Japan Social Insurance Rates 2026: Decode Your Payslip

Japan social insurance rates 2026 are several separate deductions, not one percentage of salary. On Kyokai Kenpo in Tokyo, the FY2026 health-insurance rate is 9.85% total, Employees’ Pension is 18.3% total, and the new child-support levy is 0.23% total from April 2026 insurance. Employer and employee normally split those three rates; employment insurance has a different worker rate, and nursing care is added at ages 40 to 64.

Japan social insurance rates 2026: what is on the payslip?

For a covered employee, the main lines are 健康保険 (kenkō hoken, health insurance), 厚生年金 (kōsei nenkin, Employees’ Pension), 雇用保険 (koyō hoken, employment insurance) and, for ages 40–64, 介護保険 (kaigo hoken, nursing-care insurance). 子ども・子育て支援金 (kodomo kosodate shienkin, Child and Child-Rearing Support Fund levy) began with April 2026 health-insurance premiums and normally appears in May payroll withholding. Your payslip may combine or separate that levy from health insurance; ask payroll how it is labelled.

The comparison below uses FY2026 rules checked on 2 October 2026. The health and nursing-care rates shown are total Kyokai Kenpo rates. Your employee share is normally half. The employment-insurance worker rate is already the worker share and must not be halved again. Income tax and residence tax are different deductions and are omitted from this insurance table; for the income-tax surcharge change in January 2027, see the 2027 defence income tax.

Kyokai Kenpo publishes a separate FY2026 rate for each of the 47 prefectures and a premium table effective from March 2026 insurance. Tokyo’s 9.85% is therefore not a national rate. Osaka’s 10.13% and Fukuoka’s 10.11% demonstrate the difference; the national average of 9.9% is not a valid substitute for your employer’s prefecture. An employer may also use its own health-insurance society, whose premiums are different from Kyokai Kenpo’s table. A self-employed resident on National Health Insurance needs the municipal NHI calculation, not this employee-side formula.

FY2026 Kyokai Kenpo health-insurance rates: all 47 prefectures

Kyokai Kenpo's FY2026 health-insurance rates below apply from March 2026 insurance. Each figure is the combined employer-and-worker rate, before the separate child-support levy and any nursing-care charge. The employee normally pays half. Every row links to its own official FY2026 prefectural premium PDF and records its 2 October 2026 check date. A company health-insurance society has its own rates.

The April 2026 child-support levy: who actually pays 0.23%?

From April 2026 insurance, the child-support levy is 0.23% of standard monthly remuneration for employee health insurance, normally split between employer and worker. The worker’s simple share is 0.115%, or ¥345 at a ¥300,000 standard amount. It is usually withheld from May wages; Kyokai Kenpo health and nursing-care rate changes began with March insurance.

The same agency explains that National Health Insurance participants do not use this uniform employee formula. Municipalities set the contribution using local ordinances and household factors. Dependants on an employee plan do not each create a separate 0.23% salary charge. If your payroll seems to show two child-related lines, ask whether one is the employer-only 0.36% contribution rather than another employee deduction.

Worked example: ¥300,000 standard monthly remuneration in Tokyo

Assume a general-business employee under 40, insured by Tokyo Kyokai Kenpo, with ¥300,000 standard monthly remuneration and ¥300,000 of employment-insurance-applicable pay for the month. The FY2026 rates above give an employee-side insurance deduction of ¥44,070. This is an illustration, not a promise of net pay: bonuses, grade boundaries, payroll rounding, income tax, residence tax and other deductions are excluded.

A standard monthly remuneration is an assigned insurance grade based on covered pay, including qualifying allowances, and need not equal this month’s cash salary. Japan Pension Service says Employees’ Pension premiums also apply to standard bonus amounts, so a bonus month has a separate calculation. Employment insurance follows its own wage basis; agricultural and construction businesses have different FY2026 rates from the general-business 0.5% worker figure used here. Enter your own insurer, age and pay into the Japan salary calculator as a rough budget check, then reconcile the actual insurer and grade with payroll.

What changes when you turn 40 or change jobs?

Under Kyokai Kenpo, covered people aged 40 to 64 add nursing-care insurance at the FY2026 total rate of 1.62%, normally shared equally. The Tokyo example increases by ¥2,430 a month when that charge applies. At age 65, nursing-care premiums are generally collected by a different municipal route; the same employee payroll addition should not simply continue unchanged. Ask payroll to identify the insurance month in which its age-based change takes effect.

Changing jobs can change the health insurer and therefore the rate, even if your address remains the same. A new salary grade can change health and pension amounts without a rate change. Check the pension coverage category as well: a gap between jobs may require National Pension and municipal health-insurance action rather than ordinary payroll deductions. Include the employee share, income tax and residence tax separately in a monthly living budget. If payroll cannot explain a disputed deduction or coverage gap, ask a 社会保険労務士 (shakai hoken rōmushi, certified social-insurance and labour consultant) to review the records.