Reading Your Japanese Payslip: Deductions, Insurance and Take-Home Pay

Quick answer

Hi, I'm Miya, and if you've just received your first Japanese payslip, or kyuuyo meisai, you may be staring at a wall of numbers wondering why the amount at the bottom is smaller than the salary you agreed to. That gap is completely normal: a set of deductions for insurance, pension and tax is subtracted before your pay reaches your bank account.

In this guide I'll walk through the three blocks every payslip is built from, then explain each major deduction in plain language, so the line items stop feeling like a mystery. This is an explainer only, not tax advice, and I won't quote any figures, rates or percentages. For your exact numbers, always check with your HR or payroll team or a licensed professional.

The three blocks of a payslip

Most Japanese payslips are organized into three sections. The first is attendance, or kintai, which records the raw facts of your working month: days worked, days off, paid leave taken, and any overtime or late-night hours. Nothing is added or subtracted here yet; it's the foundation the rest of the slip is calculated from.

The second block is payments, or shikyuu. This is everything your employer pays you before anything is taken out: your base salary plus any allowances your company offers, such as commuting or role-based allowances, and overtime pay. Add these together and you get your gross pay, the larger number near the top.

The third block is deductions, or koujo. This is where the amounts for insurance, pension and tax are listed and subtracted. Reading a payslip well really just means understanding this third block, so let's take each deduction one at a time.

Health insurance and pension

The first deductions you'll usually see are for health insurance, or kenko hoken, and pension, or kousei nenkin. Health insurance is what keeps your medical costs manageable when you visit a clinic or hospital, and as an enrolled employee your share is taken directly from your pay rather than billed to you separately. Your employer contributes alongside you, so the amount on your slip is only your portion.

Pension, kousei nenkin, is the employees' pension system that goes toward your future retirement benefits, and like health insurance it is shared between you and your employer and deducted automatically. Both of these are social insurance contributions tied to your employment; the specific method used to calculate them is something your HR team can explain for your situation.

Employment insurance and withheld income tax

Next come employment insurance, or koyou hoken, and withheld income tax, or gensen shotokuzei. Employment insurance is a smaller deduction that supports you if you lose your job, offering unemployment benefits and related support, and your contribution is taken from your pay each period. It's the safety net you're quietly paying into while you work.

Withheld income tax, gensen shotokuzei, is national income tax that your employer estimates and withholds on your behalf each month rather than leaving you to pay it all at once. Because it's an estimate, a year-end adjustment reconciles the total later. Note that resident tax is a separate matter handled differently, and I cover it in its own article rather than re-explaining it here; for anything tax-specific, your HR team or a licensed tax professional is the right source.

Gross versus net: your take-home pay

Now the numbers connect. Your gross pay is the total from the payments block, before deductions. Your net pay, sometimes called take-home pay or tegotori, is what remains after every deduction in the koujo block has been subtracted. The figure at the very bottom of the slip is almost always this net amount, and it's the sum that will actually arrive in your bank account.

Once you can trace the path from gross down through each deduction to net, your payslip becomes a clear monthly summary rather than a puzzle. I recommend keeping your slips somewhere safe, because they're useful later for things like your year-end adjustment, loan or housing applications, and simply confirming everything looks consistent from month to month.

Getting paid smoothly

Here's where being connected quietly matters. Your net pay lands in a Japanese bank account, and many payroll and HR portals, where you download these payslips or check your details, verify your logins with a one-time code sent by SMS or an app to your Japanese phone number. Without an active local number, that verification step can leave you locked out at exactly the wrong moment.

That's the small piece I love helping with. An eSIM can activate the same day once your residence card is in hand, giving you a Japanese number and mobile data so your bank, your HR portal and your everyday apps all work without friction. Get that in place early, and payday becomes one less thing to think about.