Japan employer social insurance cost, computed at the FY2026 rates, is 15.70% on top of gross salary for an employee under 40 in Tokyo doing office work on a ¥7,000,000 salary. That figure is six separate rates on two different start dates, and no official page publishes the sum. Every rate below is dated and linked to the government page it came from.
Disclosure before going further: AirTA sells no employer-of-record service and is not a recruitment agency.
What a Japan Employer Pays on Top of Salary in FY2026
Employer social insurance in Japan is six statutory lines paid on top of salary in FY2026: health insurance, employees' pension, employment insurance, workers' accident compensation, the child allowance contribution and the child-support levy. Each has its own issuing body, they do not all start on the same date, and they vary by prefecture, age and industry. No ministry publishes the total, so the sum below is computed.
Employer contribution shares only; where the employee also contributes, that share is deducted from pay separately. Both totals are computed by AirTA as the sum of the rows above them, for Tokyo, office work, and the age band named in the row. No ministry publishes a combined employer rate. Rates checked August 17, 2026. FY2026.
Health insurance is the only line set locally. For FY2026 the Japan Health Insurance Association rate runs from 9.21% in Niigata to 10.55% in Saga, a spread of 1.34 points on the full rate and 0.67 of a point on the employer's half.
FY2026 also names three windows rather than one. Health insurance and nursing care apply from the March 2026 premium month, the two child lines from the April 2026 premium month, and employment insurance and workers' accident compensation run from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027. A page published between the March and April start months is current on half of its own table.
Why Published Employer Cost Figures Disagree
Five things move this number before anyone makes an error.
The fiscal year is the first. Tokyo health insurance was 9.91% for FY2025, nursing care was 1.59%, the employer's employment insurance rate decreased by five hundredths of a point in April, and the child-support levy did not exist before April 2026. A rate published without a date is a rate nobody can check.
Prefecture is the second, and the range above is its full extent. Age is the third: nursing care insurance applies from age 40 and ends at 65, and its row is the difference between the two totals in the table.
Industry is the fourth. Workers' accident compensation is set by business category, and office work is at the bottom of the range shown in the table. A construction figure and an office figure are both correct.
The fifth is what a published percentage contains. Some employer-cost figures include an administrative charge alongside the statutory lines, which puts a commercial number inside a statutory total. Across the pages checked in August 2026, published figures span roughly 12% to over 24%.
An even split is assumed more often than it holds. Two of the six lines are employer-only, and employment insurance is split unevenly.
Employer payroll tax is used loosely, sometimes for the six lines above and sometimes for income tax withholding. Withholding is the employee's money passing through the employer's account, and it is not an employer cost.
The Ceilings Lower the Rate as Salary Rises
The sixth reason the figures disagree is the salary itself. Japan employer social insurance cost is computed on standard monthly remuneration (標準報酬月額), a banded grade value, rather than on the amount actually paid.
The pension grades stop at ¥650,000, which covers every monthly salary of ¥635,000 and above. Health insurance grades continue to ¥1,390,000.
Above the pension ceiling the pension premium stops increasing while the salary does not, so the employer's percentage of that salary falls.
Employment insurance and workers' accident compensation are levied on wages actually paid, so those two lines and the other four use different bases in the same payroll.
On a ¥7,000,000 salary in Tokyo, for office work, for an employee under 40, the six lines come to 15.70%, computed. Run the same six rates on a salary near ¥18,000,000, paid across twelve months plus a two-month bonus, and the computed figure is roughly 11%. Same law, same fiscal year, same prefecture, same industry, same age band. Only the salary changed.
The ¥7,000,000 below is ¥500,000 a month plus a ¥1,000,000 bonus.
Computed by AirTA at the FY2026 rates above. ¥500,000 a month is itself a grade value and the ¥1,000,000 bonus is under both bonus ceilings, so each premium is the rate applied to the full amount. The annual column is twelve monthly premiums plus the premium charged on the bonus, which is why it is more than the monthly column times twelve. Salary included, the employer's outlay for the year is ¥8,099,000.
The usable percentage is the one computed at the salary being paid, and the gross figure comes from salary benchmarks by role. The charge is monthly, unlike the one-time costs of hiring before your entity exists.
What to Check Before You Reuse an Employer Rate
Four things decide whether a published employer rate is the right one for a budget.
- The prefecture. The rate that applies is the one for the prefecture where the employee's health insurance is administered.
- The date the rate took effect. Three of the six lines changed in 2026, on two different start months.
- The workers' accident compensation category. An office rate and a warehouse rate are both correct for their own category.
- The salary the percentage was computed at. Above the pension ceiling the effective percentage falls, so a percentage borrowed from one salary misstates the cost at another.
Where a provider quotes a statutory pass-through inside a monthly fee, these are the rates the pass-through is computed from. Which providers publish a Japan price at all is recorded on the registry checks for each provider.
Planning several seats at once multiplies this line by headcount. Put it on its own budget row rather than inside a salary figure, because it recurs every year the person stays. This is a record of what public sources state as of August 17, 2026, and not legal advice.
An undated percentage in a budget is a number nobody can defend when the first invoice arrives. These employer social insurance rates carry their dates and their sources, and the next set arrives in March and again in April. The salary they multiply is the part still open, which is where plan your first Japan hires begins.