Final Pay and Documents on Exit in Japan

Final pay in Japan closes both your salary account and your paper trail at once, pairing the last wage settlement with the certificates your next employer and immigration will ask to see.¹² The statute sets the floor for pay timing and certificates, while your work rules decide the bonus and leave-buyout questions.¹³⁴

Confirm current details with official sources

Procedures, fees, and requirements can change. Confirm current details at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW). This article is general information, not legal, tax, or immigration advice; for your specific case, consult a licensed bengoshi (lawyer) or shakai hoken roumushi (labor and social insurance attorney) for disputed pay, withheld bonus, or refused certificate claims.

Overview

This article is for employees at exit, including foreign employees on any work-permitting status, who are leaving an employer with or without a next job lined up.¹ It covers the final-month pay settlement, the bonus question, unused leave handling, the employment certificate, and the insurance, pension, tax, and employment-insurance handover slips.¹³⁴²

The rules below are national law and apply identically in every prefecture and municipality.¹ What varies is company to company: whether a bonus is owed and whether unused leave is bought out depend on each employer's own work rules and contract, not on statute.⁵³⁴

Final-Month Salary and the Seven-Day Payment Rule

Wages here mean salary, allowances, bonuses, and anything else paid as remuneration for labor, however named.¹ The 未払賃金 (miharai chingin, "unpaid wages") for your last month are settled either on the normal payroll cycle or, if you request it, within a short statutory deadline.¹⁶

The following chart shows the two settlement paths and when each deadline runs.

Pro-rata calculation and normal payday vs request-triggered payment

Most employers settle the leaving month through the next regular payday without any special request, computing days worked, overtime, allowances, and expenses in the normal run.⁶² That default is practice, not a statutory extension of the deadline below.

Where you (or a right holder, on death) request outstanding wages, the employer must pay them and return reserve funds, deposits, savings, and any other money or goods belonging to you within 7 calendar days of the request, including weekends and holidays.¹⁶ The clock starts on request, so a written request with a breakdown and bank details preserves the evidence, even though an oral request is legally effective.⁶

This 7-day deadline overrides internal payroll dates and work-rules paydays.⁶ Where part of the sum is disputed, the employer must still pay the undisputed portion within the same 7 days.¹⁶ Keep the final pay slip and raise any shortfall promptly.⁶ Violation of the return duty can draw a fine of up to 300,000 yen and Labor Standards Inspection Office guidance or enforcement.⁶

Deductions and allowances in the final payroll

Only deductions permitted by law (income tax withholding, residence tax, and health, pension, and labor insurance premiums) or by a written agreement with a majority union or majority representative may come out of wages.¹⁵ An employer may not unilaterally set off a claimed damage bill against your final salary.¹⁵

Overtime worked up to the leaving date, unpaid allowances, and unreimbursed expenses belong in the computation.⁶ Keep the final pay slip, since it records the breakdown you will need for tax and for the next employer's payroll setup.²

An employer may not hold the wage payment hostage until you return company property.⁶ Returning equipment and receiving wages are separate duties that run in parallel.

Bonuses at Exit: Earned Period vs Payment-Date Condition

No statute requires a bonus in the first place.⁵ Whether one is owed, which assessment period it covers, and how the amount is computed all come from your employer's work rules, pay regulations, or established labor-management practice.⁵³

Check the payment-date clause before fixing the leaving date

Read the bonus rule for the payment date itself, the assessment period, any employment-on-the-payment-date condition, and any leaver reduction language before you agree a leaving date.³ One clause can decide the whole payment.

Bonuses earned for a period ending before resignation

Serving the full assessment period helps but does not by itself guarantee payment. Where the rules contain no payment-date employment condition and no leaver reduction rule, a worker who served the assessed period has room to claim on that service record.³

MHLW guidance treats a bonus as pay whose amount is not fixed in advance and is generally linked to work performance.⁵ Regularly paid fixed-amount pay is not a bonus even if the employer calls it one.⁵

Bonuses contingent on being employed on the payment date

Many employers condition payment on being employed on the payment date itself, the 支給日在籍要件 (shikyū-bi zaiseki jōken, "payment-date employment condition").³ Case law treats that condition as generally valid where it is written into the rules and communicated to workers.³

For voluntary resignation, the Supreme Court upheld the condition, reasoning that a worker who chooses the leaving date can time it around the payment date (Daiwa Bank case, 7 October 1982).³ The practical consequence is direct: leaving even just before the payment date generally forfeits the bonus under such a clause.

Two limits matter. Where the employer substantially delays the payment date past its usual timing for its own reasons, the condition does not apply to a worker who would have been employed at the normal date (Nipro Medical Industries case, 12 March 1985).³ For fixed-age retirement or employer-driven separation, lower courts split between upholding the cutoff and striking it down on the facts, so the outcome turns on the separation circumstances and the exact rule wording.³

Also confirm how leave taken during the notice period interacts with the bonus rule before you schedule a long leave run-off.⁴ Some rules reduce or withhold the bonus where the payment date falls inside a leave period.

Unused Paid Leave: Use It or Lose It

Annual paid leave, 年次有給休暇 (nenji yūkyū kyūka, commonly 年休, nenkyū), is granted after 6 months of continuous service with at least 80 percent attendance, starting at 10 days and rising to 20 days with tenure.⁴⁷ Part-time grants are proportional on the same timetable.⁷

Unused days carry over for up to 2 years from grant and then lapse, so the maximum holding is 40 days.⁴⁷ Leave not taken by the leaving date disappears on separation and cannot be exercised retroactively.⁴

Taking remaining leave during the notice period

Article 39 requires the employer to grant leave at the time you request it.⁴⁷ The employer's only tool is the 時季変更権 (jiki henkō-ken, "timing-change right"): shifting the dates where the requested day would seriously disrupt normal business operations.⁴⁷ That is a right to reschedule, not to refuse.

In a resignation run-off, that distinction is decisive. The employer cannot in practice shift leave past the leaving date, because that would extinguish the right entirely.⁴ Leave days count as attendance with normal salary and continuing social-insurance coverage through the leaving date.⁴

Agree the leave schedule when you submit the resignation, not afterwards, and separate the last working day from the resignation date on the calendar.⁴ Early notice plus a finished handover removes the only legitimate timing objection.⁴

Cash buyout only as company policy

There is no legal duty to convert unused leave into cash at separation.⁴⁷² Buyout, 買い上げ (kaiage, "cash settlement of leave"), happens only where the employer adopts it as policy or agrees it individually.⁴

Buyout of leave remaining at resignation is exceptionally permitted, alongside buyout of above-minimum grants and of already-expired leave, even though buyout during employment that discourages rest is generally disfavored.⁴ Where a buyout is agreed, there is no statutory formula; the daily rate follows company practice.⁴

Standard practice is therefore to take remaining days as time off during the notice period rather than assuming a payout.⁷²

Certificate of Employment for Visa Renewal and Future Employment

The statutory certificate is the post-separation form, 退職証明書 (taishoku shōmeisho, "certificate on separation from employment").¹ The in-service counterpart, 在職証明書 (zaishoku shōmeisho, "certificate of employment"), is the form most often used in practice to prove current or past employment to immigration, a next employer, a landlord, a nursery, or a lender.²⁸

What to request and when

On separation, where you request it, the employer must deliver without delay a certificate covering the items you specify among period of employment, kind of occupation, position, wages, and reason for separation (including dismissal grounds where relevant).¹ The employer must include only what you requested and must not add unrequested items or embed secret marks meant to impede re-employment.¹²

Request in writing before the last day and state the purpose, whether visa renewal or a hiring screen, so every needed field is included.⁸ Some employers take 1 to 2 weeks to issue, and a late request is the most common reason the paperwork stalls.⁸ Dispatched workers request from the dispatching agency as the employer, not from the client site.⁸

Name every field the receiving office will check

List the employment period, duties, employment type, and salary fields explicitly in the request so nothing needed is omitted.⁸ A thin certificate draws follow-up questions rather than closing the file.

Contents an immigration or hiring reader looks for

Standard fields include name in kanji plus romaji, birth date, nationality, residence-card number, employer name, address, contact, joining date, employment type and period, duties and department, position, scheduled days and hours, salary, issue date, purpose, and the company seal.⁸

Immigration readers weigh the employment period and the duties description most heavily.⁸ They check whether the duties fit the claimed status and whether claimed experience years are readable from the text, and they compare the certificate against the application form and the employment contract.⁸

Work-visa renewal filings typically pair the employment certificate with the residence-tax certificate, salary evidence such as pay slips or the withholding slip, and, for smaller companies, corporate registration and financial statements.⁹¹⁰ Any mismatch across those papers, on salary figures or on the job description, invites additional scrutiny.⁸

Social Insurance and Pension Transfer Documents

Collect the handover slips before access and contact channels go cold. The set below bridges the old payroll to the next enrollment and to any benefit claim between jobs.

Document	Japanese	Use
Employment certificate	退職証明書 / 在職証明書	Next employer and immigration proof28
Health-insurance loss certificate	健康保険資格喪失証明書	Next health-insurance enrollment2
Basic Pension Number notice	基礎年金番号通知書	Next pension enrollment2
Employment-insurance separation slip	雇用保険被保険者離職票	Hello Work benefits if between jobs2
Withholding tax slip	源泉徴収票	Next payroll adjustment or tax return2
Final pay slip	給与明細	Settlement record2

Health insurance card return and loss certificate

Return any employer-issued health insurance card or eligibility confirmation document for yourself and any dependents on the last day.² New issuance of the traditional card, 健康保険被保険者証 (kenkō hoken hihokensha-shō, "health insurance card"), ended in December 2024.² Most workers now use a My Number health-insurance linkage or a separate 資格確認書 (shikaku kakunin-sho, "eligibility confirmation document").²

Collect the 健康保険資格喪失証明書 (kenkō hoken shikaku sōshitsu shōmeisho, "certificate of loss of health-insurance eligibility") as proof the prior coverage ended.² You present it to join the next employer's scheme or National Health Insurance without a gap dispute.²

Pension number handover and employment insurance separation slip

Keep and hand over the Basic Pension Number documentation, 基礎年金番号通知書 (kiso nenkin bangō tsūchisho).² What matters in practice is that the number carries over so the next employer continues pension enrollment cleanly.²

Collect the employment-insurance separation slip, 雇用保険被保険者離職票 (koyō hoken hihokensha rishokuhyō, commonly 離職票, rishokuhyō), where relevant.² It is the Hello Work document for unemployment-benefit procedures when between jobs.² Collect the withholding tax slip, 源泉徴収票 (gensen chōshū-hyō), for the next employer's year-end adjustment or for a final tax return.²

Good to know

Setting the leaving date one day past the bonus payment date

A voluntary leaver who is still employed on the bonus payment date satisfies the standard payment-date condition, while one who leaves even just before it generally does not.³ Confirm whether your rule turns on the payment date itself, the last day of the payment month, or continued employment after payment before you sign a leaving date.³

Burning leave without breaking the handover

A long consecutive leave run-off is lawful but creates friction unless the handover is finished first.⁴ Complete the handover documents, brief the successor, introduce them to clients, list property for return, and transfer access before the last working day.⁴ For 10 to 20 remaining days, give roughly 1 to 2 months of notice; for 30 to 40 days, start considerably earlier.⁴

Requesting certificates in writing before the last day

Certificate issuance can take 1 to 2 weeks, and renewal or hiring screens stall on missing fields or on inconsistencies between the certificate, the contract, and the application.⁸ File the request in writing, naming the purpose and every field needed, and keep a copy.⁸ Immigration reads the duties line for status fit and experience years, so ask for a concrete duties description rather than a one-word job title.⁸

Keeping the pension number and withholding slip together

Without the pension number notice and the withholding slip, the next employer's enrollment and year-end adjustment cannot proceed cleanly.² Keep both with the final pay slip from day one at the new job.² These small slips are the bridge between payrolls, and losing them shifts the cost and time to reissuance requests.²

See also

• Resignation in Japan: The Employee-Side Notice and the Hold-Up Patterns
• Bonus (Shoyo/Bonasu) and How It Actually Works
• Paid Leave (Yukyu-Kyuka) and How It's Taken
• Engineer/Humanities/International Services Visa
• Unemployment Benefits (Shitsugyo-Hoken)
• Health Insurance When Changing Jobs in Japan

References

Footnotes

1. Japanese Law Translation (Ministry of Justice). "Labor Standards Act" (労働基準法), Act No. 49 of 1947, as amended. https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3567/en ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

2. TreeGlobalPartners, by Sakurai Yuki. "How to Resign Properly from a Japanese SSW Job: Notice Period, Visa Risks, and Documents" (2026-05-23). https://treeglobalpartners.com/en/articles/ssw-resignation-procedures/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷

3. Korakuen Philia Law Office (lawyer-authored). "賞与の支給日在籍要件は有効？退職者のボーナスと判例を弁護士が解説" (updated 2026-07-19). https://korakuen-philia.com/2026/07/19/bonus-on-retirement/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

4. FICILCOM Inc. "Paid Leave at Resignation: Rights, How to Use It All, and What to Do If Refused" (2026-05-12). https://www.ficilcom.jp/en/blog/resignation-paid-leave-consumption ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰

5. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. "月例賃金や賞与・退職金の支払方などは、労基法等で規制されているのでしょうか" (Startup Roudou Q&A for employers on wage, bonus, and retirement-allowance payment rules). https://www.startup-roudou.mhlw.go.jp/qa/zigyonushi/chingin/q3.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

6. MoneyForward Cloud Payroll, supervised by Wakui Yoshifumi (shakai hoken roumushi). "労働基準法第23条とは？未払い賃金・金品の返還義務や請求方法をわかりやすく解説" (updated 2025-12-24). https://biz.moneyforward.com/payroll/basic/88049/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

7. Atarashift Blog. "Nenkyu 101: How Paid Leave Really Works at Japanese Companies" (2026-08-07). https://atarashift.com/blog/paid-leave-japan-foreign-employees ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

8. GoandUp Picks. "外国人が知っておきたい日本の在職証明書とは？必要な場面・もらい方・テンプレートを紹介" (2022-02-28). https://picks.goandup.jp/explains-how-to-obtain-a-certificate-of-employment-and-items-to-fill-in-when-changing-jobs-in-japan-b/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

9. GaijinBlog. "Complete 2026 Guide: How to Renew a Work Visa in Japan" (2026-01-17). https://gaijinblog.com/posts/how-to-renew-work-visa-japan-2026 ↩

10. Mailmate. "Visa Renewal Japan 2026: Fees, Documents and Online Guide" (2026-07-29). https://mailmate.jp/blog/visa-renewal-japan ↩