The rules for leaving Japan
Japan has no residency-opinion request and no single 'departure form' at the tax office. Residency turns on whether you still have a domicile (住所) — the base of your life — in Japan. What you do file, and when, depends on whether you appoint a tax agent before you leave. Getting those two things right is most of the job.
Domicile, or a residence for one year or more.
You are a Japanese resident if you have a domicile (住所) in Japan or have had a residence (居所) here continuously for one year or more. Domicile means the base of your life, judged on objective facts — where you live, your occupation, where your assets are, your family and your nationality. The NTA says plainly that this is not decided by day-counting alone: spending more than half the year abroad does not make you a non-resident if your base of life is still in Japan.
For someone leaving to work abroad, the presumption runs the other way: a job that will keep you abroad for one year or more is presumed to end your domicile from the day you leave.
NTA Tax Answer No.2012: resident, non-permanent resident and non-resident ↗Appoint a tax agent — or file before you board.
If you will still have Japanese filing or payment obligations after you leave, you must appoint a tax agent (納税管理人) using the Notification of Tax Agent for Income Tax and Consumption Tax. File it before you leave and your final return keeps the normal deadline of March 15 of the following year. Do not file it and you must lodge a pre-departure return (準確定申告) and pay everything — including any estimated tax instalments due after you leave — before your departure date.
The same choice moves your exit-tax valuation date and deadline (see below). It is the single most consequential form in a Japanese departure.
NTA Tax Answer No.1923: overseas work and appointing a tax agent ↗There is no residency ruling. There is an advance written inquiry.
The NTA does not issue residency determinations on request. The closest instrument is the advance written inquiry procedure (事前照会に対する文書回答手続): you describe a specific, real transaction in writing before its filing deadline, consent to anonymised publication, and the regional bureau answers in writing — the target is around three months. It is used far more for transactions than for personal residency, and it is not a binding ruling in the way an Australian private ruling is. For most leavers the practical protection is a well-evidenced file.
NTA: advance written inquiry procedure ↗Income tax follows your departure. Inhabitant tax follows January 1.
Your final income-tax return covers January 1 to your departure date as a resident; after that, only Japanese-source income is taxed, mostly by withholding. Employees are settled through year-end adjustment by the employer on the last salary before departure. Individual inhabitant tax (住民税) works differently: it is assessed on the prior year's income according to where you lived on January 1. Leaving on January 2 or later does not cancel that year's bill — you either pay it in full before you go or appoint an inhabitant-tax agent to pay it for you.
MIC: individual inhabitant tax and leaving Japan ↗The ¥100 million exit tax,
without the guesswork.
Since 1 July 2015, a person who leaves Japan holding ¥100 million or more of financial assets — securities, investment-trust units, silent-partnership interests, unsettled margin and derivative positions — and who has had a domicile or residence in Japan for more than five of the last ten years is treated as having sold those assets at market value on departure (国外転出時課税). Years spent on a Table 1 work or study visa do not count towards the five. Appoint a tax agent before you leave and the assets are valued on your departure date and taxed in the normal March 15 return; skip it and you must file before you leave, using the value three months before your planned departure. With a tax agent, a return and security equal to the tax, payment can be deferred five years, extendable to ten, with interest tax running. Return within the deferral period still holding the assets and the tax can be cancelled; sell for less and it can be recomputed. Each of these is a decision, and each needs a number behind it.
NTA Tax Answer No.1478: special rule on capital gains when leaving Japan ↗Why the facts matter more than the flight
Japanese income tax depends on residency. Residents (other than non-permanent residents) are taxed on worldwide income; non-residents are taxed only on Japanese-source income, largely by withholding at 20.42%. The NTA decides which you are by asking where the base of your life is — not by counting days, and not by reading your moving-out notification.
Where is your home?
Whether you sold, let out or kept your Japanese home available — and whether your municipal registration has moved — is the heaviest fact in the domicile question.
Where is your family?
A spouse or children who stay behind in Japan is one of the objective facts the NTA lists for domicile. It needs an explanation, not silence.
What does daily life look like?
Your occupation, the expected length of your posting or move, your assets, your bank accounts, your pension enrolment and your nationality are the other facts the NTA names.
Read the NTA's residency definitions ↗
Official sources checked 8 September 2026. Rules and thresholds change; confirm before you rely on them.
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