Every month, a chunk of your payslip quietly disappears into a column called 厚生年金 (kōsei nenkin). You didn’t sign up for it. You can’t opt out. And if you’ve been in Japan for a year or more, the total adds up to a surprisingly large sum.
Here’s the thing nobody tells you at your orientation: if you’re leaving Japan without becoming a permanent resident, the government will give most of it back.
Most foreign teachers never claim it — not because they can’t, but because they didn’t know it existed, the process looks bureaucratic and terrifying, and by the time they figure it out, the 2-year deadline has quietly passed.
This article is your safety net. By the end of it, you’ll know exactly what you’re owed, how to claim it, and how to make sure the money actually lands in your account without a bank eating a chunk of it on the way.
What Is the Lump-Sum Withdrawal Payment?
The formal name is 脱退一時金 (dattai ichijikin) — the Lump-Sum Withdrawal Payment. It’s a refund mechanism built into Japan’s pension system specifically for foreign nationals who leave the country without receiving a Japanese pension.
The logic is simple: you paid in, you’re not going to collect, so you get a portion back.
A few key things to understand upfront:
厚生年金 vs 国民年金 — which one applies to you?
- If you were employed by a company or school (including most ALT dispatch arrangements), your pension contributions came out of your payslip automatically. That’s 厚生年金, and it’s the one with the bigger refund.
- If you were a freelance or self-employed instructor, you likely paid 国民年金 directly yourself. The refund process is similar but the amounts are lower.
Most readers of this article fall into the 厚生年金 camp. That’s what we’ll focus on.
The non-negotiable deadline: You must apply after leaving Japan, with no registered address in the country. And you have exactly 2 years from the date you leave to submit your claim. Miss that window, and the money is gone. Not deferred — gone.
The Part You Actually Want to Know: How Much Will You Get?
Let’s skip the vague reassurances and get to the numbers.
The refund is calculated based on two factors: your standard monthly remuneration (標準報酬月額 — essentially your gross salary bracket) and your total number of contribution months. There’s a cap at 60 months (5 years), so if you’ve been here longer than that, you won’t get proportionally more after the 5-year mark.
Here’s what that looks like for a typical ALT or dispatch English teacher earning around ¥250,000 per month gross:
| Years in Japan | Contribution Months | Estimated Refund (before tax) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 12 months | ¥60,000 – ¥80,000 |
| 2 years | 24 months | ¥150,000 – ¥200,000 |
| 3 years | 36 months | ¥250,000 – ¥320,000 |
| 4 years | 48 months | ¥330,000 – ¥420,000 |
| 5 years | 60 months | ¥410,000 – ¥520,000 |
These are estimates based on standard contribution rates. Your actual amount will vary depending on your exact salary bracket and employment history. Use these as ballpark figures, not guarantees.
For those of you who’ve done 3 years: that’s a round-trip flight home, a deposit on a new apartment, or six months of breathing room while you figure out your next move. It’s not pocket change.
The Catch (Because There’s Always a Catch)
Before you start mentally spending the money, there are a few things you need to know.
20.42% tax is withheld at source.
When Japan pays your refund, they deduct 20.42% in income tax before the money leaves. On a ¥300,000 refund, that’s roughly ¥61,000 gone before you see a yen.
However — and this is the part that trips people up — if your home country has a tax treaty with Japan, you may be able to reclaim that withheld tax from Japan’s tax authority (国税庁) after you’ve left. Countries with relevant treaties include the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and many others. The process involves filing a refund claim from abroad, which is annoying but absolutely worth doing for larger amounts.
You need your pension number.
This is either your 年金手帳 (nenkin techō) — the little orange booklet — or your 基礎年金番号 (kiso nenkin bangō), a 10-digit number. If you’ve never looked at it, now is the time to find it. Do this before you start packing boxes.
You must be out of Japan to apply.
The application is submitted after you’ve cancelled your residence registration and left the country. You can’t apply from inside Japan.
The process takes time.
From submission to payment, expect 2–4 months. Plan accordingly.
Step-by-Step: Your Pre-Departure Checklist
Think of this as the financial side of leaving Japan. It’s the kind of admin that separates the people who leave with a cushion from the people who leave wishing they’d paid more attention.
□ Step 1: Find your pension number
Check your 年金手帳 (orange booklet) or any ねんきん定期便
(pension statement) you’ve received. If you’ve lost both, contact
the Japan Pension Service (日本年金機構) before you leave —
it’s much harder to sort out from abroad.
□ Step 2: Set up your overseas receiving account
You’ll need a bank account outside Japan to receive the payment.
More on this below — but have this sorted before you board
your flight, not after.
□ Step 3: Cancel your residence registration (転出届)
Submit a moving-out notification at your local city hall before
or on the day you leave Japan. This establishes your departure
date, which is what starts the 2-year countdown.
□ Step 4: Download and complete the application form
The application form (脱退一時金請求書) is available from the
Japan Pension Service website. It’s in Japanese, but the fields
are logical — name, address, pension number, bank details,
signature.
□ Step 5: Gather your supporting documents
- Passport (copy of photo page and Japan entry/exit stamps)
- Proof of your overseas address (utility bill or bank statement
with your name and foreign address) - Bank account details for your overseas receiving account
- Your pension number
□ Step 6: Mail everything to the Japan Pension Service
〒168-8505 東京都杉並区高井戸西3-5-24
日本年金機構 事業所検索・お客さまサービスセンター
Use a trackable international mail service. This is not the
moment to save ¥200 on regular post.
□ Step 7: Wait, then follow up if needed
Processing takes 2–4 months. If nothing arrives after 4 months,
contact the Japan Pension Service — they do offer
English-language phone support.
The Receiving Account Problem (And Why It Matters More Than You Think)
Here is a classic survival trap that many foreign teachers fall into: Your final paycheck from your school or dispatch company often gets deposited after you have already boarded your flight home. If you only have a standard JP Post (ゆうちょ) account, you are officially stuck. You can’t access it from abroad, and you can’t easily transfer it online.
I have seen desperate teachers leave their cash cards with “trusted friends” in Japan, praying they will withdraw the final salary and send it to them. Don’t do this. Not only is sharing your bank card a serious violation of Japanese banking terms (and potentially illegal), but it’s a recipe for lost money and ruined friendships.Here’s where a lot of people quietly lose money without realising it.
The refund arrives in Japanese yen, transferred to whatever account details you provided. If that account is at a regular overseas bank, here’s what typically happens: your bank receives the international wire, converts the yen to your local currency at their own exchange rate — usually 2–3% worse than the actual market rate — and then charges an incoming wire fee on top. On a ¥300,000 refund, that’s potentially ¥8,000–¥10,000 lost to fees and a bad exchange rate.
You waited years for this money. Don’t hand a tenth of it to a bank on the last day.
The smarter move: use Wise.
Wise gives you a Japanese yen account number — a real one, with the routing details needed to receive a domestic transfer — that you can list as your receiving account on the pension application. The refund lands there in JPY, you convert it at the mid-market rate with a small, transparent fee, and the money moves to your home bank account in your local currency.
For a ¥300,000 refund, the difference between a traditional bank and Wise can easily be ¥6,000–¥10,000. For a ¥500,000 refund, it’s even more meaningful.
Set up your Wise account before you leave Japan. It takes about 10 minutes, and it means your receiving account details are ready to go the moment you mail your pension application.
→ Open your free Wise account here
Frequently Asked Questions
I was paying 国民年金 myself (not through an employer). Can I still claim?
Yes. The same 脱退一時金 refund applies to 国民年金 contributions. The calculation is different — based on a fixed amount per contribution month rather than your salary — but the process and deadline are identical. Expect lower amounts than the 厚生年金 figures above.
I already left Japan six months ago. Have I missed the window?
No. You have 2 years from your departure date. Six months in, you still have plenty of time. Apply sooner rather than later, while the details are still fresh.
What’s a tax treaty, and does mine apply?
A tax treaty is a bilateral agreement between Japan and another country that governs how income is taxed across borders. Japan has treaties with most major English-speaking countries. If yours is one of them, the 20.42% withheld from your refund may be partially or fully reclaimable. Search “[your country] Japan tax treaty pension refund” for a starting point, or consult a tax professional — for larger refunds, it’s worth the effort.
How long does the whole process take?
Plan for 3–4 months from submission to money-in-account. Submit promptly and keep copies of everything.
The form is in Japanese. I can’t read it.
The Japan Pension Service has an English-language guide on their website. The form has relatively few fields, and the JPS offers English-language phone support during business hours if you get genuinely stuck.
One Last Thing
Japan’s pension system isn’t designed with short-term foreign workers in mind. The paperwork is in Japanese, you have to act after you’ve already left the country, and the tax withholding feels like a parting gift from a bureaucracy that never quite warmed to you.
But the money is real, and the process — while annoying — is manageable once you know what you’re doing.
You spent months watching that 厚生年金 line on your payslip. Before you close that chapter, take the 30 minutes to claim it back.
Previously on this blog: How to Read Your Japanese Payslip — where we first introduced the 厚生年金 deduction you’ve now learned to reclaim.
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