It’s March here in Japan which marks the new beginnings for many. Students of all ages are preparing for the next chapter of their lives, while fourth-year college students prepare to enter the workforce.
March also marks the end of the fiscal year for companies, as many will prepare for their Q4 IR reports. For the rest of the working population, March marks the deadline for tax filing.
As me for, I recently had the pleasure of visiting my local ward office after noticing residence tax wasn’t coming out of my paycheck only to find out I was one step away from getting put on the naughty-foreigners list. In this article, I’ll break down my experience and explain why this happened — as well as how to prevent it — so hopefully you too don’t end up on Takaichi’s naughty list.
TLDR
After changing companies and moving, I forgot to notify my new Ward office of my past years income, resulting in me missing the tax deadline of March 16.
For those who want to hear to details of what happened, keep reading.
How Did We Get Here?
To keep a long story short, there were three main causes that put me in this rather precarious position
- Moving during the country-wide New Year’s break
- Changing Jobs
- Ignorance
Anyone who’s lived in Japan and experienced any of the above will immediately recognize how this could be a slight issue. Baring the last cause, moving and changing jobs in Japan come with ton of paperwork that needs to submitted, meaning if you’re prone to forgetting small details you may forgot to submit a form or two.
Moving: New Years is NOT the Time
I moved last at the end of last year after I changed jobs. The apartment hunt and moving process deserve their own articles so I won’t go into too much detail, but after finding a nice place, it was time to move. The move I made, while still within Tokyo-To city(to)-limits, was in between wards, and because of this it meant that I needed to submit paperwork to my new and old ward offices.
When moving in Japan — or at least Tokyo for that matter — you must submit the respective 転出届 and 転入届 to the city/ward you’re leaving/entering within 14 days of moving.
- 転出届（Tenshutsu Todoke) -> A notice to the ward/city you’re leaving.
- 転入届（Tennyuu Todoke) -> A notice to the ward/city you’re moving to.
Because I moved the last week in December, the last working day of the 2025 year for most companies — including the ward office, — had already passed, meaning the 転入届 and 転出届 didn’t get approved until the second week of January.
Not quite 14 days, but definitely cutting it close.
Perfect, I had my 転入届 and 転出届 sorted. That means I’m good to go, right…?
Well, not quite…
Changing Jobs
I should preface that I first began working in Japan in 2024. This means that –because Japan taxes you this year based on the income that was on last year– I wasn’t responsible for paying residence tax my first year of working, meaning I got to take home a lot more yennies than my coworkers.
But as the old saying goes:
Two things are certain in life, death and taxes.
And Japan is going to make sure they get their taxes.
I technically held two jobs in 2025. Well, not at once, but you now what I mean. I quit my previous job in August of 2025 and began working at my current job the following month in September of 2025.
This is important for a few reasons. Since I had been working for a year at this point, I was now required to pay residence tax on my income from the previous year, and as a matter of fact, I began to notice the yennies that I so naively thought were mine begin to disappear under a new name (住民税 – Jyumin Zei） in my paycheck around August 2025.
While the loss of income was saddening, it was an unfortunate must in order to remain a good little gaijin.
Come the latter half of 2026, I had changed into a new position at a different company. On the surface, this is a pretty straightforward process if you’re already on a working visa. Just need to let immigration know that you’ve changed companies and outline what type of work you’re doing at your new company. Simple enough.
Strangely enough, at the same time I switched to a new company, I realized that residence tax I had so dreaded was no longer being deducted from my paycheck. Now being slightly more experienced and slightly less naive, this rang some alarm bells for me. I immediately contacted my boss who told me to contact Human Resources –looking back on this I’m not sure why I didn’t just ask HR directly, seems kind of obvious here. Though, after speaking with my boss, he did leave me with one piece of information that did prove to be helpful.
He mentioned to me that when changing jobs in Japan, often times the way your residence tax gets collected changes. There are two main ways for municipalities to collect their residence tax.
- 普通徴収 (Futsu Choushu) -> A method of paying residence tax manually. The city sends a postcard in the mail with your balance and you pay it at the Conbini, etc.
- 特別徴収 (Tokubetsu Choushu) -> A method of paying residence tax that automatically comes out of your paycheck.
In my case, I was initially set up to use 特別徴収. By changing jobs, however, it was switched to 普通徴収.
Any number of reasons can cause this switch, ranging from HR at your past company not filling out the proper paperwork to failing to notify your new company that you’d like to continue using 特別徴収 –I’m still not exactly sure what caused the switch for me, but it was most likely a combination of the reasons above.
The same day I had that conversation with my boss, I got a postcard in the mail requesting me to pay for my residences tax. This was probably the first and last time I was relived to pay taxes.
Trouble in the 23 Wards
At this point I had switched jobs and I was paying my residence tax manually, perfect. Or maybe not? See, I mentioned in an earlier section that I had moved over the New Year’s break here in Japan. While this meant I got to save money on moving fees by avoid the busy season, it meant something difference for my tax status.
Those postcards I used to get in the mail from the ward office to pay my residence tax? They stopped coming after I moved. I initially thought that they were still sending my tax information to my old house, but I had already notified the post office to forward all mail to my new address; something wasn’t right.
Fast forward to last week. It had been almost 3 month since I had moved and there was still no residence tax coming out of my paycheck or a postcard in the mail. It was at this point I decided to go to my local ward office to inquire about my tax status –a little slow, I know.
After arriving at the ward office and speaking with a representative from the tax division, I learned that I hadn’t heard anything because I hadn’t alerted my new ward of my income for the previous year (2025.)
This is because the place you pay residence tax to is determined by your address come January 1. Regardless if I lived in –let’s say Nerima-ku– the entirety of 2025, if my address changed to a different location –let’s say Setagya-ku here– as of January 1 2026, I was responsible for paying taxes to the ward my new address belonged to.
I had no clue this was a thing. I was under the impression that my company would handle this stuff upon joining –and they probably did, which is why I would get postcards in the mail at my old address,– but because I moved after they handled the paperwork, I was left in a sort of tax-limbo.
The ward tax-representative kindly advised me to show proof of my income for the last year or there would be consequences, particularly when it came time to renew my visa. And if you know anything about Japan’s new Prime Minister and how she feels about foreign workers who don’t pay taxes, you’d understand how scary this is.
I managed to gather my proof of income for the 2025 year by showing my 源泉徴収 (Gensen Choushu) from my previous company and after printing everything out she told me I was free to go.
Before I left she did let me know that it was a very close call –in reality it was actually straight up late– as the window to declare your income had ended on March 16, but because I was only a few days late, it was not an issue.
Final Thoughts
That’s how I narrowly avoided committing tax evasion after a series of fortunate events. The thing that I still think about even as I’m writing this is; how was I supposed to know I was about to commit tax evasion? I had no way of knowing. I got nothing in the mail from the Ward office, nothing was mentioned by my company, just a suspiciously large paycheck and my gut to go off of.
I hope that my reading this experience, someone else can avoid bricking their chances of getting a visa extension because they forgot to submit two silly little pieces of paper. If you take anything away from this story, if something looks wrong –or suspiciously right– don’t wait to act. Immediately visit your ward office and verify you’re in good standing.
Stay safe.