owe a year's residence tax on money already spent, which is why anyone planning a departure settles it or appoints a representative first.

Source: National Tax Agency

Snow removal from a roof is a deductible casualty loss, and hardly anyone claims it.

The National Tax Agency has accepted snow-clearing costs in heavy-snow conditions under the zassonkōjo miscellaneous loss deduction — the same provision used after floods and earthquakes — since a 1981 circular that still governs the treatment. In a city whose 1991–2020 normal is 479 centimetres of snowfall a year this is not a hypothetical. It applies to homeowners rather than tenants whose landlord arranges it, requires receipts and a filed return, and is invisible to anyone relying on the year-end adjustment.

Source: National Tax Agency

Non-permanent resident status shields foreign income, and it expires without notice.

For roughly the first five years, a foreign national without Japanese domicile is taxed on Japanese-source income plus foreign income actually remitted into Japan — not on worldwide income. Past that threshold Japan taxes everything, and the foreign asset reporting obligation kicks in too. Anyone with overseas investments or property should know precisely when that switch happens, because nothing announces it.

Source: National Tax Agency

Furusato nōzei is worth more in Hokkaido than anywhere, and you cannot use it on your own city.

The hometown tax scheme lets you donate to any municipality other than your own, deduct almost all of it against residence and income tax, and receive a return gift. Hokkaido's towns dominate the market with crab, scallops, melon and dairy, so a Sapporo resident donating to Monbetsu or Nemuro is effectively converting tax already owed into food. Japanese colleagues use it routinely; foreign residents almost never do.

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

Common mistakes to avoid

Budgeting from your first year, when residence tax is close to nil.
Leaving Japan without settling residence tax or appointing a tax representative.
Owning a house in Sapporo and never claiming snow removal as a casualty loss.
Not knowing when non-permanent resident status expires and worldwide taxation begins.
Never using furusato nōzei despite paying residence tax every year in the prefecture that supplies the best return gifts.

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